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Category: Opinion

Teacher Claims Conflict Of Interest In Suit Against FCPS’s Alleged Retaliation

Posted on by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor to Independent Women’s Features, The Federalist and the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared on The Federalist.

Last month, Zenaida Perez, a teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), filed a lawsuit against the district for defamation and retaliation against a whistleblower. Strangely, King & Spalding, the law firm that the district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, hired to be the “external independent investigator” of Perez’s allegations, is now representing FCPS in its defense.

In May 2022, Perez, who has taught FCPS’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students since 2008, told Centreville High School’s principal, Chad Lehman, that the school’s social worker, Carolina Diaz, facilitated an abortion for a minor student without her guardian’s consent.

In her signed statement (translated from Spanish), the student wrote, “Mrs. Carolina Diaz scheduled the appointment for me at the abortion clinic in Fairfax, paid the costs of that medical procedure, and kept everything quiet without informing my family.”

After Perez told Lehman about the school staff member’s involvement in the minor’s abortion, she says that she faced multiple incidents of retaliation and defamation from school and district administration. For example, her lawsuit states, “On April 8, 2025, an 18-year-old male student… confided to Perez that [Assistant Principal Montell] Brown instructed him to ask Perez for a ride in her personal vehicle to Costco, and that once Perez gave him the ride, he was to report the incident to Brown, so that he could write Perez up.”

Julie Perry, a teacher at Centreville High School who is familiar with the case and knows the student involved, believes that FCPS is retaliating against Perez for being a whistleblower. She said, “It makes me very sad to see my colleague, Zenaida, being heavily retaliated against because she was only doing the right thing by reporting illegal activity.”

Oddly, the district’s leaders didn’t seem concerned with Perez’s claims until the public was made aware of them. Only after the media reported on the abortion allegations did district leadership hire the expensive law firm to investigate. In an email to Centreville High School staff, dated Aug. 7, 2025, Reid wrote, “[T]he division has taken immediate action to engage an external independent investigator to get all the facts.”

Ongoing Investigation

In August and September, Fairfax County Public Schools paid the law firm $980,515.14 in taxpayer funds to investigate Perez’s claims. And while there is still an ongoing Virginia State Police criminal investigation into the matter, on Oct. 16, King & Spalding issued an inconclusive report stating that Perez’s allegations were “likely untrue.”

It seems that FCPS’s leaders are more interested in appearing to try to get to the bottom of things only when there is concern among the public that threatens the district’s image.

Conflict of Interest

Monique Miles, Perez’s attorney, noted that “King & Spalding can’t be both neutral fact finder and defense. There is an inherent conflict of interest in King & Spalding representing FCPS as counsel in both matters.” 

Miles further argues that “FCPS has lost all credibility by hiring King & Spalding to do an external independent investigation, where they released a preliminary report to the Senate [Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] HELP Committee and the U.S. Department of Education Acting General Counsel inferring that Perez was a liar and claiming that the evidence doesn’t support her claims (when it does, especially the audio recordings), and then by hiring King & Spalding’s same attorneys, the very next week, to represent FCPS in defending against Perez’s lawsuit for defamation and retaliation.”

Perez on Administrative Leave

After King & Spalding released its inconclusive report in October, and while Diaz keeps her job as school social worker and Lehman was promoted, FCPS placed Perez on administrative leave. Perez believes that her suspension is permanent because, she said, district leaders insisted that she turn in her laptop, keys, and all district property. They also, according to Perez, terminated her email account and revoked her access to the student information system.

FCPS’s leaders were not interested in getting to the bottom of things until their public image was threatened. Now Perez’s lawsuit should reveal more about how they retaliated against the whistleblower.

‘Queen’ Michelle Reid and Fairfax County’s $4 billion school bullies

Posted on by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

This op-ed was written by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a contributor to Independent Women’s Features, The Federalist and the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in The Washington Times.

Last month, Zenaida Perez, a Fairfax County Public Schools teacher, filed a lawsuit alleging that school and district officials defamed her character and retaliated against her for being a whistleblower.

According to the lawsuit, in May 2022, Ms. Perez told Chad Lehman, the principal of Centreville High School, that a minor student had undergone an abortion without the knowledge of her guardian. Ms. Perez alleged that Carolina Diaz, the school’s social worker, facilitated the abortion.

In a signed statement (translated from Spanish), the student who had the abortion wrote, “Mrs. Carolina Diaz scheduled the appointment for me at the abortion clinic in Fairfax, paid the costs of that medical procedure, and kept everything quiet without informing my family.”

