Virginia’s General Assembly would be doing our future a great service if it could rein in social media addiction for young people, the inspiration behind legislation it has approved and sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his consideration.
Were it as easy as enacting a state law limiting social media exposure for Virginians under age 16 to a maximum of one hour, we would solve many problems that unlimited access to platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube cause for vulnerable preteens and teens.
Unfortunately, it’s not so easy. That’s because parenting is essential.
A study by the American Psychological Association notes that at about age 10, when fundamental shifts in kids’ brains make them crave social rewards such as peer approval, we hand them smartphones and access to the internet. There, they have limitless opportunities for outreach and validation on those social media platforms. But experts warn that it can cause anxiety, depression and unrealistic body image concerns among many mental health problems. Increasingly, children are bullied to the point of self-harm or even suicide via social media, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Surely we all remember parental involvement. It was a guiding theme of Republican Glenn Youngkin’s insurgency campaign for governor just four years ago. The amiable, untested former hedge fund executive deftly cornered the nomination of a Virginia GOP battered during Donald Trump’s first presidency and eager to move on. He channeled the zeitgeist of Virginia voters weary of a leftward Democratic overreach in Virginia and of first-year President Joe Biden.
In a feat of political jiu jitsu in his first-ever campaign, Youngkin made Democrats own pandemic-era frustration over shuttered schools and remote learning; over accommodations made to transgender and transitioning students; over mandates that pupils wear masks when classrooms reopened.
As anger toward school boards boiled over, book bans and confrontations over curriculum became a rallying cry on the right, and it was a message that resonated with moderate parents. Youngkin advocated for more parental say in their children’s public schooling, and it played well enough in suburban areas such as Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to deny Democrats the large margins they needed to offset a historic rural GOP turnout.
That year, seven school districts banned 11 titles, all of them dealing with gender, sexual orientation or race, according to data compiled by PEN America, a nationwide nonprofit that advocates for free expression for writers. Virginia Beach Public Schools led the way, axing six titles including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” a novel set in the 1940s about a Black girl who grew up believing blue eyes would make her accepted and beautiful. In 2021, however, the book-ban movement was just getting started. The following year, 182 titles were challenged statewide, according to the American Library Association, and it more than doubled in 2023 to 387, the nation’s fifth-highest total.
We’d love to imagine that the 2021 ushered in a renaissance of close parental engagement with their children’s education and other pursuits, and not just a politically driven wave that swept conservatives into school board seats. Perhaps in some cases it did, but there’s no hard evidence of a subsequent groundswell of close parental involvement or oversight. At least not of the sort necessary to make Virginia’s social media bill highly effective. Ironically, if that sort of intimate attention by parents and guardians to their kids widely existed, there would be no need for laws such as this.
There’s a rich history of shielding kids from vices — and of kids indulging them anyway. Buying or possessing alcohol has long been illegal for anyone under age 21. (Full disclosure: the legal drinking age when this writer was young was 18, and I made the most of it.)
A 30-day CDC study of drug use among high schoolers found that during that span, more than one in five (22%) consumed alcohol, the most commonly used drug among youth. According to the CDC, 4,000 people under 21 die annually from excessive alcohol use. Also, underage drinking cost the United States $24 billion in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $35.3 billion now.
The same study found that 17% of high schoolers used electronic vape products, the same ratio as those who used marijuana. Just 4% smoked cigarettes.
Addiction to social media, ever-present in the digital ether, bears less stigma than those more tangible vices. A more apt comparison would be to online pornography, something 19 states (including Virginia) ban for users under 18. Research consistently confirms the detrimental effects of sexually explicit internet material on young minds, including poor academic performance, increased emotional and behavioral problems, and harmful or even predatory notions about sexuality, primarily among boys.
Virginia’s age-verification law went into effect in July 2023. According to reporting by the Mercury later that year, many online smut purveyors ignored the law while some, including Pornhub, protested it by blacking out their content to all users across the commonwealth. Kids, however, have grown up surrounded by technology, and finding workarounds is child’s play to them. If they don’t borrow mom or dad’s driver’s license to fool verification systems, they can always use virtual private networks to conceal their true internet address and trick age-restricted sites into believing the user is someplace without age-verification laws.
An article published in 2018 by Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking titled “Internet Filtering and Adolescent Exposure to Online Sexual Material” found that even wide use of filtering technology by parents or caregivers yielded inconsistent and insignificant results keeping online sexual content from underage users.
Things are further clouded by a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in which the porn industry challenges age-verification laws on grounds that they constitute a government infringement on First Amendment free speech rights and Fourth Amendment privacy rights by forcing users to provide identifying information. A ruling is expected before the court’s term ends in June. Unknown is whether the decision could apply to social media age-verification efforts.
