You probably remember this case from last year where a boy wearing a skirt had sex with a girl in the girl’s bathroom of a high school in Loudoun County, Virginia. That student then told authorities she’d been assaulted and the assailant was eventually moved to another school where he subsequently kidnapped and raped a girl.
For many of us this first came to our attention when a man was arrested at a public school board meeting during a protest of the school board’s new bathroom use policy. The man who was arrested was the father of the first girl assaulted.
This week, Superintendent Ziegler was finally fired after a grand jury report concluded he had intentionally lied to the public to protect his own interests.
Following a two-hour closed session to discuss the special grand jury’s report on Loudoun County Public Schools administration’s handling of two sexual assaults by the same student, the School Board voted unanimously and without public discussion Tuesday to fire Superintendent Scott Ziegler immediately and without cause…
“It’s unfortunate that it took a special grand jury report for anyone to take any action,” stated Jessica Smith, the mother of the first victim. “The firing of Ziegler was way overdue and we hope this is the first of many firings of all those who failed these young women who now have to deal with what happened to them for the rest of their lives.”
Shortly before that vote, in a Board of Supervisors meeting happening at the same time, Loudoun County Chair Phyllis Randall (D-At Large) had called on the School Board to fire Ziegler.
“Let me say this as clearly as possible: Dr. Scott Ziegler needs to be fired,” she said during the Dec. 6 Board of Supervisors meeting. “I’m not dancing around this. We had a young woman violently raped and another one assaulted, and this was for all intents and purposes, on his part, a coverup.”
The Washington Post has more on the specific lie Ziegler told but the way the Post reports this leaves out some important details:
The student assailant was wearing women’s clothing during the first assault, which initially began as a consensual encounter in a bathroom. That May assault came a few months before the Loudoun system adopted a policy allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identities. The policy was not in effect at the time of the assault, and there is no evidence to suggest the male student is transgender…
Read Related Also: Brittney Griner freed in US-Russia prisoner swap
The grand jury report had concluded that Ziegler was informed about the May assault on the day it happened but that he later lied about his knowledge of the event during a board meeting the following month. When asked by a board member whether Loudoun had records of “assaults in our bathrooms or in our locker rooms regularly,” Ziegler replied with a falsehood, the report states.
Ziegler said, “To my knowledge we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” A witness told the grand jury that this statement was a “baldfaced lie.”
Ziegler has said he misunderstood the question at the meeting. He said he believed the board member was asking whether the school had records of sexual assaults committed in bathrooms by transgender or gender-fluid students.
There are several layers to this which I want to point out individually. First, we know from the grand jury report that Ziegler did know about the assault because he was emailed the day it happened. And here’s where the Post’s description falls a bit short. There’s no evidence the male assailant is trans, however when the chief operating officer for the school system went to the school and discussed it with the principal, he learned the assailant had been wearing a skirt. He then sent an email to superintendent Ziegler and others which specifically connected the incident to the district’s new bathroom policy: “The incident at SBHS is related to policy 8040.” As the report explains, policy 8040 addressed the rights of transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice. It’s odd that the Post leaves that out of the story because it’s obviously relevant. The assailant may not have been trans but do we know he wasn’t gender fluid?
Again, the assailant may not have been trans and the new policy was not in effect at the time. Nevertheless, superintendent Ziegler was told the assault was connected. So Ziegler not only lied when he said he wasn’t aware of any assault, he also lied when he claimed he’d misunderstood the question to mean assaults by trans or gender fluid students. In fact he’d been told the assault may have involved a trans or gender fluid student (hence the connection to policy 8040).
And there’s more. As soon as the email went out, superintendent Ziegler and his deputy superintendent and director of communications all joined a zoom call to discuss what had happened directly with the principal. The principal told the grand jury that everyone wanted to know what had happened but everyone else on the call claimed to not be able to remember what they spoke about. The grand jury report notes that this meeting of all the top brass on the day of the assault was obviously “critical” to an understanding of what happened next. The report states, “We believe there was intentional institutional amnesia regarding this meeting.” After that meeting the principal sent out a message to parents which mentioned a disruption at the school (by the victim’s father) but it made no mention of the sexual assault.
So the good news is that Ziegler was finally fired. This would never have happened if Glenn Youngkin hadn’t been elected governor. The bad news is that Ziegler was fired without cause.
Under the terms of his contract, since he was fired without cause, Ziegler will be paid his full $323,000 annual salary and compensation for the next year in monthly installments. On top of his salary, his compensation includes perks such as a $12,000 annual vehicle allowance, health insurance and retirement benefits. The School Board had approved a $28,000 raise for Ziegler in July.
That really is a shame. The man lied about an assault and then put the assailant in another school where he went on to rape another high school student. He doesn’t deserve a golden parachute.
