Is there is a more sinister explanation than cowardice or apathy for why Governor Youngkin refuses to fight for the educational and civil rights of disabled students in Virginia? Is it because Youngkin secretly believes that spending money on the disabled is not an “efficient use of capital”? Is Governor Youngkin essentially an economic Darwinist with respect to disabled students?
Glenn Youngkin’s background is from private equity, the purported new “Masters of the Universe”. He is a graduate of the elitist Harvard Business School and spent his entire career practicing the dark arts of private equity. Both backgrounds subscribe to the “efficient use of capital” over any other philosophy. The founder of the private equity firm where Youngkin spent his entire career has publicly stated that “private equity is the highest calling of mankind” — not teaching children, curing cancer or working for peace, but buying assets, stripping them down and selling them. Youngkin served as Co-CEO of this private equity fund. “More and more people, especially the relatively poor, may live almost their entire lives in systems owned by one or another private equity firm: financiers are their landlords, their electricity providers, their ride to work, their employers, their doctors, their debt collectors.” Private equity firms and related asset managers “increasingly own the physical as well as financial world around us,” the scholar Brett Christophers writes. Having spent his entire career in this industry, more than anything else, Youngkin IS private equity, and is defined by its value system.
Does Governor Youngkin secretly believe that supporting the educational rights of special needs students is not as “capital efficient” and therefore less worthy than say supporting gifted students? The evidence suggests so. Both Youngkin and his attorney general Jason Miyares reacted almost immediately when they learned about Fairfax County withholding National Merit Test results for gifted students. Youngkin immediately called for an investigation. Recently Youngkin also immediately jumped on the bandwagon to support the announcement by Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice of an investigation into alleged admissions discrimination by the Thomas Jefferson High School, a school for gifted students, even though this scandal like the National Merit test scandal both happened on Youngkin’s watch as Governor.
In January of 2023, we filed a nearly 140-page amended complaint that outlined in detail a two decade scandal in the way Virginia violates the rights of disabled children. Youngkin has never publicly acknowledged this lawsuit or the scandal it exposed. Not only were they silent about the decades of discrimination against the disabled exposed by our civil rights class action, Youngkin and Miyares quietly hired the largest law firm in Virginia to fight our efforts for reform.
If he secretly believes that the allocation of resources for the disabled is not “capital efficient”, Youngkin will have to explain why he allows Virginia to take billions of dollars each year from the Federal government, as outlined in detail in our class action complaint – money that is earmarked solely for disabled children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And more important, why Governor Youngkin has not been a better steward of such federal money when two decades of discrimination have occurred in Virginia against its disabled students — including now on Youngkin’s watch — and Youngkin is using Virginia taxpayer funds to fight reform for these souls.
Why isn’t the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice investigating the decades-long scandal exposed by our civil rights class action? And why isn’t Governor Youngkin publicly supporting such an investigation like he is right now for gifted students?
Finally, where are you on these issues Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears? We hear nothing but silence from you, yet you have been part of the Youngkin administration and are now running for Governor of Virginia.
Support our fight for reform in the way Virginia treats its disabled students. www.hearourvoices.us.