The REAL Cover-Up in Loudoun County, by Emmy Griffin

On Tuesday, news broke about the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) possibly covering up the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl by a male student in the girls’ bathroom. Unfortunately, the scandal gets even darker.

In 2020, Virginia lawmakers voted to update the procedure that schools had to go through during instances of sexual battery, stalking, violent threats against a person or property, or violations of a protective order. This updated code would allow schools to handle said incidents in-house and not have to notify law enforcement. Sexual battery is classified as inappropriate touching that is forced or coerced. In Virginia, sexual battery is considered a misdemeanor. What happened to this girl was aggravated sexual battery (rape and sodomy), which is a felony. That’s bad enough, but this new law allows the stifling of misdemeanors. It comes into play here because, according to the father of the victim, Scott Smith, the school told him it would be handling the incident “in-house” after passing it off as just an assault.  …