Trying to outsmart kids in the online realm is an enterprise that requires a Herculean measure of vigilance by today’s parents. That’s horribly unfair to today’s parents (or grandparents, or uncles and aunts, or foster caregivers, or whomever provides a home). They work harder and smarter in tougher times, with fewer safety nets than yesteryear’s parents.
Imperfect as it is, Governor Youngkin should sign this bill — a rare bipartisan concurrence — into law. Should it survive inevitable legal challenges by the social media leviathans like Meta (parent of Facebook and Instagram), China-owned TikTok, and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), it at least provides another tool that vigilant parents can add to their workbench if they commit to the hard, yearslong mission of protecting their children by deeply involving themselves in their lives.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
In Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial race, immigration enforcement is a key issue. Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger pledges to rescind Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s February executive order requiring local law enforcement to assist federal immigration crackdowns, arguing it wastes resources and harms community trust. She advocates keeping immigration enforcement federal with judicial oversight. Republican nominee Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears supports Youngkin’s policies, emphasizing rule of law and border security, drawing on her immigrant background. The debate highlights contrasting views on public safety, resource allocation, and immigration reform, with immigration remaining a top concern among voters and shaping the campaign’s direction.
Democratic nominee for governor Abigail Spanberger says one of her first acts if elected would be to undo Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s February directive requiring Virginia law enforcement to help carry out federal immigration crackdowns — a policy she argues wastes local resources and undermines community trust.
“I would rescind his executive order, yes,” Spanberger told The Mercury in a lengthy policy interview earlier this month, referring to Youngkin’s Executive Order 47 issued in February. The order gave state police and corrections officers authority to perform certain immigration duties and also urged local jails to fully cooperate with federal deportation operations.
The governor said at the time the measure was meant to keep “dangerous criminal illegal immigrants” off Virginia’s streets. Spanberger countered that Youngkin’s approach illustrates how immigration enforcement can pull local agencies away from their core responsibilities while pushing state agencies into federal civil enforcement.
“Our immigration system is absolutely broken,” she said. “The idea that we would take local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies in amid all the things that they have to do, like community policing or staffing our jails or investigating real crimes, so that they can go and tear families apart … that is a misuse of those resources.”
Spanberger’s stance sets up a sharp contrast with her opponent — Republican nominee Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has embraced the order and tied it to her own story as a legal immigrant from Jamaica.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger during an interview with editors and reporters of the Virginia Mercury at her campaign headquarters in Richmond on Aug. 5., 2025. (Photo by Marcus Ingram for the Virginia Mercury)
The divide between the two candidates underscores how immigration has become one of the most combustible issues in Virginia’s 2025 campaign for governor — and how Youngkin’s policies continue to shape the race even as he prepares to leave office in January.
That influence stretches beyond Youngkin’s executive order. In late February, Youngkin also launched the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force, a sweeping federal-state operation staffed with more than 200 personnel from agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, state police and corrections, which has claimed hundreds to thousands of immigration and gang-related arrests in Virginia.
Keep enforcement federal, Spanberger says
Spanberger, who represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in Congress before launching her gubernatorial bid, argued that immigration enforcement should be handled by federal officials with judicial oversight, not by local police diverted from their own duties.
She said Democrats are often wrongly portrayed as opposing law enforcement when they object to policies like Youngkin’s that conscript local agencies into immigration sweeps.
“If someone has a criminal violation at the state level or at the federal level … local resources are required to arrest that person or put them in a local jail before transferring them to federal custody. Absolutely the locality should participate in that,” she said.
But Spanberger insisted the standard should be the same for immigration cases as for any other criminal matter.
“They have to have a warrant to pick somebody up off the street, so they meet that same standard,” she said. “And they can easily go get that detention order signed by a judge or a magistrate, if they want that local support.”
Without those safeguards, Spanberger argued, local cooperation with ICE undermines community policing, creates constitutional concerns and strains already tight budgets. She pointed to her former district of Prince William County, which she said spent more than $1 million housing detainees under a prior partnership with federal immigration authorities.
Earle-Sears emphasizes rule of law
Earle-Sears, who initially agreed to a similar policy interview with The Mercury but canceled minutes before it was to take place, has publicly and repeatedly defended Youngkin’s executive order.
“I am a legal immigrant and now a naturalized citizen. Working together, the governor, attorney general, and I have made Virginia safer,” she said in February when announcing the policy. “Now, working with President Trump, we can take on the scourge of dangerous and violent illegal immigrants.”
