FOXX: Leftist Idealogues Are Bullying Students. Parents Must Stop Them.
There is a new bully on the playground: the education establishment. Bolstered by teachers unions and the Democrats’ political machine, certain school boards and administrators are pushing a progressive and dangerous social agenda down the unwilling throats of America. The Left’s push into K-12 schools includes everything from drag queen story hour to unisex locker rooms. But these aren’t even the most troubling trends.
Parents across the country would be appalled to hear about school administrators’ policing of perceived gender-related infractions. In Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools voted to approve changes to the Student Rights and Responsibilities handbook that include suspending students for using transgender students’ non-preferred pronouns or birth names, also referred to as “misgendering” or “deadnaming.” These offenses are classified as a “Level 4” offense with a possibility of suspension. For context, a “Level 5” offense includes homicide or possession of drugs and weapons.
A school district in Wisconsin actually opened a Title IX sexual harassment case against three eighth-graders for referring to a biological female student as “her” instead of “them.” There seems to be no end in sight to the Left’s gender hysteria.
Equating misgendering with sexual harassment shows how unhinged some school administrators have become. These accusations are serious and could severely tarnish the future of accused students, even if they are absolved of any wrongdoing. This overly aggressive enforcement of leftist dogmas is textbook bullying.
These trends are particularly concerning as the Biden administration’s anticipated announcement of changes to Title IX regulations could institutionalize misgendering as sexual harassment.
And this isn’t the only way the Left is inserting itself into K-12 education. Following pushback from parents, many school districts now think it better to conceal information from families about student wellbeing. For instance, some schools are keeping the gender transitions of students from parents. A middle school counselor in Michigan was caught instructing teachers to use a particular student’s birth name when conducting parent-teacher conferences to hide that the student was using a different name and pronoun while at school. In another instance, a similar practice led to a 12-year-old girl in Florida attempting suicide after she received secret gender transition counseling from a school official. These kinds of school-wide conspiracies, meant to separate parents from their children, can cause irreparable harm — and yet the Biden administration continues to support such policies.
Students deserve to feel safe at school and supported by school staff, but harassing students for small infractions, deceiving parents, and pushing controversial gender theories in the classroom go far beyond the call of educators.
Instead of forcing political beliefs on students, teachers should be focused on ensuring our children can read and write. The education establishment must understand that their job is to educate, not to indoctrinate, and to support parents, not to undermine them. Afterall, parents — not teachers — are the primary stakeholders in their children’s future.
The Left’s push for radical gender policies in K-12 education is causing real harm. It is a good thing parents are standing up to these policies and defending their children against the education bureaucracy. We must support these parents’ efforts to usher in a new era of education — one with parents in the driver’s seat. That would be a welcome change.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx represents North Carolina’s 5th congressional district.
