On this episode of Network reACTS, Neeraja Deshpande, Policy Analyst at Independent Women, is joined by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, Chapter Leader in Fairfax County, Virginia. Stephanie shares her experience participating in the Department of Education’s parents’ roundtable at the White House with Secretary Linda McMahon, where she highlighted the harmful impact of radical gender identity policies on students.
Issue: Schools
Network reACTS: Title IX Failures in Northern Virginia
On this episode of Network reACTS, Julie Gunlock, Director of Independent Women’s Network, is joined by Christy Narsi, National Chapter Director at IWN, and Suzanne Satterfield, Loudoun County, Virginia Chapter Leader to discuss how Northern Virginia school districts are disregarding Title IX guidance.
Network reACTS: What Parents Need to Know About FERPA
On this episode of Network reACTS, Neeraja Deshpande, Policy Analyst at Independent Women, is joined by Beth Parlato, Senior Legal Advisor at Independent Women’s Law Center, to discuss parents’ rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to access their children’s education records.
Resources Mentioned:
Know Your Rights: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
Youngkin Isn’t Doing Enough To Purge Woke Insanity From Virginia Public Schools
This op-ed was written by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Originally appeared in The Federalist.
Last week, the United States Department of Education found five public school districts in Northern Virginia in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The department’s press release says these divisions — Alexandria City Public Schools, Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Loudoun County Public Schools, and Prince William Public Schools — are “subject of several lawsuits, informal complaints, and reports, which allege that students in the Divisions avoid using school restrooms whenever possible because of the schools’ policies.”
As the Department of Education summarized, these districts’ policies allowing “students to access intimate, sex-segregated facilities based on the students’ subjective ‘gender identity’” violate federal law. Leaders in districts like Fairfax have also mandated preferred pronouns that run contrary to students’ biological sex. Fairfax District leaders further require annual training for their teachers regarding these policies and focus on facilitating social gender transitions at school, as they often keep this information secret from parents, a FCPS teacher who requested anonymity told me.
The district required an annual teacher training for the 2025-2026 school year titled, “Gender Expansive and Transgender Students,” as I reported in IW Features. The obtained guidance states, “Prior to notification of any parent or guardian regarding the transition process, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent or guardian will be involved in the process and must consider the health, well-being, and safety of the transitioning student.”
The Dangers of ‘Transgender Inclusive’ Policies
Such so-called “transgender inclusive” policies not only violate many families’ religious beliefs but also have had devastating consequences. In 2021, Appomattox County High School did not notify a then-14-year-old girl’s parents when she began identifying as a boy at school. As The Federalist previously reported, the school’s decision to exclude the teen’s mother from such critical information meant it “participated in a chain of events that led” to the girl becoming the victim of sex predators and being trafficked to another state.
Appomattox County is not one of the five Northern Virginia districts that the Department of Education mentions in its investigation. In other words, there likely are many other K-12 public school districts in Virginia that are violating federal law.
In its administrative complaint to the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights, which conducted the investigation, it’s clear why America First Legal would highlight Northern Virginia’s public school districts. Many of them have been the recent subject of national news.
Loudoun County became the epicenter for both transgender insanity and parental rights. In 2021, a student named Hunter Heckel sexually assaulted two girls at two different high schools — one of whom he assaulted in a girls’ bathroom, reportedly while wearing a skirt. The victim’s father was then arrested at a school board meeting when he raised the assault after district leaders tried to conceal it.
In 2024, in nearby Arlington County, an adult male sex offender, Richard Cox, allegedly exposed his naked body in girls’ locker rooms at Washington Liberty High School and Wakefield High School. One woman reported that she called the Arlington School Board to notify them of the situation at Washington Liberty High, but that the board did not respond to her. One mother said she and her young daughter witnessed him in the school’s girls’ locker room last year and similarly contacted the Arlington Public Schools Aquatic Center director, but did not receive a response. Cox now faces 20 charges “related to exposing himself in women’s locker rooms.”
In Fairfax County, at the beginning of multiple academic years, teachers have given students surveys requesting their preferred names and pronouns without notifying parents. District leaders further guide teachers to “model” using their own preferred pronouns, as I previously reported.
Following his responses to the Student Experience Survey, which was supposed to be “confidential,” one student said he was pulled out of class and publicly approached by a school counselor for objecting to district policy and violations of President Trump’s executive orders.
