Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, Author at Independent Women's Network

K–12 Public Schools’ Digital Policies Are Ripe for Persecuting Conservative Students

Posted on April 16, 2024April 17, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Harry Jackson is a former school board candidate, president of Education Matters Virginia, member of the Coalition for TJ, a cybersecurity specialist, and a member of Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on American Thinker.

In February, a Fairfax County high school student read the news on his school-issued computer as Congress considered a bill authorizing $95 billion in foreign aid. Coming from a military family and having interest in serving our nation in the military himself, the student clicked on a Wikipedia link to the AK-47, a weapon mentioned in one of the articles he had been reading. An avalanche of harassment and prejudice against the student followed. This particular case provides a clear insight into the problem with public school districts’ Orwellian digital policies. These vague policies lack accountability mechanisms for administrators and teachers, and are vulnerable to implementation biases, particularly against ideologically conservative students.

The student, who had been excused from taking a math test that day, instead spent his time in class catching up on current events. As he clicked his way through the weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the ones Americans are helping to buy, the school’s safety and security specialist arrived at the classroom. The student had no idea why he was there, and was surprised when the man called his name to escort him to the principal’s office.

There, one of the assistant principals informed the student that the teacher had been concerned because he was reading about the AK-47 and beckoned the security specialist to remove him from class. The teacher had not asked the student any questions, or redirected him to subject-based instructional material before the security specialist had arrived. Strangely, she had not even been in a position where she could physically view his personal screen.

Many of the district’s students and parents are unaware that Fairfax County Public Schools offers administrators, counselors, and teachers a program called Lightspeed Systems. It is essentially an unrestricted power for multiple school employees to surveille students’ computer screens in real time. While his classmates were taking their test, the teacher was spending her time figuratively watching over the student’s shoulder to see what he was reading.

Lightspeed is a new program in Fairfax County Public Schools and its use has not been codified into the district’s Acceptable Use Policy. An Acceptable Use Policy in a K-12 educational setting outlines guidelines and expectations for the appropriate use of technology resources within the school community. It serves as a framework to ensure that students, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders understand their rights and responsibilities when using digital devices, networks, and online services.

Fairfax County’s public school district follows what is known as a “permissive” Acceptable Use Policy that encourages students’ innovation, autonomy, and flexibility, allowing them to explore new technologies and methods to accomplish their tasks.

A student’s access to Wikipedia and the ability to research weapons used in the Ukraine-Russia conflict within the district’s permissive Acceptable Use Policy environment is neither blocked nor punishable under the code of conduct. A permissive Acceptable Use Policy approach recognizes the importance of digital literacy and the need for students to navigate and utilize the internet and various online platforms as part of their learning process. Access to Wikipedia, a comprehensive and widely used online resource, aligns with this goal. It is therefore unclear why the teacher would have called the school’s security specialist to remove the student from class.

After the student explained to the assistant principal why he had been reading about the AK-47, the student claims that the administrator understood his perspective and said, “Do your thing. Go to class.” So, the student did. He left the office and returned for the remaining minutes of his math class.

At the end of the class period when his classmates were leaving, he calmly asked the teacher why she did not speak to him before calling the security officer. The teacher responded that his search for the AK47 was “flagged” and she “had to report it,” making it seem as if she were forced to call the front office. Clearly, she did not wish to take responsibility for her surveillance and misunderstanding. Worse yet, she blamed the student for daring to question her and reported their conversation to the front office.

The assistant principal subsequently confronted the student for returning to that class after their meeting, claiming that was not his instruction. There was an obvious miscommunication between the administrator and the student about which class he should have walked to after his first time in the office. But then, the conversation shifted to the student’s questioning of the teacher.

The administrator explained to the student’s mother that in an effort to “deescalate” the situation, the student would be forced to sit out of class for a couple days, and proposed a “restorative conference circle.” The school administrators also informed the student’s mother that the circle was “voluntary.”

By the time the student, who notably has an Individual Education Program (IEP) and struggles with math, was permitted to rejoin his class, he had already missed three periods of class, equating to multiple hours of instruction.

For the missed classes, the student was required to sit in the school’s designated space for in-school suspensions. During one of the missed periods, his classmates took a quiz, for which the teacher discontinued the students’ internet capabilities.

Sitting far away from the class in an entirely different room and having no knowledge of the quiz, the student believed that the teacher was singularly restricting his access to the internet. It was not an unwarranted suspicion. After all, she had targeted his computer in class and assumed the absolute worst about him. When the internet began working again, he entered test Google searches such as “Ms. [teacher’s name] stop blocking my access,” and “If I was in class taking the quiz it wouldn’t matter.”

