Parents revolt rocks Virginia school district

FPI / June 11, 2021

Critical Race Theory is "the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution," a Chinese woman who suffered under the brutal communist regime of Mao Zedong said during another contentious meeting of the Loudoun County School Board in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C.

Vehemently denouncing the school board's championing of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Xi Van Fleet noted at the Tuesday meeting: “I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools. You are now training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history. Growing up in Mao’s China, all of this seems very familiar. The Communist regime used the same critical theory to divide people; the only difference is they used class instead of race.”

The Virginia mom likened CRT, which critics deride as a form of "neo-racism," to China’s Cultural Revolution, a Mao-led purge that left some 20 million people dead from 1966 to 1976.

She concluded: “This is, indeed, the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The Critical Race Theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our schools.”

At the same meeting, parents blasted the decision by Loudoun County Schools to suspend gym teacher Byron "Tanner" Cross after his now-viral comments about gender.

"Where is your regard for our freedom of speech?" asked parent Rachel Pisani, who said she was a mother of three in Loudoun County. "When I saw a teacher express an opinion and suspended for expressing his religious beliefs, I could no longer stay silent. When did it become acceptable to be tolerant only when someone expresses a view that we agree with? When did it become appropriate to silence those that hold Christian, biblical views just because you don't? When did it become appropriate to allow the school board – I don't know who you think you are – but it is not appropriate, it is not allowable to silence, bully, or dismiss our views."

Cross sparked an uproar last month when he told the school board he wouldn't "affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it's against my religion. It's lying to a child, it's abuse to a child, and it's sinning against our God."

Just days after that speech, Cross was told in a letter not to come on the school's premises. The letter vaguely stated the school district was investigating "allegations that you engaged in conduct that has had a disruptive impact on the operations" of his school.

A judge on Tuesday ordered Loudoun County Public Schools to reinstate Cross, arguing it violated his right to free speech.

Another resident told the board: "Even being threatened with termination for simply speaking one's opinion creates a culture of fear and silence – and this does not help anyone on either side of the aisle."

Teacher Monica Gill told the board its suspension of Cross and other actions the board has taken "resemble totalitarianism, not the Constitution."

She added that "first and foremost, I am a Christian. What is most important? We live in truth, not lies. We look at character, not skin color. We love our lord and we love others. Know this – We will not yield. We will not let you have our souls or the souls of our children."

Van Fleet, whose son graduated from Loudoun High School in 2015, shared some of her experience growing up in China’s Sichuan province with Fox News on Wednesday. She said the Cultural Revolution began when she was 6 years old and immediately pitted students and teachers against one another by hanging "Big Posters" in hallways and the cafeteria where students could write criticisms against anyone deemed ideologically impure.

Communist squads would raid homes and destroy any relics of China’s past culture, history, governments or religion, she said. "Everything that was considered ‘old,’ feudalist, a vase, Buddhas, everything was taken out and smashed."

When she was 26, Van Fleet said she finally made it out of China and to the U.S. – where she immediately found freedoms she had never been able to enjoy before.

In the current political and cultural climate in the U.S., however, she said she felt some of that freedom eroding.

"I can’t really just say what I mean, even though the other side can say whatever," she said. "To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here."

Free Press International