January 16, 2022

On Day One, Virginia’s New Republican Governor Ends Mask and Vaccine Mandates

Glenn Youngkin, who campaigned against anti-racist education, delivers for the GOP base.

Steve Helber/AP

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Glenn Youngkin, the first Republican governor of Virginia since 2014, is wasting no time enacting policies that will harm the state’s people of color. On Saturday, his first day in office, he signed 11 executive actions that, among other things, will make it harder for schools to teach kids about racism. The orders also scrap rules that slowed the spread of the coronavirus amid a pandemic that the state’s health department says has hit Black and brown families the hardest.

“The spirit of Virginia is alive and well,” Youngkin said in his inaugural address. “And together we will strengthen it. Together we’ll renew the promise of Virginia, so it will be the best place to live, work and raise a family.”

Youngkin, a political newcomer and former private equity executive, was endorsed by Donald Trump. His victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe was one of the most closely watched elections since President Joe Biden took office, giving more power to Republicans in a swing state that, over the past two decades, has increasingly leaned Democratic.

Here’s a sampling of his day one executive actions:

  • Race in schools: To be clear, under the previous governor, Virginia schoolkids were not learning critical race theory, an academic theory developed in colleges and graduate schools that explores how systemic racism broadly infects US society. But that didn’t stop Youngkin from whipping up fear around CRT to mobilize the GOP base. On Saturday, he ordered state education officials to review and end any education policies, practices, or materials that endorse “inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory.” He said “political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms.”
  • Masks in schools: Youngkin rescinded a statewide mask mandate for public school students, giving parents the power to send their kids to class without face coverings even as coronavirus cases skyrocket because of the omicron variant. He said he was “reaffirming the rights of parents in the upbringing, education, and care of their children.”
  • Incarceration: Youngkin fired the Virginia Parole Board’s members and hired new ones. The new appointees include a former police officer who was shot in 1984 while working off duty, and recently led an effort to block the shooter from leaving prison on parole. 
  • Vaccines: Youngkin rescinded a rule requiring state employees to get a coronavirus vaccine or submit to weekly testing.

One of the governor’s other executive actions directs the state’s attorney general to investigate Loudoun County’s public schools, after a 14-year-old student committed two sexual assaults. Because the student is nonbinary and committed an assault in a school bathroom, the case generated national attention and backlash against the school district’s policy of allowing transgender kids to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. The teenager has already been placed on the sex offender registry for life.

Other Youngkin executive actions set up a commission to prevent human trafficking, established a committee to fight antisemitism, and took steps to withdraw Virginia from a regional climate initiative that aimed at reducing power plants emissions.

At least in certain corners of the state, the governor is already facing pushback: On Saturday, the superintendent of Richmond schools announced that he would keep the mask requirement in place for students, staffers, and visitors. Other school districts will too.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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