Loudoun County (Va.) district agrees to racial discrimination reforms after state probe

The Loudoun County (Va.) school district has agreed to a series of reforms following an investigation by the Virginia Attorney General's Office into racial discrimination in the admissions policies at an elite magnet school.

The Associated Press reports that the agreement announced by Attorney General Mark Herring goes beyond the admissions policies at the new Academies of Loudoun, a science and technology high school established in Leesburg in 2018 with a selective admissions process.

African American students have been significantly underrepresented in the school's student body.

It also covers discrimination policies across the school system, and places the district under third-party monitoring.

In some instances, the agreement subjects the schools system to ongoing review of changes that have already been initiated, including revisions to a dress code to identify Confederate and Nazi symbols as racially hostile.

[From September 2020: Loudoun County (Va.) school district apologizes for dragging its feet on desegregation]

The Loudoun County district also agreed to annually review policies for responding to hate speech and slurs, Herring's office said in a news release.

The investigation is the first ever by the attorney general's office into allegations of systemic racial discrimination within a state school system. It was launched after the Loudoun County branch of the NAACP filed a complaint.

Michelle Thomas, president of the NAACP's Loudoun branch, called the agreement a significant milestone that has real teeth and enforcement provisions.

“It will force Loudoun County to get out from the shadows of discrimination,” she says.

In a statement on its website, the district says it does not agree with a number of the attorney general's findings, but that it considers the resulting agreement a success that will reinforce reforms that were already underway.