After reporting the abortion, Ms. Perez said, she faced multiple incidents of retaliation before the district placed her on administrative leave. For example, her lawsuit states, “On April 8, 2025, an 18-year-old male student … confided to Perez that [Assistant Principal Montell] Brown instructed him to ask Perez for a ride in her personal vehicle to Costco, and that once Perez gave him the ride, he was to report the incident to Brown, so that he could write Perez up.”

Given that school officials were aware of Ms. Perez’s allegations in 2022, many parents are wondering why FCPS waited until this August, after media reports about the abortion, to hire an expensive law firm, King & Spalding, to initiate an investigation. In August and September, the district paid the firm $980,515.14.

Ms. Perez argues that the firm is meant to maintain the district’s image. She said, “If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn’t have hired that expensive law firm to conceal what they did.”

One of Ms. Perez’s colleagues at Centreville High School, Julie Perry, who knows the students involved and is intimately familiar with the case, said school officials are retaliating against Ms. Perez. Ms. Perry said, “It makes me very sad to see my colleague, Zenaida, being heavily retaliated against because she was only doing the right thing by reporting illegal activity.”

Ms. Perez’s case is far from the only example of FCPS’s retaliation against community members who are inconvenient to its reputation or political agenda. “Kate” — an alias name used in the courtroom for a former FCPS student who alleges that school and district leadership are responsible for a sexual assault she experienced in 2011 when she was in seventh grade — is quite familiar with the district’s wrath under the leadership of “Queen” Michelle Reid, the superintendent.

In 2024, attorneys for the district reportedly demanded that Kate undergo vaginal and anal exams, even though she allegedly sustained the injuries in 2011. The attorneys also insisted that she owed the district approximately $250,000 for legal fees.

In 2021, in Fairfax County School Board v. Tisler and Oettinger, the district sued two mothers, Debra Tisler and Callie Oettinger, because they obtained information from a Freedom of Information Act request that was arguably embarrassing to the district and then published the documents on the internet. The mothers were forced to retain counsel but ended up prevailing.

Judge Richard Gardiner ruled in the defendants’ favor. He acknowledged that Ms. Tisler and Ms. Oettinger lawfully obtained truthful information via the FOIA request and referred to the school board’s argument as “frivolous.” He said, “It’s clearly also about a matter of public significance because this has to do with legal bills that are being paid by the taxpayers of Fairfax County.” He added, “The Board, for whatever reason, maybe it was ineptness … made the decision to turn over the information, and they’re stuck with that.”

About a year later, in 2022, FCPS suspended my three sons for 39 cumulative days because of “dress code” violations for not wearing masks — after Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order permitting parents to opt out of school mask mandates. Despite my subsequent appeal, all the way up to “Queen” Reid, the district refused to expunge these obviously political penalties. Next fall, my eldest will be applying to colleges with these suspensions on his academic record. Really, nothing says retaliation more clearly than politically persecuting children.

Since 2019, FCPS’s leaders have spent $44 million on legal fees. At least some of this money, coming from its massive $4 billion annual budget, is being used to bully parents, children and community members who are inconvenient for their image or agenda. As Kate said, “The school district’s traditional defense whenever anyone speaks up is to scream that they’re lying or fraudulent. Then, they hire big law defense firms billing millions in taxpayer dollars to crush the everyday person and polish their own image through public relations.”

There is no better way to challenge bullies than to take their weapons. In this case, Fairfax County’s residents must demand an independent, external audit of the district’s massive budget and insist that tax dollars not be used to bully its community members into submission.

From Luke Air Force Base To Main Street: How Washington’s Shutdown Is Hitting Arizona Hard

Posted on by McKenzie Holmes

Alison Furno is an Arizona Resident, Small Business Owner, and Independent Women’s Network Phoenix Co-Leader. This article originally appeared on AZ Free News.

As an Arizonan, a small business owner, and a concerned citizen, I’m deeply troubled by how the Left’s government shutdown is hurting our communities. Every day Washington fails to act, hardworking Arizonans pay the price.

Military families at bases like Luke and Davis-Monthan, air traffic controllers keeping our skies safe, National Guard members protecting our borders, and countless small business owners are being forced to shoulder the consequences of political inaction—many continuing to serve without pay or any certainty about the future. Furloughed federal workers in Tucson and Phoenix are dipping into savings just to cover groceries, while delayed permits and contracts grind local projects to a halt.

I run two small businesses here in Arizona—a volleyball coaching company and a social media management brand—so I see firsthand how government shutdowns ripple through real lives. They slow things down, shake confidence, and make it harder for families and business owners to plan ahead. When federal payments stall, suppliers wait longer to get paid, employees across industries worry about their next paycheck, and everyday customers start cutting back. It’s working families, small businesses, and community builders who feel it most—while politicians argue over deadlines and programs they created themselves.

