Skirt-wearing male student is found guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl in a school bathroom in Loudoun County, Virginia

In a case that has galvanized parents fighting against woke school boards that seem to put their own ideology above the education and well-being of children, a male student who identifies as “gender fluid” has been found guilty of raping a 15-year-old female in a high school bathroom in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Quick Facts

• In May, Scott Smith was called in by school officials and told that his ninth grade daughter had been sexually assaulted by a boy “wearing a skirt” in the girls’ bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.
• In June, Smith was arrested at a school board meeting where a proposed policy allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice was being discussed.
• The school board claimed at that meeting that no sexual assaults had taken place in restrooms and there were no issues involving transgender students in restrooms or locker rooms.
• In October, the same male student was arrested for sexually assaulting another female student at a different high school in the district.
• He was convicted for the first attack and is now awaiting trial on the second charge.

The sexual assault took place in late May, but the school board and other school officials appear to have covered up the attack to ensure passage of a controversial transgender policy, which would allow students to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice based on their gender identity.

The girl’s father, Scott Smith, was treated worse than the attacker by the school system. When he was initially called into the school and learned of the assault, officials called the police and had him removed because of his reaction. Officials later stood by and allowed Smith to be arrested and prosecuted after trying to tell his daughter’s story at a school board meeting.

At that meeting, the school board repeatedly denied that anyone had been assaulted in the bathroom. Superintendent Scott Ziegler went so far as to say, “I think it’s important to keep our perspective on this — we’ve heard it several times tonight from our public speakers, but the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.”

This past weekend, an email from Ziegler showed that he not only knew about the attack on the female student in May, but that he had personally reported the attack to school board members. The email was sent on the same day that Scott Smith was originally called to the school and notified of the attack on his daughter. Ziegler also explained in the email that school officials had called in “additional law enforcement units” to deal with Smith for causing “a disruption and using profane language that was overheard by staff and students” and that counselors had been provided to students who had “witnessed the parent’s behavior.”

The perpetrator of the assault on Smith’s daughter was supposed to remain on house arrest, but at some point he was released and transferred to another school. On October 6, he committed a sexual assault on another girl.

With regard to the attacker’s conviction, an attorney for the Smith family released a statement that read: “We are relieved that justice was served today for the Smith’s daughter. This horrible incident has deeply affected the Smith family, and they are grateful for today’s outcome.”

They added, “The Smith family stands stronger than ever in moving forward to ensure that those responsible in the Loudoun County School system are held accountable, so that this may never happen again to anyone else’s child.”

The family is attempting to do so by suing the school district. The family explained in another statement,

“The sexual assault our daughter endured should never happen to any young girl, or any child, attending a public school. But because of indifference and negligence by Loudoun County Public Schools and the Loudoun School Board, it did. And now, it has happened to another girl at another Loudoun County school at the hands of the very same assailant.”

The day after the attacker was convicted, dozens of Loudoun County students staged a walk−out at various schools to protest the handling of the sexual assault cases. “Loudoun County protects rapists!” chanted a group of students at Broad Run High School, where the second girl was attacked. Another student demanded to know, “Why didn’t anybody tell us?”

School board member Beth Barts, who had been facing a recall due to a parent-led petition, has since resigned. Many parents and community leaders have also called on Ziegler and the rest of the board to do the same.

While it is likely some comfort to the Smith family that the perpetrator has been found guilty, it will never take away the pain of what happened. Not only was a young girl raped, but the school used the father’s emotional but expected response to this horrific event to shield themselves and make him and all parents seem like villains. Scott Smith’s arrest and prosecution was actually one of the events that the National School Board Association cited when asking the Department of Justice to come in and investigate parents as potential domestic terrorists.

A school board’s job is to work in partnership with school administrators, teachers, and parents to ensure that students get the strongest possible education in the safest possible environment, but it is not their job to tell parents how to raise their children. The Loudoun County school board — as is the case with so many around the country — has failed to do their job not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Their agenda is to win the approval of woke activists and progressive politicians and advance a radical ideology that is harming children. And they have no regard and no patience for anything or anyone that gets in their way.

Fortunately, their efforts to protect their agenda by covering up the sexual assault of a young girl and railroading her caring father failed — and failed spectacularly. In response, perhaps the Loudoun County superintendent and the remaining school board members will finally recognize the harm they are causing their community, feel some shame, and do the right thing by resigning immediately.