Virginia Education and LGBTQ+ Advocacy Groups: Meg Scalia Bryce is Too Extreme for Virginia’s Board of Education
July 25, 2024
July 25, 2024
Governor Youngkin appoints Meg Scalia Bryce to the VBOE as part of his continued push to prop up anti-LGBTQ+ policies and personnel
RICHMOND, Va – Equality Virginia, the Virginia Education Association and We the People for Education released the following joint statement following news that Governor Glenn Youngkin has appointed Meg Scalia Bryce to the Virginia Board of Education. Bryce, the daughter of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, recently ran in – and lost – an election for the Albemarle County school board.
“Governor Youngkin doubled down on his anti-LGBTQ+ policies and personnel by appointing Meg Scalia Bryce to the Virginia Board of Education,” said Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia. “In the fall, Bryce lost her election for school board in Albemarle county, as part of a larger backlash across Virginia against anti-LGBTQ+, pro-Youngkin candidates for those offices. Virginians have shown, repeatedly and recently, that they reject Youngkin’s divisive education policies, but he continues to push them relentlessly. We will continue to work against them relentlessly, and fight back against his attempts to further politicize education at the expense of students. Voters rejected Bryce and politicians like her last year and we reject her comeback narrative now.”
“The appointment of Meg Scalia Bryce to the Virginia Board of Education is yet one more example in a long list of shortsighted, politically motivated decisions that serves to advance Gov. Youngkin’s anti-public education agenda while further endangering LGBTQIA+ students in the Commonwealth,” said Dr. James J. Fedderman, President of the Virginia Education Association. “All of our students expect, and deserve, better from this administration and all of their elected leaders.”
“Last year, voters rejected school board extremism at the ballot box, and that included defeating Meg Scalia Bryce and her Moms for Liberty-inspired candidacy in Albemarle.” said Tiffany Van Der Hyde, Executive Director of We the People for Education. “Yet while her community found her unfit to serve, Governor Youngkin thought differently, appointing her to the State Board of Education through a process that intentionally lacked transparency and ensured her ability to impact Virginia’s public schools well into the future. Unfortunately, this decision is just another example of the politicized agenda forced onto Virginia’s students, families, and teachers.”
In the 2023 election, Bryce lost her election to Allison Spillman, who ran a race as an openly pro-LGBTQ+ candidate and mother of a trans child. As part of her campaign, Spillman wrote passionately about the vital importance of protecting transgender and nonbinary students within Virginia’s school system and about how Bryce’s words and actions during the campaign raised concerns about her policy preferences. In a post for Pride month on her campaign website, she wrote, “All students should be valued and affirmed and feel safe in school, especially because sometimes school is the only safe place for LGBTQIA+ students,” alongside her own platform proposals and personal story.
Last year, Several anti-LGBTQ+ candidates in Virginia school board elections were endorsed by anti-LGBTQ+ groups with national footprints. One such group, Moms for Liberty, was founded in 2021 and has ramped up its efforts to push for anti-LGBTQ+ policies at the school board level. Moms for Liberty local chapter members started showing up at local school board meetings to push for the adoption of Youngkin’s policies or additional policies that target trans kids. In Virginia, Moms for Liberty endorsed six candidates. Five lost. Virginians have rejected anti-LGBTQ+ candidates and Youngkin’s policies related to the treatment of transgender students, in particular.
In September 2022, the Youngkin administration and the Virginia Department of Education released a proposed policy for 2022 that reversed the Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools. The policies, titled the Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students in Virginia’s Public Schools – received no public input while being drafted and were not developed in accordance with evidence-based best practices – put transgender and non-binary students at risk for harm and discrimination. Over 70,000 public comments, a majority in opposition to the policies, were submitted during the 30-day public comment period. VDOE twice missed their own deadline to provide an update on the policy or respond to public comments challenging the legality.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers in Virginia earn 67 cents on the dollar compared to other (non-teacher) college-educated workers. Virginia’s teacher wage penalty is the worst in the nation.
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