Sidley Austin, LLP
1501 K Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
 

Attorney General Jason Miyares
c/o Christine L. Johnson
Virginia Office of the Attorney General
202 North 9th Street
Richmond, VA 23219

Re: Fairfax County Public Schools

Dear Attorney General Miyares:

As you know, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has cooperated, and continues to cooperate, with your office’s investigation focusing on notification to FCPS high school students regarding their National Merit commendations. However, when you recently (on June 1) filed a petition seeking to subpoena a privileged investigation report prepared by an outside law firm retained by FCPS, FCPS expressed a number of concerns. One key concern was that your actions could lead to the public disclosure of the names of 23 FCPS employees who were interviewed as part of that investigation, invading their individual privacy and potentially subjecting them to harassment and threats. Your office to date has shown relatively little sensitivity to such concerns. In fact, your June 1 court filing openly disclosed those names in non-confidential exhibits attached in support of your petition.

To their credit, your staff this past week agreed with us to take actions to keep those exhibits out of the public record. Nevertheless, as recently as last Tuesday, in a televised interview, you appeared to dismiss the significance of such privacy and safety concerns. You claimed in that June 13 interview that you were entirely unaware of anything supporting concerns that FCPS teachers and staff have received threats over this issue, saying, “None of that has reached my desk.” You also told the reporter that “the first time” you “heard” of concerns about such threats was through a June 12 recorded statement by FCPS Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid. You also claimed that there is no “evidence whatsoever” of any “credible threats” to FCPS teachers and staff.

Those public statements were inaccurate. Over three months ago, on March 14, 2023, we sent a letter notifying you directly that multiple FCPS educators had received serious threats after your office publicly identified those individuals by name and accused them of discriminating against students. The letter asked you to immediately stop this dangerous practice as it was putting people at risk. We elaborated on the extreme severity of those threats in a subsequent call with your senior staff, stressing that the affected individuals had been fearful for their own safety. We also informed you and your staff that law enforcement officials have treated these threats as credible and taken them very seriously.

In your June 13 televised interview, you told the reporter that FCPS counsel, after receiving your June 1 legal filing, did not “communicate with [your] office,” but rather simply refused to cooperate and rushed to court. These statements are also inaccurate. Prior to filing our legal objections to your subpoena petition, FCPS counsel contacted your staff multiple times. We sought to explore with your staff whether there was a way to provide the requested report to your office confidentially as an aid to your investigation, without triggering a broad public disclosure of private details and without waiving the attorney-client privilege. It was only after learning that your office was not amenable to such an approach that we were forced to file timely objections to the requested subpoena.

We are concerned by the fact that your recent public statements have misstated the facts in several ways. We trust that in the future you will avoid such misstatements, and also trust that your office will be careful to ensure that no such misstatements are included in your court filings.

We continue to be open to reasonable discussions about ways to amicably resolve these issues. But FCPS remains committed to protecting the privilege that applies here, and most importantly remains committed to safeguarding the privacy and personal security of its teachers and administrators.

Sincerely,

M. Sean Royall