Justice Department says it moved to intervene in Loudoun locker-room lawsuit

The U.S. Justice Department has moved to intervene in a lawsuit against the Loudoun County School Board brought by parents who say their sons were suspended after objecting to sharing a locker room with a transgender student, the department's top official said in June.

Then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described the move during a June 11, 2026 roundtable at the department, "Exposing Weaponization Against Parents in Schools." The transcript is reprinted in DOJ's 273-page "2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools," released this week and dated Oct. 5. The report says Blanche is now attorney general.

"At the beginning of the year, we moved to intervene to defend the rights of students in a lawsuit brought by parents on behalf of their children against the Loudoun County School Board," Blanche said, according to the transcript. "In that case, the parents allege that their sons were forced to share a locker room with a self-identifying transgender male student. When the boys expressed discomfort with having to do so, the school suspended them."

"The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend the rights of these students, their parents, and all others like them who simply want to express their views in their communities," he said.

The transcript and report do not give the case name, the court, the number of students involved, the school they attend, the legal claims, or whether a judge granted the department's motion. Blanche's description of the parents' allegations is the only account of the case in the report. The report does not include a response from the Loudoun County School Board.

Blanche presented the intervention as part of a broader shift in how the department approaches parents and schools. He said Attorney General Pamela Bondi rescinded former Attorney General Merrick Garland's 2021 memo on threats against school officials on her first day. He said she then "issued a new memo directing the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Offices to work with local governments to protect the federal rights of parents rather than violate them." "We will not tolerate abuse of parents exercising their constitutional rights," Blanche said.

The report's main subject is the 2021 Garland memo, which the working group concludes was produced under White House pressure and over objections from DOJ and FBI attorneys. Loudoun County runs through that account. The report opens with Loudoun father Scott Smith, who was arrested at a June 22, 2021 school board meeting weeks after his daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls' restroom at Stone Bridge High School. According to the report, the male student involved "identified as a female" and "was allowed to enter the girls' restroom pursuant to a 'bathroom policy'" adopted by Loudoun County Public Schools officials.

The report reprints in full a separate October 2025 federal lawsuit filed on behalf of that student against the Loudoun County School Board and five former school officials. It alleges that, at the time, it was the policy or practice at Stone Bridge and other Loudoun high schools "to allow male students dressed in female attire to enter girls' restrooms without consequence." The complaint also describes "Policy 8040," which it calls a proposal under which students who identify as female would have had access to girls' restrooms, locker rooms and sports at all Loudoun schools. It says the policy was under discussion at the June 22, 2021 meeting. Those allegations have not been proven in court.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, speaking at the same roundtable, said her department had designated Loudoun and four other Northern Virginia districts as "high-risk entities for blatant and ongoing violations of Title IX." She said it had placed them on reimbursement status for more than $50 million in federal funds. She did not name the other districts.

Smith told the panel that during former Gov. Glenn Youngkin's term, the Loudoun board had repeatedly voted "to reject state issued safety and parental notification guidelines."

Blanche closed the roundtable by saying the issue "was a priority of President Trump's when he was running" and would remain one. "This is and will remain something that when I'm no longer here... I expect will last beyond us, which is the goal," he said.

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,

Loudoun County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Leesburg.