Unsurprisingly, the teacher immediately reported his Google searches to the school administrators, who then emailed the searched terms to his mother. In their communications, the administrators included the counselor, who is responsible for writing students’ letters of recommendation for college admissions. Students waive their right to review these letters, and such instances might very well be shared with college admissions officers.

Here again, the focus of the communication shared with the counselor was not on the student’s unjust exclusion from class, the inappropriate level of the teacher’s digital scrutiny on the student’s Google searches, or on her original mistake under the district’s digital policies. Instead, school administrators took issue with the student’s questioning of the teacher while he was being denied in-person instruction.

In the end, the student was never approached to participate in mediation or a restorative conference. The school did try, however, to persuade his mother to switch him into a different math class online, likely because the teacher demanded it. After she refused, the class had three different substitutes over the course of three weeks until they retained a permanent sub for the remainder of the school year. The teacher never returned to the student’s class, but she continues to teach her other classes and is in the school.

Public schools are at a fork in the road. Following pandemic policy’s prolonged closures, school districts are relying heavily on laptops for instructional material, even in primary schools.

There must be balance. Students should not always be learning on screens. And when they are, we ought to pose questions about how children are monitored. The increasing reliance on surveillance technology in public schools also raises questions about how long information will be stored, who has access to the data, and what its purpose will be — especially given Fairfax County Public Schools’ history with data breaches concerning students’ private information.

Considering the left-leaning inclinations of our public schools, we are subjecting students, especially those who are conservative, to unjust and unfounded targeting and persecution for their “thought crimes” with digital monitoring. Public school districts must be more transparent about their surveillance policies with students and parents.

White Leftists Cry ‘Racism’ To Win Political Battles — Even When Nonwhites Oppose Them

Posted on April 13, 2024April 11, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared on The Federalist.

On March 31, the National Organization for Women argued on social media that opposing males in women’s sports is “white supremacist patriarchy at work.” After receiving a torrent of justified criticism, the organization deleted its post on April 5.

The National Organization for Women is using tactics that are pervasive among white leftists. Founded by almost all white feminists in 1966, the white leaders of the organization since have used the concept of racial intersectionality to garner support for advocating clear sexism such as allowing males in women’s sports. It seems they believe that adding the racial element allows white liberals to castigate anyone who opposes their agenda as racist.

Politically blackfacing an issue, such as fairness in women’s sports, is actually what is racist. White liberal elites are using race to promote one of their pet projects that has nothing to do with race and is opposed by a majority of the black population. In a Pew Research Center survey, 68 percent of black respondents agreed with the statement that gender is determined by sex at birth. In the same survey, 61 percent of white respondents also agreed that gender is determined by sex at birth.

Setting aside the confusion in the deleted post of what “patriarchy” actually means, it is misleading to suggest that allowing men in women’s sports is somehow a black-supported issue and that opposing it is white supremacy. But that is the overplayed battle tactic of white liberals: anyone who disagrees is racist.

White Liberal Hypocrites in Fairfax County

In fact, recent pictures of the transgender movement’s rallies and political resolutions show that the vast majority of activists in this realm are white. In March, for example, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 9-0 to commemorate Transgender Visibility Day on Easter. Fairfax County is racially and ethnically diverse, the second most diverse county in Virginia. Yet the picture of the celebration following the resolution to commemorate the made-up holiday captured, with very few exceptions, almost all white smiling faces. The same is true for Fairfax City’s local council when they passed a similar proclamation days later.

White leftists on Fairfax County’s school board have also used race in their rise to power. They pay a great deal of lip service to being “anti-racist,” a poorly named, unjust concept that includes the use of present discrimination to remedy past discrimination. These school board members have promoted the overtly racist, “anti-racist” policies against Asian students to that end, dismantling gifted education at the district’s magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

In an attempt to racially diversify the student population, Fairfax County’s school board members implemented admissions changes that replaced merit with equity. Ironically, both the chair and vice chair of the racist, “anti-racist” school board, elected by their fellow board members, are white leftists. These hypocrites refuse to live by their own race-baiting rules.

Silencing Brown Parents in Montgomery County

While local politicians from Fairfax County and Montogomery County, Maryland, discuss race incessantly, the rainbow mafia pushing transgender ideology on our children in public schools is notably white, and the public dissent is coming from a large group of mostly brown and black parents.

In March 2023, Montgomery County’s school board revoked its opt-out option for LGBT curriculum materials, including for students in the district’s elementary schools. Three families sued the district, arguing that the decision violated their First Amendment rights. In addition to the lawsuit, there were large protests at Montgomery County’s school board meetings where parents demanded the restoration of the opt-out option.