Let’s rewind to March 2021. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan—a massive spending package sold as emergency relief. Hidden inside was an expansion of premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, increasing federal payouts to insurers and expanding who qualifies. These subsidies were supposed to be temporary bridges to help Americans get through the pandemic. Yet years later, some in Washington are treating them as untouchable—willing to shut down the government rather than let them expire.

These subsidies were never meant to be permanent, and they can’t be sustained responsibly. The Congressional Budget Office projected that making them permanent would add over $34 billion to the federal deficit in the next decade.

Even worse, these handouts have distorted the healthcare market. When the government guarantees bigger subsidies no matter the cost, insurers and providers raise prices—knowing taxpayers will cover the difference. Executives pocket bonuses, red tape piles up, and real healthcare workers get squeezed. What was supposed to make care “affordable” has instead insulated the system from competition and transparency, driving costs higher for everyone not lucky enough to qualify for the subsidies.

The hard truth is that the Affordable Care Act never lived up to its name. It drove up prices and created layers of bureaucracy. Now, temporary subsidies—originally sold as short-term relief—are being treated as permanent entitlements. Holding the government and everyday Americans hostage over these failed policies is simply wrong.

Senators Kelly and Gallego, you represent a state known for independence and common sense. The House has already passed a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government and end this unnecessary pain. Support it. Reopen federal agencies. Let our military families breathe easier, our air traffic controllers get their paychecks, and our small businesses plan for the future without Washington’s chaos.

Arizona’s working people have carried enough. It’s time for our leaders to choose stability over subsidies, solutions over gridlock, and the Grand Canyon State over partisan games. End the shutdown now.

Virginians deserve answers about who will stand for women

Posted on by Carrie Lukas

This op-ed was written by Carrie Lukas, a mother of five, resident of Fairfax County, and member of Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in Fairfax County Times.

Fifty-eight-year-old Virginia resident Richard Cox has been sent to prison five times. In 1992, he was indicted for entering a school gymnasium and masturbating in front of children. In the last few years, Cox has claimed to identify as a woman. He changed his Virginia driver’s license to “female” and asserted his right to use women’s facilities. As a result, as one horrified Virginia mother detailed, he was allowed to expose himself in a Virginia public high school bathroom and watch young girls change for swim class. 

Do my fellow Virginians think that Richard Cox should be allowed into girls’ changing rooms and disrobe around young girls? 

It’s really not a hard question to answer. But somehow, some candidates to represent us in Congress and in Richmond refuse to say whether they support Richard Cox’s right to expose himself in school bathrooms or if they support protecting the safety and privacy of women and girls. 

James Walkinshaw has been asked numerous times to comment on this issue, specifically regarding Richard Cox, and has declined to do so. Walkinshaw is running in a special election for the 11th Congressional District in Virginia. If he enters Congress, he will vote on legislation to keep men out of women’s sports, prisons, and other private places. Shouldn’t he clarify his stance on issues like this? Walkinshaw has refused to answer these questions during this campaign, but we know that as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, he enthusiastically embraced policies allowing people to select the facility that matches their declared gender identity. In other words, Walkinshaw explicitly championed the very policies that allowed Richard Cox to enter that girls’ locker room. 

Gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger has also dodged questions about Richard Cox and whether men like him should be allowed into girls’ locker rooms, including in public schools. Yet her record is also crystal clear. As a member of Congress, she consistently voted against bills that would have preserved Title IX sex-based protections and ensured that women’s sports and spaces, including locker rooms, are reserved for women only and predators like Richard Cox are kept out. 

Contrast that with their Republican opponents. Stewart Whitson, who is running against Walkinshaw for the 11th district, and Gubernatorial candidate Winsome Sears haven’t had any trouble answering on this issue. Of course, they oppose letting men into women’s sports and spaces. Stewart Whitson is a former FBI agent, a father of five young children currently attending schools in Virginia, and has emphatically stated that one of the reasons he is seeking office is to stand up for common-sense policies, such as keeping men out of women’s spaces. Winsome Sears has been equally vocal. 

Undoubtedly, apologists for Walkinshaw and Spanberger—if they are willing to speak about this subject—would likely say that, of course, they don’t want registered sex offenders and convicted criminals like Cox to abuse the system. They only want men and boys who really identify as women to access women’s locker rooms. However, they are unlikely to offer any solutions for how to enforce that distinction. They want Virginians to trust that, somehow, the authorities in our schools and in these facilities will be able to identify those men who sincerely believe they are women and those who are just using gender identity as a fig leaf to shower next to your daughter.