The list of examples suggesting Virginia public school district leaders’ willful violation of students’ and parents’ rights and federal and state laws goes on and on. So, when will the Youngkin administration do something about it?
The ‘Parents Matter’ Administration Must Act
In November 2021, in a tight race, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governorship on a “Parents for Youngkin” campaign approach. While he passed apparently non-binding executive orders and his Department of Education has released model policies for students that base bathroom use on sex, not gender identity, his commitment to parents’ rights has lacked a clear implementation phase.
Despite many attempts at contact, for example, the Youngkin administration has not soiled its hands with most of Virginia’s parents’ problems. For example, my sons still have 39 days of illegal mask suspensions that school district leaders refuse to expunge. Fairfax County’s public school district also has many potential violations of state Freedom of Information Act law, which the Youngkin administration has not addressed.
While Fairfax County Public Schools seem bent on defying Youngkin’s executive orders on divisive concepts and mask freedom and his model polices, he substantially increased their state funding even as his office admitted the student population declined.
Other states have been more effective in implementing their policies regarding public education. For example, in June 2025, a California state auditor’s report found Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools in Sacramento guilty of wasteful spending and hiring teachers lacking “appropriate credentials.” The report also said the school acquired $180 million in wrongly received funds. Each of the members of the school’s board of directors subsequently resigned or was removed.
Additionally, in 2023, Temecula Valley Unified School District board members rejected California’s curriculum materials for including Harvey Milk, a known pederast. In fact, the school board president referred to Milk as a “pedophile,” and instructed “the district to reject any materials shipped from the state.” In response, Governor Gavin Newsom, D, fined the district $1.5 million for what he said was a “willful violation of the law.” While it’s deplorable that Newsom’s heart project seemed to be pushing curriculum referencing a known pederast and LGBT activist into California’s K-12 public schools, at least he isn’t afraid to implement his agenda.
If Newsom can take such actions, why can’t Youngkin? Fairfax County’s public schools received about $168 million from the federal government in fiscal year 2025 and about $1 billion from the state government the same year.
The Youngkin administration should explore creative tools to address Virginia’s leftist public school district leaders’ apparent willful violation of state and federal law — perhaps including individual financial or criminal liability.
Youngkin explicitly acknowledged the dangers of the Virginia school districts’ violations of the law in a post on X July 25: “These school divisions have been violating federal law, neglecting student safety, privacy and dignity, and ignoring parents—all enabled by the Biden administration.” He also boasted about asking the state attorney general to investigate one of the counties in a press release last week.
Fortunately, Joe Biden is no longer in power. It’s time to recognize the dangers of similar policies in school districts across Virginia, not just in Northern Virginia. Youngkin and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — the Republican candidate for Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial race in November — should act now in the name of justice and parental rights. It’s unseemly to sit around applauding, waiting for the Trump administration to clean house in Virginia.
If Youngkin and Sears genuinely believe that parents matter and that these leftist school districts’ policies are dangerous and violate the law, it’s time for them to step up and go beyond holding impassioned interviews on Fox News.
Columbia Makes a Deal. Better Way to Fund Science Research? Conspiracy Updates. Unbearable New Details on Idaho Murders. And More
Columbia University and the Trump administration have reached a deal. The New York Post cover hails the “historic deal” as a “U. Haul,” because the university agreed to pay a $200 million fine because of its failure to protect Jewish students.
Here are the details:
Columbia University reached a deal with the Trump administration, ending a confrontation that disrupted U.S. higher education and sparked a contentious renegotiation of academia’s relationship to the federal government.
As part of the deal, Columbia will pay $200 million to the federal government over three years to settle allegations the school violated antidiscrimination laws. The school also agreed to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $21 million.
In return, the Trump administration will restore nearly all of the hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants it had pulled from Columbia back in March. The New York City school will also be able to access federal funding in the future.
So, the U. Haul goes both ways: Columbia regains an enormous amount of money from the American taxpayer. The New York Times breaks down the provisions of the deal. From the Times report:
The Trump administration froze and canceled more than $400 million in federal research funding in March, saying that Columbia was not doing enough to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment. But it became clear over time that the real risk exposure was much greater. Columbia estimates that about $1.3 billion annually in federal scientific research funding would have been at risk if no deal had been made, enough to shut down much of the university’s research enterprise.
