The father of a Virginia student sexually assaulted in her high school bathroom has been pardoned after his arrest two years ago protesting a school board meeting became a flashpoint in the conservative push to increase parental involvement in public education.
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Fox News Sunday that he had pardoned Scott Smith of his disorderly conduct conviction stemming from the June 2021 incident. The episode featured prominently throughout the gubernatorial campaign that year for Youngkin, who has made support for the so-called “parents’ rights” movement a cornerstone of his political brand.
“Scott Smith is a dedicated parent who’s faced unwarranted charges in his pursuit to protect his daughter,” Youngkin said Sunday in a press release. “Scott’s commitment to his child despite the immense obstacles is emblematic of the parental empowerment movement that started in Virginia.”
According to Loudoun Now, Smith threatened to kick out the teeth of deputies who dragged him away from a Loudoun County School Board meeting over state-mandated protections for transgender students. The local news outlet reported that he had argued loudly, clenched his fist and sworn at a woman while demanding answers over the handling of his daughter’s assault.
Basically, Republicans were super excited about this whole thing because it backs up two things they particularly like: (1) A rare and exciting confirmation of their almost-totally-hallucinatory claim that we urgently need to keep transgender people out of bathrooms to protect the children (2) People on their team being above the law, and justified in violently resisting law enforcement if someone tries to subject them to the same rules as everyone else (the fascist playbook of replacing “what did you do?” with “which team are you on?” when deciding whether someone is guilty of a crime).
I can understand why the father lost his shit over his daughter being sexually assaulted kn a bathroom. The governor is slimy as shit for taking advantage of the situation. But trans or not, the school fucked up in how they handled the situation.
IDK anything about how this particular school handled this particular situation, but I genuinely can’t think offhand of even a single situation where a school at any level properly handled a physical or sexual assault on their campus. Just call the cops. It’s a crime, fuck the school administration, deal with the system that at least has a track record of prosecuting in a meaningful way some nonzero percent of the cases of assault that they come in contact with. You can keep the school administration informed of what you’re doing, or not, and ask or subpoena them for information, according to what you feel is necessary.
Mrm, I dunno. I keep thinking, if this was a Black man protesting an instance of police brutality in the same way and he got pardoned, would liberals rejoice and say justice was served? Probably.
We’re all biased. Not necessarily to the same degree, but it always bears asking yourself “what would we do in the same situation?”
That is not equivalent. A genderfluid person assaulting his daughter, awful as that is, is not a systemic problem like police violence. It says nothing about genderfluid or trans people as a whole.
Fair point on a societal level, but I don’t think that would matter to a father of an abused daughter. I still think empathy is warranted.
Empathy, I 100% agree with. I think the father in that situation should get a lot of leeway for getting overly emotional in his response. And I think I remember that the court system actually did do that: Gave him recognition of the fact that he was generally a good citizen who had a good explanation for why he lost his shit, and gave him probation and dismissed some of the charges.
I do also think the woman who he was in the argument with in the school board meeting has a right to her own safety and to say what she wants to say without somebody threatening her, whatever their reasons. I also think that it’s relevant what is best for his daughter. I think usually that reaction of “something happened to my daughter so I’m gonna get violent against unrelated people” does more harm than good overall. Being solid and emotionally stable is usually the best thing you can do for your family whatever happens, even if it’s easier said than done.
IDK, I’m not trying to sit in judgement of the guy. Like I say, I get it.