On June 6, 2023, mostly Muslim parents staged a massive protest during a school board meeting. Asra Nomani, a journalist, covered the protest and posted a video on X. It shows the majority black and brown parents chanting the phrase, “Protect our children.” They were demanding the fundamental right to guide their children’s upbringing and have a say about what they learn at their public schools. In contrast, the video also shows a group of white liberal activists donning rainbow gear and supporting the district’s continued indoctrination of the children.

Leftist Colonizers Define Black Identity

Potentially their gravest and most racist offense is when these white leftists, such as the ones leading the National Organization for Women or mandating the indoctrination of children in public schools, try to pontificate about what black people should believe and how they should vote. In 2020, for example, President Joe Biden infamously told voters, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

I wonder what Biden would say about the increasing number of black voters supporting Donald Trump for president in 2024. Some surveys estimate that Trump’s support among black voters in November could be double what it was in 2020. Would Biden dare now to claim those voters are not black?

And there is little worse than the leftist vitriol toward black conservatives. Justice Clarence Thomas, for example, referred to his Senate confirmation hearings to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court as “a high-tech lynching.”

Black leftist pundits sometimes join their liberal white counterparts’ demands for ideological homogeneity among the black population. Michael Eric Dyson, a black professor, made an abhorrent comment suggesting that Winsome Sears, the first female black lieutenant governor of Virginia, is a ventriloquist for white supremacy. Referring to Sears, he said, “There is a black mouth moving, but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates of the white supremacist practices.”

It seems many leftists agree that diversity of political thought among black Americans is unacceptable. If they veer from the preset course the left determines, then these leftists villainize them as tools of white supremacy incapable of independent thought.

White leftists, such as those leading the National Organization for Women, are not the kind and inclusive people they claim to be. Make no mistake: Anyone deviating from their political inclinations should not expect the so-called inclusivity preached in the white leftists’ sermons.

To manipulate voters, these leftists are blackfacing their pet issues to gain legitimacy. And deleting one post on social media does not erase that fact.

Virginia’s public schools need to stay in their lane regarding student absences

Posted on April 12, 2024April 10, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on Washington Examiner.

This weekend, as we sat on the sidelines of our children’s lacrosse game, a mother told me about an incident at her son’s Fairfax County public school. When her mother, the student’s grandmother, went into his school late to sign in her grandson following his doctor’s appointment, the administrative assistant looked at her doubtingly and asked, “Are you sure he had a doctor’s appointment?”

Over the years, other parents have shared similar stories with me about the sanctimonious gatekeepers in the offices of our children’s public schools. Unfortunately, the invasive lines of questioning are codified in school policy to determine whether or not our reasons to excuse our own children from school are sufficient.

In December 2023, I received a notification from my son’s school that he had unexcused absences. I found this peculiar because I had excused him each time he was not in school. When I excuse my sons from school, I indicate “personal” — because it is. The reasons my sons are out of school are absolutely none of the district’s or the state’s business, as long as I am aware that they are not there.

A patient district administrator sympathetically explained to me at that time that the school was simply following district and state policy. Fairfax County Public Schools has a specific category for absences for which the parent excuses the student but does not provide a reason that he or she is missing called “unexcused locally defined.” Although it appears on students’ transcripts as “unexcused,” the policy is meant to allow students to make up their work and tests for that day.

The district administrator further informed me, to my surprise, that the “unexcused locally defined” category of absence is based on Virginia’s state policy. State law includes in its definition of an unexcused absence an absence in which “the parent provides a reason for the absence that is unacceptable to the school administration.”

According to Virginia state law, local school districts can decide that our children missing school for family vacations or important athletic events is unacceptable and that the absence is, therefore, unexcused. That sounds like a policy that a “parents matter” administration might want to revise.

On Dec. 15, 2023, I reached out to officials in the Virginia Department of Education, including the state’s superintendent of public instruction and the deputy superintendent of teaching and learning. I have yet to receive a response from them. I am confident that because we hear all the time that parents matter, the state administrators are looking into this issue — four months later.

As one Fairfax County high school administrator has pointed out to me, the policy provides a dysfunctional incentive structure. Parents are basically encouraged to lie and tell the school administrators that their children have an illness to ensure that their absences are excused.

It should be enough when parents say their children will not be in school that day. With that notification, it is the parent’s right to excuse the absence and not the school’s domain to determine validity. We should not need to inform our public schools’ administrations or teachers about personal matters in our children’s or families’ lives — because it is simply none of their business.

The National Organization for Women needs to change its name

Posted on April 7, 2024April 5, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on Washington Examiner.