What would happen if funding for scientific research were not provided almost exclusively by the federal government? Glad you asked. George Gilder and Thomas D. Lehrman team up to write a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “The Future Is Local for Research Funding.” Gilder and Lehrman acknowledge great innovations funded by federal grants. But they conclude:
While we tighten our fiscal belt at the federal level, the tale of Crispr and Mr. Mojica is timely. By supporting America’s laboratories of democracy—from Alabama to Wyoming—state leaders can accelerate the scientific research essential to competing with global rivals and inventing lifesaving technologies.
Convicted murderer Bryan Kohberger came face to face with the families and friends of the four college students whose lives he cut short. Honestly, Kohberger didn’t seem phased by the victim impact statements. However, if you saw it, you will not easily forget the anguish of Maddie Mogen’s father. The police released 300 pages of gruesome new documents on the horrific night of the murder. One of the young women suffered 50 stabs to her heart and liver. Kohberger will spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison, where he will be “vulnerable” to physical attack from other prisoners because of his notoriety. Stop me before I say something I will regret.
This is the Cooler Heads portion of this morning’s Musts, though whether they will prevail, or should prevail, remains to be seen.
Regarding the new documents declassified by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, while they don’t present former President Obama in a flattering light, both Andrew McCarthy (“If there were a criminal offense that fit, Gabbard and Trump would cite it rather than chanting ‘treason.’”) and Hans von Spakovsky throw cold water on the idea that we will see former President Obama in the dock (must less in prison garb which would turn “the light bringer” into an orange man).
Von Spakovsky writes:
Despite Gabbard’s understandable language about a “treasonous conspiracy,” the federal treason statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2381, seems like a pretty far stretch. As bad as the allegations are—the misuse of federal power to target a political opponent and eventual president—the statute only applies to someone who “levies war against” the country or “adheres to [its] enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere.”
What about the sedition statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2384? That criminal statute applies to “two or more persons” who “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States … or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” Again, even if we assume the truth of these allegations, there was no force involved in what happened.
On the other hand, what are the statutes that former special counsel Jack Smith attempted to use against Trump ….
Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn posts on X that the promulgators of the Russia hoax knew it was false but pushed it anyway.
Karl Rove’s Wall Street Journal column today is headlined “Trump Learns the Price of Conspiracy Theories.” MAGA, Rove says, is getting tired of waiting for the promised goods on Epstein. Rove takes the President to task:
Conspiracy theories undermine trust and cause chaos. When they are believed by large numbers of people, truth and reality become subjective. None of that bothers Mr. Trump. What should trouble him is that recent events may well reduce the number of his supporters who vote in the midterms and beyond.
Meanwhile, WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel writes soberly of “A Russia ‘Collusion’ (and Clinton) Reckoning.” It’s getting hard to keep the Russia hoax and the Epstein scandal straight in my mind. Thanks to J. Peder Zane for helping me sort this out.
The New York Post reports in an exclusive that the imprisoned Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s closest associate, who procured underage girls for him, is getting ready for her close-up:
Ghislaine Maxwell is assembling “new evidence” to present to the feds when she meets with them this week, her brother told The Post.
She will be putting before that court material new evidence that was not available to the defense at her 2021 trial, which would have had a significant impact on its outcome,” Ian Maxwell told The Post in an email Wednesday.
News that AG Pam Bondi had informed President Trump that he was mentioned in the Epstein trove was pounced upon by Democrats and other conspiracy theorists. It should come as no surprise that a judge has declined to unseal Grand Jury documents from the Epstein probe. Grand jury files are almost never unsealed (nor should they be).
There is other news. President Trump delivered an “action plan” for securing America’s future in AI yesterday. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal had good words for the administration’s AI agenda, which stresses deregulation and competition. … Much of the money collected for LA wildfire victims went instead to lefty nonprofits. … “Is Decapitation a Job Americans Won’t Do?” asks Ann Coulter, who begins this way:
Oh look, another American’s been beheaded by a Mexican.
This week’s beheader is Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez, an illegal alien who, according to the Department of Homeland Security, decapitated 37-year-old Megan Bos, then stashed her body in a bleach storage container. Arrested for the crime in April, Mendoza-Gonzalez was promptly released from custody by Illinois judge Randie Bruno, who is the same physical type — chubby, short-haired, white woman — as the Milwaukee judge charged with helping an illegal sneak out of her courtroom to avoid ICE agents.