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears speaks at the state Capitol earlier this year. The Republican nominee for governor has defended Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s immigration policies while offering few details on her own. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
In December, while unveiling a “No Sanctuary Cities” budget proposal, she described the bureaucratic hurdles her own family went through when immigrating to the U.S. and argued that others should follow the same path.
“My father and I had to file documents and wait to be granted permission to enter the United States. Under Governor Youngkin’s leadership, Virginia stands firm: we are not a sanctuary state,” she said.
“The rule of law is not negotiable — it is the foundation of our safety, our freedom, and the promise of opportunity that defines America,” she added.
Earle-Sears’ broader ideas on immigration remain unclear, as she has not gone beyond a handful of public statements and her campaign website offers no issue page outlining her positions.
Dispute over Youngkin’s deportation claims
The candidates also diverge sharply on Youngkin’s claim in July that all 2,500 immigrants arrested and deported by the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force are “violent criminals.”
Spanberger said she has seen no evidence to support the governor’s sweeping assertion.
“If they were violent criminals, presumably, they were arrested on those charges for the violent crime that they committed, in which case, there would be clear documentation,” she said. “Frankly, as somebody who believes in upholding the law, I want people to be arrested for the crimes that they are committing.”
Civil rights groups have also raised alarms, arguing that Youngkin’s mandate is “playing politics with people’s lives.”
“For years, Virginia’s governor has been pushing the same dangerous, false narrative as the Trump administration that immigrants commit crime at higher rates than people who were born here, despite the fact that no data exists to support that conclusion,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said in a statement.
Earle-Sears has not directly addressed the governor’s 2,500 figure but has frequently pointed to grim cases of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in arguing for tougher enforcement.
“We’ve seen too many tragic stories after dangerous criminals in this country illegally were put back on the streets, and this executive order will make sure we send them back to where they came from,” she said earlier this year.
The Laken Riley Act
The immigration debate has also touched on Spanberger’s record in Congress.
Earle-Sears has faulted her for initially voting against the Laken Riley Act, named for a Georgia college student killed by a Venezuelan national who entered the country unlawfully. The law, which eventually passed after Spanberger left Congress, requires federal authorities to detain immigrants accused of theft and burglary while their cases proceed.
Spanberger said she opposed the bill in its first iteration because it “was essentially putting incredible burdens on localities removing any form of due process” and would not have prevented Riley’s murder.
“As a mother of three daughters, I was deeply offended that they would utilize that young woman’s murder as a political talking point,” she said. “At the time of that vote, her father was in the press saying that he was deeply distressed by the fact that her murder was being utilized in the way that it was.”
David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said Spanberger has staked out a position that balances criticism of Trump-era immigration policies with support for reforms viewed as moderate.
“Spanberger has been fairly vocal in criticizing the Trump administration’s methods of dealing with undocumented immigration,” Richards said.
“Her voting record on bills centered around immigration has been mixed, supporting some of the more moderate bills, but voting ‘no’ on some key GOP bills like the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act. … It falls in line with her presenting herself as a pragmatic candidate.”
By contrast, he said, Earle-Sears has been relatively quiet on immigration, surfacing the issue primarily when it intersects with her biography or when amplifying President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“She did talk about the issue back in June, saying that she, as an immigrant, did things the ‘right way.’ But overall, she has skirted the issue,” Richards said.
“She may feel that the issue is not one she can really win with in Virginia, although, as more immigration related arrests happen in the commonwealth, she may have to start talking about this.”
The bigger picture
The fight over immigration in Virginia is inseparable from national politics. Youngkin has aligned himself closely with Trump on enforcement strategies, boasting of joint operations with ICE and staging press events around courthouse raids and “gang and immigration sweeps” that have drawn criticism from Democrats and civil liberties groups.
Spanberger, while denouncing Youngkin’s executive order, has also argued governors should play a more constructive role in pushing Congress to modernize immigration law. She cited bipartisan bills like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and the Dignity Act as examples of incremental progress, even if they fell short.
“There are many places where the governors of states can bang on the table and tell Congress, ‘Stop making this such a political issue that you campaign on every two years and just fix it,’” she said.
She added that immigration is not only a humanitarian concern but also a pressing economic issue for Virginia, from hospitals seeking visas for foreign-trained nurses to seafood producers dependent on seasonal guest workers.
Earle-Sears, meanwhile, has emphasized border security and public safety, drawing a bright line between legal immigrants like herself and those who arrive unlawfully.
“Any local elected official who instructs law enforcement to defy efforts to keep Virginians safe abandons their duty and breaks the trust of the people they swore to protect,” she said last year.
Looking ahead
With polls showing immigration remains a top concern among Republican voters — and a complicated one among independents — the issue is likely to stay at the forefront of this year’s election cycle.
