By Bridget Manley, publisher
Harrisonburg City Public Schools officials are pushing back after the White House cited the district as an example of “indoctrination” of children.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday called “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” It declared that federal money could not be used on the “indoctrination” of children and threatened that federal funds would be eliminated for those systems in “support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
In an accompanying fact sheet, the Harrisonburg City School System was one of three systems referenced as having “widespread indoctrination of gender ideology” or teaching “critical race theory.” Suddenly, Harrisonburg was making national news, as a result.
The fact sheet says the Harrisonburg schools “implemented a policy forcing teachers to ‘always use a student’s preferred names and pronouns’ while using different ones with their parents.”
But Superintendent Michael Richards, School Board Chair Emma Phillips and the rest of the board responded that the fact sheet was not factual.
“This statement in the “Fact Sheet” is demonstrably false,” the school board wrote in a statement posted on its website Thursday evening. “HCPS never implemented such a policy.”
Richards also published his own statement on Facebook.
“We do not have a policy that violates anyone’s rights or indoctrinates children,” he said.
How Harrisonburg landed in the White House’s political crosshairs stems from a saga that goes back more than three years.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based conservative legal advocacy group, sued the Harrisonburg School Board and Richards on behalf of three teachers and three parents who claimed that teaching materials used in an optional teacher training session in 2021 amounted to district-wide policies. The teachers said they felt they were being forced to “lie to parents” and use students’ preferred gender pronouns.
“It is plain to see that the Fact Sheet was informed by inaccurate narratives, not by the very public record of the ADF litigation that concluded in December 2024,” the school board’s statement said. “That record—including Division Superintendent’s letters, the Court’s Final Order, and other court filings that directly contradict the Fact Sheet and misinformed narratives— is available for all to review on the HCPS website.”
Throughout the legal battle, Richards and the board said the training materials were optional and that teachers would not be disciplined for their religious beliefs nor asked to lie to parents to conceal a student’s chosen pronouns or names.
The legal battle concluded in December. The three teachers opted for a religious exemption, and ADF claimed victory.
The religious exemption had always been an option for the teachers, though, and an informal policy was formalized a year before the settlement in court.
Richards said that while the religious exemption was available for teachers, it was unnecessary in this case because it was never “compelled speech,” i.e., when the government forces a person or group to express a specific idea or support a particular message.
Three school systems called out
The White House’s fact sheet accompanying the executive order listed two other school systems as examples: the Albemarle County School District in Virginia and the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin.
One common denominator across all three districts is that ADF has sued them all.
ADF and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty sued the Madison Metropolitan School District in 2020 on behalf of 14 anonymous participants. The suit challenged a policy preventing school staff from disclosing medical or identifying information regarding transgender and non-binary students.
A Dane County judge ultimately dismissed the suit, according to the Wisconsin Examiner, saying the parents did not have standing because the policy hadn’t caused anyone harm.
After the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, the two conservative organizations decided not to further pursue it.
In Virginia’s Albemarle County, ADF sued the school system and their superintendent on behalf of five families in 2021, alleging that the system’s then-new anti-racism curriculum contained racially discriminatory policies towards students.
A Virginia Circuit Court dismissed the case in 2022, according to Virginia Public Media. ADF appealed, and the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the decision. That decision remained in place after the Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The school board responds
Richards released a statement on Facebook Thursday morning snapping back at the White House, saying that calling out specific school districts is an attempt to have a chilling effect on educators.
“Naming specific school divisions is using fear as a weapon. Fear to silence educators. Fear to divide communities. Fear to force compliance with an ideology that deliberately targets the most vulnerable,” Richards wrote. “Let me be clear: I will not be intimidated. I stand firm in my commitment to ensuring that HCPS remains a safe, welcoming place for all.”
He also said the White House mischaracterized the district.
“What we do have is a culture of respect—one that honors the dignity and diversity of all students, families, and educators,” Richards continued.
In a statement to The Citizen, Board Chair Emma Phillips said she was “deeply disappointed.”
“The information presented is inaccurate, as evidenced by the public record. I want to reaffirm the statement made earlier today by Dr. Richards—HCPS fosters a culture of respect that upholds the dignity and diversity of all students, families, and educators,” she said. “It is reckless and unacceptable to see our schools misrepresented in this way, and we will continue to stand by our commitment to truth, inclusion, and integrity.”
ADF did not answer questions from The Citizen about whether it provided any support or information to the Trump Administration for the order.
However, the organization responded to The Citizen with a statement from Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the Center for Academic Freedom that said “schools exist to educate, not indoctrinate children.”
“As the U.S. Supreme Court recently wrote, K-12 schools are the ‘nurseries of democracy,’ underscoring the inherent duty of schools to teach students how to engage in civil discourse on difficult topics and build common ground, rather than separate based on their differences,” Langhofer wrote. “President Trump is right to ensure that federal funding of education goes toward teaching our nation’s children to love and respect each other—and our great nation—rather than pit kids against each other, and against the fundamental freedoms that make America exceptional. All students deserve to learn in the best possible environment, free from discriminatory policies, where they can truly flourish and thrive.”
In its statement, the Harrisonburg school board underscored that its goal is to create that type of environment for students.
“HCPS is committed to treating all persons in the community with dignity and respect, and to ensuring that all students and employees are accorded equal protection under the law,” the board said, concluding their statement. “Our commitment to these core values is evidenced in various ways, including the public record referenced above, and our overall relationship with the Harrisonburg community.”
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