Last week, the National Organization for Women objected to women’s sports being reserved for females only. NOW needs to change its name — maybe from NOW to the National Organization for Misogyny, because it definitely does not represent women any longer.

Not only is the organization advocating males in women’s sports, it is trying to silence critics with absurd name-calling. They claim that opposing the participation of males in women’s sports is “white supremacist patriarchy at work.”

Someone needs to get that internet keyboard warrior away from the computer.

It is unclear how race entered the equation. In fact, in a Pew Research Center survey, black respondents were more likely than white respondents to agree with the statement that gender is determined by sex at birth. And it seems that whoever is handling the social media account for NOW, excuse me, NOM, doesn’t understand what “patriarchy” means.

I am disappointed in NOW, an organization that I once supported. When notions of feminism meant equal rights for the two sexes, I referred to myself as a feminist. You might have noticed those inclinations by my hyphenated last name.

Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, made an impact on my thinking as I came of age and still sits on my bookshelf. I wonder what Friedan, one of the founders of NOW, would think about her organization’s support of this blatant discrimination against females if she were alive today. Friedan and others in her organization were at the front lines of advocating Title IX only to have it gutted by the misogynists who took over.

On the other hand, Title IX has an ally in Caitlyn Jenner, who well understands what the differences between the biological sexes mean for athletic competition. Jenner, who is transgender, has been a vocal proponent of keeping women’s sports female.

It is remarkable that anyone, particularly members of NOW, would support the idea that males should compete in women’s sports. Maybe it is just out of sheer ignorance. Often, the most vocal proponents of this insanity look like they have never competed in any sports, ever. From experience, I recommend that proponents of males in women’s sports start learning jiu-jitsu. Spar with both a male and a female of your weight for a quick lesson in fairness.

It seems to me that males who are subpar athletes might feel that they have a better shot at winning when they are competing against females, who are comparatively biologically disadvantaged in size, speed, and strength. You only need to look at the male athletes, such as collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas, who once competed against men before transitioning to compete against women. Males, Thomas included, obviously fare much better in women’s sports than in men’s sports.

The athletic differences between the sexes are notable from an early age. Recently, I sat on the sidelines of a soccer scrimmage where 12-year-old boys competed against 14-year-old girls. The two teams were ranked at similar levels within their respective leagues. Already, the strength and speed difference gave the younger boys the advantage. And to the great disappointment of the girls, the boys’ team won.

Aside from the obvious fairness problems of males competing in women’s sports, the resulting injuries are undeniable. There are so many to point out and likely many more that have gone unreported. For example, a male’s spike in a North Carolina girl’s high school volleyball game resulted in Payton McNabb’s concussion, neck injury, impaired vision, and partial paralysis. In an MMA fight, a male fractured a female’s skull. Tamikka Brents had a concussion and required seven staples in her head as a result. Is this what equity and fairness look like to the Left?

Finally, there is the locker room issue. Real feminists do not support males in women’s private spaces. Former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines has detailed her experience as an NCAA athlete being forced to change in a locker room with a large male, which made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

So, to the National Organization for Women, I conclude with this: if you are going to support obvious sexism, at least change your name.

The ironies of commemorating ‘Transgender Visibility Day’ on Easter

Posted on April 5, 2024April 5, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

After Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors co-opted Easter this year with Transgender Visibility Day, other local and state governments, and even the Biden administration, did the same.

Our elected officials did not need to issue commemorative proclamations for a made-up, 15-year-old holiday that they knew would offend many Christians on their holiest day. They could have let the day take place for the leftist worshippers of the DEI religion without trying to cast shadows on Easter. But part of the DEI religion is forcing everyone else to worship at their altar, think their thoughts, and say their words. To that end, politicians issued commemorative proclamations for Transgender Visibility Day because it fell on Easter.

This type of disregard and mockery is reserved specifically for Christians in this country.

Jeff McKay, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, tried to justify the usurpation of Easter by saying that he planned to attend church on Easter. In an email, he wrote, “As a Catholic, I will be celebrating Easter with my family on Sunday and will take the opportunity to also celebrate all people, especially the most vulnerable in our community.”

Because McKay calls himself a Catholic, he implies that his Christian constituents should be fine with the proclamation. People such as McKay can stand in a garage and call themselves a truck, but that does not make them a truck. In fact, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the seventh archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. suggested that President Joe Biden is a “cafeteria Catholic,” pointing out that Biden “picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts.”

Although so-called Catholics such as Biden and McKay would like to legitimize their actions and hide behind their church attendance, their proclamation to commemorate Transgender Visibility Day on Easter is no less offensive to Christians because of it.

