Is Miyares Virginia's Attorney General or a Project 2025 Enforcer?
- Vanessa Hall
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
The Betrayal of Virginians and Our Public Schools
Virginia’s Attorney General (AG) is responsible for enforcing the law and supporting the civil rights and safety of Virginians. Unfortunately, for nearly four years, it feels like our AG has decided that culture wars are more important than civil rights.
It even feels like AG Jason Miyares is acting as the Trump administration’s errand boy, ensuring that Trump Executive Orders are followed, even if they conflict with the rule of law, US Constitution, and Congressional authority. Miyares has signed on to red-state Amicus Briefs supporting Trump administration actions against immigrants that permit prison camps and deportation of undocumented immigrants without due process, and has withdrawn from Amicus Briefs supporting women’s reproductive health care. Neither of these actions seem to comply with the Code of Virginia, much less the Virginia Constitution.
In terms of Trump’s actions on education, Miyares has been notably silent on behalf of Virginians in terms of federal funding, civil rights, etc. In March 2025, Miyares refused to join 21 other Attorney Generals who sued the Trump administration for illegally dismantling the U.S. Department of Education (US ED). In July 2025, Miyares refused to join 25 other Attorney Generals suing over after-school funding paused by the Trump administration.
Why is our AG failing our students, families, and schools?
Unfortunately, it seems that Miyares has deep connections to various Project 2025 groups that are fulfilling Project 2025’s anti-public school and anti-LGBTQIA agenda. For example in January 2024, General Miyares’ special counsel Maggie Cleary joined Project 2025’s Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) as a “visiting fellow.” IWF is an anti-feminist non-profit with over $7 million 2023 revenue (tax free), and it focuses an unreasonable amount of attention on and lawsuits against Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS).
Many of Miyares’ legal actions seem to be in lock step with America First Legal, a far right group begun by Stephen Miller to sue the Biden Administration, but which has morphed into a group that focuses on burying school districts and companies in civil rights suits that benefit white, cisgender, heterosexual, and Christian men and women.
America First Legal is one of the authors of Project 2025. If you are a history buff, you may notice that “America First” was also the name of the Nazi-associated, isolationist and antisemitic movement exemplified by the America First Committee, that existed in the US before the Axis Power attacks on our country at the start of World War II. A small group of congressmen associated with this influential committee were found to have colluded with Germany prior to the war and were involved in plots to overthrow the government.
Equally concerning is that Miyares attends events sponsored by anti-public school groups like: the Family Foundation of Virginia which has rallied against FCPS students and civil rights, and Turning Point USA which put a target on multiple northern Virginia school districts due to their curricula, policies, and regulations that support student education, diversity, equity, equality, and inclusion.
Many of Miyares’ actions and investigations were driven by reports from various right-wing media sources, such as the Fairfax Times, which has employed and/or highlighted IWF “fellows” (e.g., Asra Nomani, Harry Jackson, and Stephanie Lundquist-Arora). In other cases, he has repeatedly sided with Project 2025 groups like America First Legal. For example:
In April 2022, AG Miyares filed an Amicus Brief with the Supreme Court to vacate a stay and support the Coalition for TJ’s claims against FCPS. Interestingly, nearly a half dozen of the Coalition for TJ’s leaders are known to be members and/or employed by IWF and/or Parents Defending Education, a known SPLC-defined hate group, including: Nomani, Jackson, Lundquist Arora, Marisa Fallon, and Suparna Dutta, most of whom have been regularly featured or employed by the Fairfax Times. Read more here.
In January 2023, based on exaggerated reporting in the Fairfax Times and the complaint of one non-Asian parent, Miyares leveraged the civil rights division of the Commonwealth of Virginia to pursue an investigation of alleged anti-Asian discrimination due to delayed distribution of National Merit Commended Certificates, despite no Asian-American students or families raising an alarm. Miyares’ investigation resulted in two failed lawsuits costing over $1.6 million in outside legal fees for FCPS, threats against FCPS staff, taxpayer dollars wasted by Miyares’ office, and unknown impacts on FCPS and student education due to the manufactured crisis. Read the full story here.