Do you trust them? 

I don’t. I have five children of my own, and my daughter is currently enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools. Fairfax County school officials are currently demonstrating that they are so committed to allowing men into women’s spaces that they will jeopardize $160 million in federal funding. They are very, very worried that Richard Cox or some other male claiming a female identity will be made uncomfortable by having to use a facility based on his sex. They aren’t so worried, apparently, about the consequences for women and girls if another Richard Cox slips through the cracks of the system. 

There is a better solution. I feel confident that FCPS and Virginia leaders could find ways to accommodate trans-identifying community members—like finding single-use bathrooms—that would be sensitive to their needs but prioritize the safety of women and girls. That seems to me like the common-sense solution. Why can’t Walkinshaw and Spanberger just say that they too care about women and girls? That they know that women and girls are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation? What is holding them back? 

The fact that they refuse to answer speaks volumes. 

Time to Define and Safeguard Females

Posted on by Bronwyn Sims

This op-ed was written by Bronwyn Sims, a member of Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in The Keene Sentinel.

The recent veto of House Bill 148 by Gov. Kelly Ayotte has made one truth clear: New Hampshire must be precise and courageous in defining “woman” in law and truly protect single-sex spaces.

While HB 148’s intentions were good, it ultimately failed the very women and girls it sought to protect. Gov. Ayotte rightly acknowledged that the bill was “overly broad and impractical to enforce” and, crucially, the inclusion of “gender identity” in the legislation undermined its purpose.

If Gov. Ayotte truly had reservations about the bill, why didn’t she meet with the sponsor and co-sponsors of the bill to get them resolved?

As a member of the Independent Women’s Network and a coach dedicated to empowering girls, I testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to urge a better path forward. Statistically, over 80 percent of Americans — regardless of political affiliation — agree that women and girls deserve spaces and opportunities of their own. This should be a straightforward, unifying value, not a political flashpoint.

Unfortunately, by writing “gender identity” into HB 148, the Legislature left the very loophole that allows men to enter women’s spaces — be it in restrooms, gyms, locker rooms, shelters, prisons or athletics.

Independent Women’s Law Center’s senior legal advisor Beth Parlato said it perfectly: “While we understand the bill is well-intended, unfortunately, it is misguided and fails to safeguard single-sex spaces. Men can legally continue to self-identify into women’s private spaces. By including ‘gender identity,’ the bill affirms an extreme assault on the erasure of women and single-sex spaces, which over 80% of the country opposes.”

We thank lawmakers for addressing this urgent issue, yet meaningful progress requires clarity and common sense. Defining “woman” based on biological sex is essential if we are to maintain women’s rights, privacy, and fairness in New Hampshire institutions and sports. This does not diminish anyone’s dignity; it simply ensures that the progress, for which generations of women fought, is not undone.

We urge the N.H. Legislature to act: Remove the language of “gender identity” from HB 148 and from any future efforts that claim to support women. Align our laws with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support single-sex spaces for women and girls, so New Hampshire can lead the way in safeguarding opportunities for its daughters now and in the future.

‘Queen Reid’ Wants Personal Protection at Fairfax Taxpayers’ Expense

Posted on by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

This op-ed was written by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is, the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in WMAL.

In this week’s edition of poor leadership and fiscal irresponsibility, Fairfax County Public Schools posted a job advertisement for Superintendent Michelle Reid’s very own personal security detail.

This “executive protection agent,” to be hired on a 260-day contract, will enjoy a starting annual salary of at least $90,000. According to the job advertisement, this individual “is responsible for ensuring the personal safety, security, and operational continuity of the division superintendent across school campuses, public events, official travel, and private residences.”

What’s next for Reid – a cook and a driver?

Aside from the fact that issuing a personal security detail for a public school superintendent is excessive, incredibly rare, and likely hasn’t happened at all, our local community is in a budget crisis. In fiscal year 2026, the school district faces a $121 million shortfall, and is at risk of losing about another $168 million in federal funding for Title IX violations. Furthermore, with the ongoing downsizing of the federal government, the health of Fairfax County’s local budget isn’t likely to improve soon.

Fairfax County Public Schools, however, seem to exist in a bubble and refuse to trouble themselves with dirty pragmatic matters like budgetary problems. So, to be clear, while the district is eliminating teachers to address the budget crisis, in addition to her $424,146 annual salary and $12,000 car allowance, it’s looking as though Queen Reid will soon get her own personal security detail.