Make no mistake: Democratic politicians would have been much more cautious in issuing commemorative proclamations to celebrate a manufactured transgender holiday if it fell on an Islamic holy day. White liberals are terrified of being seen as culturally insensitive, which is why their cars are decorated with “Be Kind” magnets — because they hope you will believe they are kind and culturally sensitive. Whether or not they actually are seems to be irrelevant to them.

They also have a tenuous political alliance with American Muslims that fractures on LGBT matters. For that reason, if any transgender holiday fell on Eid, for example, the Biden administration would let it pass without comment.

Similarly, the Biden White House’s Easter message on social media was posted on both its Spanish and English accounts, but its message for Transgender Visibility Day four hours later was posted only in English. Clearly, the Biden administration was aware that co-opting Easter with a transgender holiday proclamation would do further damage to its relationship with Hispanic voters, many of whom are much more serious about their faith than Biden.

American Christians are appropriately shocked by the state-sanctioned takeover of Easter this year. Re-assigning Christian holidays, however, is part of the communist playbook. In this case, the DEI religion mandates that we worship at the altar of the state, not the church. This is not the first time that a government has tried to co-opt a Christian holy day, and it likely will not be the last.

In 1935, for example, the secular holiday “New Year’s Day” replaced Christmas in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin’s order. Rather than celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, citizens were told to celebrate the arrival of Father Frost. The government promoted gift-giving as a way to show gratitude to the state and promote loyalty to the communist regime. In effect, they banned Christmas and repurposed it with a secular day that was compatible with communist ideals.

Any hint of a step in that direction, such as our politicians commemorating Transgender Visibility Day on Easter, is a step too far.

Fairfax County’s board of supervisors mocks Christians by designating Easter as Transgender Visibility Day

Posted on March 28, 2024March 26, 2024 by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on Washington Examiner.

Last week, Democrats on Fairfax County‘s board of supervisors voted to designate Easter Sunday as Transgender Visibility Day. The proclamation goes far beyond the supposed intent of making transgender people and gender ideology activists feel seen. Members of the board are also sending a message to Christians that they do not matter as they turn one of their holiest days into a celebration of an ideology that undermines the church’s core convictions.

Ironically, Chairman Jeff McKay, a Democrat, paid lip service to the importance of advocating all constituents when the board passed the resolution. He said, “As an elected official, it should be our moral responsibility to stand up for all people that we represent, not just the people we like or the people we agree with.”

If McKay and other members of the board were serious about their stated commitment to representing constituents, there are many other days they could have designated as Transgender Visibility Day.

Members of the board also used their illogical decision to hijack Easter as an opportunity to celebrate the governing body’s ideological homogeneity. The nine Democrats present at the meeting all voted in favor of the measure, but they lamented that there was one member of the board who was not present for the vote. Pat Herrity, a Republican, likely did not want to antagonize Christians who feel that their holy day is being desecrated.

Herrity’s absence appears to have been unacceptable to James Walkinshaw, a Democrat. Walkinshaw advocated complete groupthink on the board of supervisors when he said, “I’m looking forward to the day when we have a full dais for this proclamation, and that day will come. One way or the other, that day will come.”

Aside from the inappropriateness of Transgender Visibility Day being on Easter this year, the resolution seems unnecessary in Fairfax County. The transgender activist community does not have a visibility problem in northern Virginia. But it does appear to have a narcissism problem. Fairfax County School Board, for example, has designated June as LGBT Pride Month and October as LGBT History Month. The community gets two full months of celebration in our district’s schools. Apparently, that just wasn’t enough.

Fairfax County Public Schools’ policies align with the board’s resolutions. For the last few years, Fairfax County’s students have been inundated with surveys at the beginning of the school year questioning them about their pronouns and gender identity. Many of the county’s classrooms are decorated with transgender flags. After mandating preferred pronouns, district officials are also pushing to include gender identity lessons in the family life education curriculum beginning in fourth grade. How much more “visible” does a group need to be?

One can’t help but feel that Fairfax County officials’ timing was deliberate. In fact, this is not the first time that Democratic-endorsed local officials have attacked Easter in Fairfax County. In past years, Fairfax County Public Schools’ spring break has traditionally coincided with the Easter holiday. But in 2021, the school board made many politically loaded changes to the district’s calendar that included the intentional “decoupling” of spring break from Easter. It was not only inappropriate but logistically problematic for many reasons, and it had to reverse the decision.

I agree with McKay that elected officials should do their best to advocate “all people [they] represent, not just the people [they] like or the people that [they] agree with.” Hopefully, McKay and others on the board of supervisors and the district’s school board will try harder moving forward to represent the Christians in their community.