It has been stated that Virginia’s disabled children are “the Invisible” to Governor Glenn Youngkin — representing over 180,000 souls, half of whose families live at or below the poverty line.

In 2024 Governor Youngkin signed into law legislation that directed the Virginia Commission on Youth to “study and make recommendations on Virginia’s special education dispute resolution system”.  The Virginia Commission on Youth recently published, in the final months of Youngkin’s term in office, the report of Deusdedi Merced, now known as the “Merced Report”.  Merced was tasked by the Youth Commission to study Virginia’s special education dispute resolution system given the widespread allegations of civil rights violations and violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and Virginia public school systems. Hear Our Voices made those same allegations in the class action that we filed against the VDOE and Fairfax County in September of 2022. 

The Merced Report delivered a devastating assessment of how Virginia treats the families of disabled when they seek to exercise their federal rights under the IDEA in Virginia’s special education dispute resolution system.  The Merced Report recommends radical reform to the “infrastructure” of this system, including independent, impartial oversight over the corrupted hearing officers who currently preside over such IDEA disputes as purported impartial judges. The Merced Report echoes the same call for reform that Hear Our Voices published on its website in 2022, and that Hear Our Voices has been fighting for in its current class action.

Given the objective validation of the allegations of the Hear Our Voices class action by the Merced Report, the public should understand the culpability of Governor Youngkin for his failure to even try to address the scandal affecting special education that the Hear Our Voices class action exposed. One has to ask what was Glenn Youngkin doing for disabled children during his four year term?  Didn’t Youngkin run for Governor on the principal promise of education reform?  Who advised Glenn Youngkin in the corridors of power where no one could hear what was spoken?

One of his advisors was Richard Cullen, a former senior partner and chairman of McGuireWoods, the largest law firm in Virginia and the firm that defended Glenn Youngkin’s administration against the class action filed by Hear Our Voices. Cullen is the former Attorney General of Virginia and was a member of Governor Youngkin’s cabinet listed by the Governor’s Office as “Counselor to the Governor.”

Hear Our Voices imagines what secret, privileged conversations may have occurred sotto voce between Glenn Youngkin and Richard Cullen when our class action was first filed in 2022 against VDOE and Fairfax County.  Could the conversation have been anything like the following given what we now know from the Merced Report?

Youngkin: Richard, the issue of how special needs children are treated in Virginia is a quagmire. And fighting the bureaucrats running the Virginia public schools seems like it would be a really tough fight. I could get beaten up politically and look weak to the voting public. How do I deal with the allegations in this Hear Our Voices lawsuit?

Cullen: You don’t. Just ignore them. Pretend publicly that they don’t exist. And then have Miyares hire my firm McGuireWoods, the largest law firm in Virginia. They will make complex procedural arguments that no one in the general public will understand and that will tie down the Hear Our Voices team for years. That will buy you at least three years so you don’t have to do anything for the special needs community. 

During that time, announce that Virginia Commission on Youth will “study” the issues affecting special needs children. That will make you look empathetic and like you are doing something. It will also allow you to distance yourself from the issues and outsource the work to someone else just like they taught you at Harvard Business School so you don’t have to get your hands dirty. The Commission will themselves outsource all the hard work to a “consultant” so that they too don’t have to get their hands dirty.  All of this will take years to get anything done.

Hell, the consultant probably won’t complete its work until your final year in office so you won’t have any accountability.  No one will then be watching because they will be so distracted by who will be elected to replace you.

Youngkin: Yes, the commission and consultant strategy sound brilliant.  A great way to never actually have to think about education reform which was my principal promise that got me elected. But what about this Hear Our Voices class action and their team? They are getting a lot of positive media attention that is making me feel uncomfortable, and frankly vaguely guilty.  I really don’t like the phrase they are using “the Invisible” to describe how I am obviously ignoring disabled children.

Cullen:  Don’t worry about it. If you pay my firm enough money, we have the expertise to truly make the procedural arguments complex enough to keep the district court and the appellate court tied up in knots for years. I think we can drag out the procedural arguments on appeal until the end of your term to coincide with the commission and consultant scheme. You will never have to get your hands dirty much less have to fight anyone like the tough bureaucrats running the Virginia public schools. 

And if the media, like the Richmond Times-Dispatch, gives you a hard time, just blame the three Superintendents of Education that you appointed over the last three years and fired in as many years. This way you can delegate and deflect responsibility for any of the problems that have been plaguing the education of special needs children for the last two decades.  

Optics, Glenn, optics.  That’s what ultimately matters in politics, not courage.

Youngkin: So I can focus on my real ambition which is to be President of the country?

Cullen:  Exactly. Honoring political promises like education reform is overrated.  Nobody really expects politicians to honor their promises. Besides, who really cares about disabled kids anyway? They only cost money and you want to go out with a budget surplus and positive optics. 

Youngkin: You are so right, Richard. We have nearly a $3 billion budget surplus in Virginia right now. No way I want the positive optics of that surplus to be undermined by spending it on the education of the disabled. I want my hands soft and clean from no hard fights so I can realize my Presidential ambitions.  And, after I leave office I am a multimillionaire from my years as a private equity baron before running for Governor! Life is good. I am so glad I have you as my wise counselor, Richard, and that no one will ever hear this conversation.

Cullen: It’s attorney-client privileged, Glenn. That is the magic of working with lawyers.  No one will ever know the truth. 

Cabinet- Richard Cullen | Governor.Virginia.gov https://share.google/Kth6JSaN7fjmOLIDg

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While Hear Our Voices intends this social media post as satire, the public needs to understand the culpability of Governor Youngkin and everyone in his administration for their betrayal of their promises to reform education in light of the special education scandal that the Hear Our Voices class action exposed.  We have unfortunately been sidelined and delayed by the procedural arguments made against our case, and have been waiting now for eighteen (18) months for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on our appeal so our class action may move forward. 

As we have been forced to the side lines on technical issues that have nothing to do with the merits of our claims, we ask you how does power look as it is exercised in secret when no one thinks you are looking?

Does it look like Attorney General Jason Miyares using his power to threaten the NCAA so that his college football team can get a bowl game, and then refusing to investigate the special needs scandal Hear Our Voices exposed as validated by the Merced report?  Does it look like Miyares using the resources of the Attorney General’s office to fight our writ of mandamus all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, in which we asked the Virginia Supreme Court to require his office investigate our allegations, while at the same time Miyares focused those same resources on securing a college football bowl game for his alma mater?

Does it look like Lieutenant Governor Winsome-Sears going out of her way to criticize the existing President, yet remaining completely silent during the last four years when she possessed real power to step in and make a difference for the special needs community?  Did she ever even talk about the special education crisis in her campaign for Governor?

How does power look when Glenn Youngkin and Richard Cullen, two of the most powerful men in Virginia, determine the fate of and consider whether to help the families of special needs children, half of whom live at or below the poverty line in Virginia?  Did Richard Cullen operate in the shadows to prevent any reform of special education?  Does the above imagined conversation between Youngkin and Cullen ring true to you? 

Finally, given the Merced report, authored by the consultant the Youth Commission hired, Youngkin now knows that the major allegations made in the Hear Our Voices class action are true.  Do you believe that Glenn Youngkin will go “quietly into the night” as he leaves office, having never attempted to fight for reform of special education in Virginia to improve the lives of over 180,000 souls in Virginia? 

“Quietly into the night”.

Unlike Youngkin, Hear Our Voices will not go quietly into the night.