Internal emails reveal how staff dismissed parents’ concerns and reflexively sided with a man they came to find out was a sex offender.
When a man was reported for loitering in an Arlington Public Schools women’s locker room last October, district staff ignored concerned parents because the man, they said, identified as a woman.
“The patron is an adult swim class participant,” the director of aquatics management at APS said in an email. “I have spoken on deck and at the front desk with several people. I have told them that APS policy is to provide equitable and inclusive spaces for all community members and that the individual using the locker room identifies as a female and, therefore, permitted to use the women’s locker room.”
Richard Cox, the man in question, is a tier-three sex offender forbidden to be in close proximity to children. Cox was convicted in 1992 of taking indecent liberties with children after exposing his genitals and masturbating in front of a child at a gymnasium, according to court records. In 2007, he was convicted of six counts of possessing obscene material with a minor.
While district staff say they were not aware of Cox’s status on the sex offender registry until after police arrested and charged him with indecent exposure late last year, concerned residents warned APS of Cox’s inappropriate behavior months prior to his arrest. Had staff simply looked Cox up, they would have found his criminal history.
APS permitted Cox to use women’s facilities despite concerns about his behavior under a district policy that makes access to locker rooms and bathrooms contingent on gender identity rather than sex. APS and multiple Virginia districts with similar policies are now embroiled in a war with the Trump administration over their refusal to keep private spaces sex-segregated.
New documents obtained by the Education Freedom and Parental Rights Initiative at the Defense of Freedom Institute and shared exclusively with National Review reveal the degree to which APS staff members reflexively sided with Cox while ignoring the concerns of parents.
One Virginia woman, who reported in September that she saw a male in the women’s locker room at the APS-run Washington-Liberty Aquatics Center, told staff that “he sits there without clothes on and watches the women and girls.” She said she had already seen him multiple times in the locker room when children were present.
“They told [the district’s aquatics director] 4 times, but she says he identifies as a woman,” a report submitted to the Arlington School Board said. “She has encouraged [Cox] to use the family bathroom, but he has not. They took it upon themselves to tell the fathers waiting outside for their daughters.”
Jen McDougal, a Virginia mother whose nine-year-old daughter attended swim practice at Washington-Liberty, also reported Cox’s presence in the locker room to the school board in September. After swim practice one day, McDougal saw Cox in the middle of the locker room, his face and shoulders covered by a towel, and his penis exposed. Pool staff told McDougal that they couldn’t do anything because Cox identifies as a woman.
On October 10, 2024, an executive assistant at APS took a call from a concerned Virginia woman who had encountered Cox in the locker room. In a message to administrators relaying the contents of the call, the executive assistant said she took a “call about the man that identities as a woman who is creepy and uses the woman’s locker room.”
“He’s in there fully clothed and sits in the handicapped shower (which does not work,) so he’s obviously just looking and leering,” the executive assistant continued, describing the concerned woman’s comments. “He definitely lingers. Other days he just stands around naked in front of elementary school girls, again lingering.”
After numerous complaints, APS revised signage around district-operated pools and facilities. The guidance, which encouraged individuals to “minimize time spent unclothed,” did not stop Cox.
On October 22, police responded to a report of indecent exposure at Washington-Liberty. A woman entered the locker room to find a naked man, according to a police report. The woman did not press charges against the man, who was later identified as Cox, because “she just wanted the individual to leave the locker room, not to result in an arrest,” according to an October 24 email sent by APS School Board Chair Mary Kadera.
Despite multiple reports, a police investigation, and the district’s awareness that a male was consistently exposing himself for lengthy periods of time in a woman’s locker room, Cox was again allowed entrance into the locker room on October 30.
“My daughter is a swimmer with the Arlington Aquatic Club at Wakefield pool on MWFs,” an email from two parents to APS staff sent on October 31 reads. “Last night, Wednesday, October 30th at approximately 6:50 pm she left practice to use the bathroom in the women’s locker room. In the locker room she encountered a fully naked man standing by the sinks in front of the toilet stalls. Needless to say she was terrified and feared for her safety.”
Virginia Gentles, a Virginia mother and the director of the Education Freedom and Parental Rights Initiative at the Defense of Freedom Institute, filed the public records request in February to unearth “the district’s internal response to community members’ complaints of a naked man leering at little girls as they changed after swim lessons at our community’s public pools,” she told NR.
“The FOIA request revealed multiple women’s desperate pleas to APS staff and leadership for privacy and safety,” Gentles said. “I’m stunned that when APS leaders were informed that girls were changing in the locker rooms with a naked man staring at them, they delayed responding, expressed no concern for girls’ safety and privacy in internal correspondence, and eventually determined that updating locker room signs would be a sufficient response.”
“The women and girls in Arlington deserve leaders who will protect their privacy and safety.”
The Department of Education charged APS with a Title IX violation earlier this year over the district’s “inclusive” policies that allow men to enter women’s intimate spaces. When APS refused to revise its policy, the DOE placed the district on “high-risk” status, effectively subjecting millions of dollars APS receives from the federal government to additional scrutiny.
APS has since sued the Education Department, claiming that the district’s transgender policies are legal under Title IX.
“Our transgender student policy is consistent with both state and federal law, including the Virginia Values Act, and is also supported by recent court decisions affirming protections for transgender students,” Superintendent Francisco Durán said in an August press release. “As always, APS is committed to ensuring all students can learn in an inclusive environment free from all forms of discrimination.”