Loudoun Chief Of Staff No Longer Employed After Rape Handling

Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Chief of Staff Mark Smith is no longer employed by the school system, local news reported, an apparent casualty of the district’s handling of the bathroom rape first revealed by The Daily Wire.

A school board member told news channel WJLA, which first reported on the change, that “he had obligations under Title IX and they weren’t met. He was not a Title IX expert, but it was his job… Someone had to pay and it was him.” Title IX is a federal regulation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

WJLA cited the anonymous school board member after the district’s spokesman, Wayde Byard, hung up on its reporter twice when the reporter asked who the district’s current chief of staff was, the outlet reported.

The removal undercuts Superintendent Scott Ziegler’s initial partial apology, in which he blamed the federal government and said Title IX rules prevented it from doing more–possibly an attempt to hide behind politicization by alluding to Donald Trump’s previous education secretary. Ziegler said a main way the school system was learning from the incident was that it would lobby to change Title IX.