Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin was absolutely right to pardon Scott Smith, a Loudoun County Viriginia father, who was arrested for publicly standing up to his local school board as they tried to ignore the rape of his teenage daughter in the girls restroom at Stone Bridge High School in the Northern Virginia school district.
Gov. Youngkin spoke to Mr. Smith on Friday, telling him that he would be pardoned. Youngkin told Fox News Sunday that “We righted a wrong. He never should have been prosecuted here.” Youngkin added, “This was a dad standing up for his daughter, and just to remind everyone, his daughter had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a school and no one was doing anything about it … the superintendent had in fact covered it up.”
The skirt-wearing, self-identified “gender-fluid” male student who assaulted Smith’s 15-year-old daughter was quietly transferred to another Loudoun County public school where he assaulted another girl in a classroom in October of 2021. As Gov. Youngkin noted, county school officials tried to pretend the first incident never happened.
Smith was unceremoniously arrested at his local school board meeting on June 22, 2021, as he angrily and rightfully tried to speak about what happened to his daughter. During the arrest, Smith had been hit in the face and dragged out of the board meeting by officials.
As the Daily Wire stated, “Minutes before Smith’s arrest, the Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent, Scott Zeigler, lectured the public that concerns about the transgender policy [being debated] were misplaced because the school system had no record of any assault occurring in any school bathroom.” But this was not true.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board reported, “Mr. Smith erupted when a member of the audience denied there had been an assault.” A natural and righteous reaction. The Journal correctly explains how this good father’s actions were wildly politicized at the highest levels of government to nationally demonize involved, concerned parents.
The press treated Mr. Smith’s verbal protest as part of some larger right-wing campaign of violence. The National School Boards Association cited the episode as an example of potential domestic terrorism in a letter to President Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland followed with a letter asking the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to investigate threats against local school boards that haven’t materialized. These actions appear to have been an attempt to fit Mr. Smith into the Democratic Party’s portrayal of conservative critics of government as motivated by hatred.
The Journal adds, “Gov. Youngkin’s pardon rights that wrong, and it has the added benefit of showing parents what is at stake when they vote for a new Virginia Legislature in November.”
Our nation needs more dads, not fewer, like Scott Smith who stand strongly and vocally against the violation of their children and against official cover-ups of such crimes. The Daily Citizen congratulates Gov. Glenn Youngkin for righting this wrong.
Photo from Getty.
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