Youngkin at DOJ: Virginia was "Ground Zero," and the fight for parents is not over

Glenn Youngkin is Virginia's former governor now. But when the Justice Department convened a June roundtable on the targeting of parents, Virginia's former governor was at the table, and he did not mince words about what happened here.

"What happened in 2021 in Virginia, but in particularly in Northern Virginia, and even more particularly in Loudoun County, made Virginia Ground Zero for parent's rights," Youngkin said, according to a transcript reprinted in DOJ's new 273-page "2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools," released this week and dated Oct. 5.

The roundtable, "Exposing Weaponization Against Parents in Schools," was held June 11. Youngkin sat alongside then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, FBI Director Kash Patel and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.

Youngkin began by turning to Loudoun father Scott Smith, who had just described his arrest at a 2021 school board meeting weeks after his daughter was sexually assaulted at school. "Virginians and Americans so deeply respect you," Youngkin told him. "Fathers hold you as a hero."

He then laid out what Virginia families lived through in 2021. "Virginia, if we look back to 2021, was shuttered for an unnecessary period of time," he said. "Schools seem to be not critical. ABC stores were, but churches and schools weren't." "Children were forcibly masked, even when it was a health hazard for them." Parents "were told that they had no role in determining their children's education." When remote learning brought school onto "that 12-inch screen," he said, parents finally saw what was happening.

Youngkin called the Loudoun case "a story out of fiction." He described a school system that let a young man into the girls' bathroom, where he "would be allowed to sexually assault a girl," while "her family would in fact be persecuted and prosecuted while the young man was protected."

And he put the blame squarely on Washington. "The Biden Administration not just supported it, but enabled it," Youngkin said. He described "a Justice Department that was trying to intimidate parents, to silence them," to the point that crowded school board meetings emptied out.

Youngkin also offered a candid look back at his own term. "I watched an administration fight against me," he said. "And for one beautiful year, I had an administration that worked with me." He credited former Attorney General Jason Miyares and federal partners, saying that "when a governor and a great attorney general and Jason Miyares and the federal government work together, we can in fact stand for parents."

Loudoun's school board did not always go along. Smith told the panel that even with Youngkin in office, "the Loudoun County School Board actively defied the Governor's administration, repeatedly voting to reject state issued safety and parental notification guidelines."

Looking ahead, Youngkin set out what he sees as the next fights. Safety comes first, he said, but "we need to make sure we get to the content of what is being taught in schools." After that comes school choice. He praised the Federal School Choice Act in the "one Big, Beautiful Bill" and urged citizens in states whose governors have not signed up to tell them loudly, "sign that."

He also warned about a quieter cost of the 2021 crackdown on parents: people deciding not to run for school board. "There is no more important job in America than our school boards," he said. When good people hear stories like Smith's, "they decide it's better off to keep your head down."

Others at the table tied Virginia's 2021 election directly to the federal response. Jordan said the Garland memo came out so fast "because they didn't want this guy to be governor of Virginia." White House aide Vince Haley said Youngkin was "one person who could win in Virginia in '21." McMahon said she "still wish[ed]" he "was Governor Youngkin because he did so much in the state of Virginia."

The DOJ report's own findings back up the core grievance. It concludes the Garland memo was the product of White House pressure and was pushed out over "significant, nearly unanimous skepticism" from DOJ and FBI attorneys. Attorney General Pam Bondi has since rescinded it.

As Youngkin put it at the start of his remarks, "children belong to parents, not to the government." Virginia voters said much the same thing in 2021. Five years later, the Justice Department says it agrees.

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,

Loudoun County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Leesburg.