Ms. Must opined yesterday that Hunter Biden’s profanity-laced rants reflect the views of the elder Bidens. I felt affirmed (you know, we must all be affirmed) when the Examiner’s Chief Political Correspondent, Byron York, said pretty much the same. Hunter is speaking for his father:
Profanities interspersed with boasts about unmatched achievements are exactly the modus operandi of Biden senior. Like father, like son. Hunter’s performance was equal measures of bragging and bile that Byron York describes as expressing the undiluted and unadulterated id of the embittered former president.
More to Come: Former President Biden reportedly has sold his memoir for $10 million.
Can civilization be saved? Do we even want to save it? See “One Embryo. Three Parents. The Future Is Already Here” and “Why People Are Buying $8,000 Lifelike Babydolls.”
Fairfax County shows why Trump should freeze education grants
This op-ed was written by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a contributor for The Federalist and the Washington Examiner; a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia; an author; and the Fairfax chapter leader of Independent Women’s Network. Her articles have also appeared in Fox News Digital, National Review, WMAL.com, The Daily Signal, and Townhall. Originally appeared in The Washington Times.
Last month, the Education Department notified states of its intention to pause and review $6 billion in education grants allocated for K-12 public schools. The reason: to ensure that “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities.”
The Trump administration is absolutely right to scrutinize these funds. Public school administrators across the nation need to make sure public resources are allocated with students’ academic achievement in mind.
Plummeting standardized test scores clearly demonstrate that public education is failing America’s children. Declining standards and the obsessive focus on leftist politics in lieu of academic instruction in public schools are even more damaging to the most vulnerable children.
The four-grade academic gap between America’s wealthiest and poorest students indicates that time at school is better spent doing math than being indoctrinated in gender ideology.
Although a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia is suing the Trump administration for the $6 billion, they don’t seem to be addressing how district administrators are actually using the funds.
In Fairfax County, Virginia, for example, $13 million of federal funds are frozen. The district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, said the grants subsidize teacher training and services for English language learners.
In the 2024-2025 academic year, Fairfax County Public Schools forced its teachers to undergo mandatory training on gender identity. The training interprets Title IX in the way the Biden administration advocated, emphasizing in bold that “Federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of … gender identity or transgender status.”
Consequently, the training dictates that bathroom and locker room use be based on gender, that preferred pronouns are mandatory and that transitioning students have a right to privacy from their parents. The “guidance document” informs teachers and staff that “prior to notification of any parent or guardian regarding the transition process, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent or guardian will be involved in the process and must consider the health, wellbeing, and safety of the transitioning student.”
Think about that for a moment. In Fairfax County, taxpayer funds are supporting training that promotes policies and procedures that violate many families’ religious beliefs and require public school administrators and teachers to keep critical secrets from parents about their own children.
Aside from ridiculous teacher trainings, the $13 million in federal grants goes to services for English language learners in the county. Sadly, leftists use this vulnerable population of students to collect more public funding from the state and federal governments, but they have little to show in terms of positive academic outcomes.
Fairfax County’s English language learners perform poorly on standardized tests and notably worse than their counterparts in other public school districts across Virginia. In 2024, 69% of Fairfax County’s English language learners failed their standardized reading test, 94% failed writing, 58% failed math, 71% failed science and 83% failed history.
English language learners compose about 26.8% of Fairfax County Public Schools’ population. The number grew substantially after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors enacted its sanctuary policy in January 2021. From 2021 to 2026, the population increased by 13.3% (4,417 students) across the district, with an estimated total of 37,742 English language learners enrolled ahead of fiscal year 2026.
With a proposed fiscal 2026 expenditure of an extra $5,572 per English language learning student, the district’s price tag for English as a second language instruction is now $210 million, a more than 123% increase from fiscal 2019, when it was $93.9 million.
Although we hope all children thrive in their public schools, many Fairfax County residents are wondering whether they will be taxed out of their homes to pay for the county’s sanctuary policy. Given that such policies also run contrary to the Trump administration’s priorities, it’s not particularly surprising that the federal government wouldn’t want to offer grants to help us pay for it.
As the Education Department rightly reviews $6 billion in grants, leftist district administrators and politicians, such as those in Fairfax County, mask their greed and motives with the deceptive statement, “What about the kids?”
Still, for them, it’s not about the academic success of children. It’s about power and their own corrupt political agenda.