In March 2023, AG Miyares said in a press release that he found “blatant examples of racial and ethnic discrimination” in FCPS. Seemingly inspired by reporting by Asra Nomani, AG Miyares alleged that a FCPS middle school (Cooper) discriminated against students based on race, color, and national origin in an email sent to families regarding a college preparatory program offered by the county. In response, FCPS called AG Miyares’ claims “false” and that they resulted in distractions from education and threats to school principals.
In June 2024, Miyares filed an Amicus Brief in support of America First Legal’s case Jane Doe v. Fairfax County School Board (case: 2024-03171) which contended that FCPS policies regarding harassment of transgender students and their access to bathrooms violated the religious liberty rights of a high school student, Jane Doe.
In July 2024, AG Miyares “spearheaded” an Amicus Brief on behalf of Wisconsin parents regarding transgender students’ pronoun rights.
In May 2025, Attorney General Jason Miyares finalized the investigation into TJ admissions that began in January 2023, which was also spurred by Coalition for TJ and Fairfax Times reporting. Using Coalition for TJ statistics, his Office of Civil Rights allegedly “found reasonable cause” that FCPS was in violation of the Virginia Human Rights Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for discriminating against Asian American students in its admissions process. Miyares referred FCPS to US ED and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Pacific Legal Foundation, Coalition for TJ’s pro bono lawyer and known Koch-funded dark money group, indicated that Miyares enabled the US ED Office for Civil Rights to open its own investigation into the 5-year old TJ admissions question.
On September 25, 2025, Miyares filed amicus briefs to deny emergency requests for injunctions by FCPS and APS. Miyares demonstrated his support for the federal overreach by the US ED and violation of student civil rights by this statement, “The policies in Fairfax and Arlington allowing students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on subjective gender identity instead of biological sex are unlawful, unsafe, and indefensible. The Fourth Circuit should deny the schools’ attempt to rewrite the law through litigation.”
On October 1, 2025, Miyares filed an Amicus Brief in support of the students whose harassment of a transgender student in a LCPS locker room resulted in their suspension, thereby supporting the Founding Freedoms Law Center representing the Loudoun County boys over supporting the civil rights of all students. Founding Freedoms is the legal arm of the Richmond-based Family Foundation of Virginia, a known anti-LGBTQIA extremist group.
Unfortunately, AG Miyares has also failed to protect Virginians’ health care, cancer research grants, safety, charitable funding, and university funding. He did this by sitting back rather than standing up to fight for Virginians’ rights:
AG Miyares declined to join 22 other state AGs who sued to block cuts to NIH. Those AGs won in federal court so the grant funding would continue, but only in those 22 states which means the loss of already appropriated NIH grant funding for cancer research at Virginia institutions like UVA and Virginia Tech.
AG Miyares declined to protest Trump’s attempts to overturn birthright citizenship.
AG Miyares declined to join 23 Democratic attorneys general who sued and won to halt freezes of charitable funding for adoption assistance and food kitchens.
AG Miyares was silent regarding pardons for violent January 6th insurrectionists.
AG Miyares did nothing when 11 of Virginia’s 31 qualified health centers had their funding disrupted by the Trump Administration. Three health centers in Richmond had to close their doors.
AG Miyares’ actions over the last four years have been steeped in culture war battles over transgender civil rights and manufactured crises. His efforts to roll back the rights of transgender students includes his misinterpretation of the law to support Governor Youngkin’s “Model Policies” which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described as:
Part of a coordinated, national effort to erase transgender and nonbinary students from the classroom. At best, they invite discrimination; at worst, they require it. Attorney General Jason Miyares’ opinion defending the policies is every bit as cruel and misguided as the policies themselves.
As Marianne Burke stated, as AG, Miyares should “represent and protect the public interest, and make the welfare of Virginians the highest priority.” Instead, Miyares has shown loyalty to President Trump and an extreme right-wing agenda over the people of Virginia. His actions and decisions fly in the face of school districts’ rights, public education funding, and civil rights of Virginia’s students. However, it is clear that his decisions have a profound effect on all Virginians when they affect civil rights, funding, cancer research, and women’s health care.
The Democratic Attorney’s General Association statement rings true that Miyares “doesn’t have his priorities straight” because of his constant attacks on transgender youth and utter silence on Trump funding freezes, which affect every Virginian.
Instead of working to protect families, kids, and vital federal grants and loans that are essential to the livelihood of millions of Virginians, [MIyares is] proving once again he’s incapable of putting Virginians first and keeping them safe.