Activists gathered outside the Chesterfield County courthouse in June to protest against the arrests of immigrants by federal agents. (Photo by Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)
Spanberger is betting Virginians will see Youngkin’s executive order as overreach that diverts local resources and harms public safety by discouraging immigrant communities from reporting crimes. Earle-Sears is counting on voters to view strict enforcement as common sense, framed by her own story of navigating the legal immigration system.
“Maybe she is waiting for a Trump endorsement,” Richards said of Earle-Sears. “But if immigration remains in the headlines, she may not be able to avoid it.”
For now, voters face a stark choice between a Democrat who vows to unwind the governor’s crackdown and press Congress for broader reforms, and a Republican who pledges to double down on enforcement in the name of law and order.
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The content presents a detailed examination of immigration policy debates in Virginia, highlighting Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger’s criticism of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s enforcement measures. It emphasizes concerns about local law enforcement resources, community trust, and civil rights, while portraying Spanberger’s approach as pragmatic and reform-oriented. The Republican perspective, represented by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, is included but less elaborated, focusing on law and order and strict enforcement. The overall tone and framing lean slightly left of center, favoring a more moderate Democratic viewpoint on immigration reform without dismissing conservative concerns entirely.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Esther Wickham | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-08-25 18:15:00
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found George Mason University (GMU) violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies favoring race in hiring and promotions. OCR’s probe, prompted by faculty complaints, concluded GMU’s leadership under President Gregory Washington promoted discriminatory practices. OCR proposed a Resolution Agreement requiring GMU to commit publicly to nondiscrimination and a personal apology from Washington. The GMU Board of Visitors is reviewing the findings, but Washington’s attorney rejected OCR’s conclusions, citing flawed investigation methods and denying discrimination. GMU must comply by September 1.
(The Center Square) — The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced George Mason University violated federal law by hiring and promoting staff based on race and other characteristics.
In July, OCR launched an investigation into GMU due to multiple complaints filed by professors alleging that university leadership had adopted unlawful diversity, equity and inclusion policies from 2020 that give preferential treatment to prospective and current faculty, the department said in a press release.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in education programs and activities receiving federal funding. Institutions that are found in violation of Title VI can lose federal funds.”
OCR notified GMU President Gregory Washington that under his leadership, the Fairfax, Virginia-based university violated Title VI by supporting DEI practices and policies.
“In 2020, University President Gregory Washington called for expunging the so-called ‘racist vestiges’ from GMU’s campus. Without a hint of self-awareness, President Washington then waged a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “Despite this unfortunate chapter in Mason’s history, the University now has the opportunity to come into compliance with federal civil rights laws by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights.”
OCR has issued a proposed Resolution Agreement to GMU to resolve the civil rights laws violations.
The department’s agreement requires GMU to publicly commit to nondiscrimination in hiring and promotion, including a personal apology from the president for promoting unlawful discriminatory practices.
The school’s Board of Visitors said Friday it was reviewing the steps outlined in the resolution and will “continue to respond fully and cooperatively to all inquiries from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the U.S. House of Representatives and evaluate the evidence that comes to light,” the board said in a statement on Friday. “Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the University and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
But on Monday, Washington rejected the Department of Education’s demands.
In a 10-page letter to GMU’s board on Monday, Washington’s attorney, Douglas Gansler, alleged that OCR cut corners and only interviewed two university deans, Inside Higher Ed reports.
“To be clear, per OCR’s own findings, no job applicant has been discriminated against by GMU, nor has OCR attempted to name someone who has been discriminated against by GMU in any context. Therefore, it is a legal fiction for OCR to even assert or claim that there has been a Title VI or Title IX violation here,” Gansler wrote.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
The article primarily reports on the findings and actions of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding George Mason University’s alleged violations of federal law related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. While it includes statements from both the OCR and the university’s leadership, the language used—such as quoting the OCR’s strong criticism of GMU’s DEI efforts and highlighting the university president’s rejection of the findings—frames DEI policies in a negative light. This framing, along with the focus on alleged unlawful discrimination against non-minority groups, aligns with a center-right perspective that is often critical of DEI initiatives. The article does not merely neutrally report the facts but subtly emphasizes the controversy around DEI, suggesting a center-right ideological stance rather than a purely neutral or balanced report.
www.youtube.com – NBC4 Washington – 2025-08-25 09:28:12
SUMMARY: As summer ends, students and teachers at Raymond Elementary in D.C. prepare excitedly for the new school year. The school boasts a brand-new playground and courtyard, with dedicated staff like Miss Tracee Robinson, a second-grade teacher known for her “Not Like Us” rap parody. Teacher Alexandria Henderson has a DonorsChoose wishlist totaling over $1,100, including carpets, headphones, and snacks. Thanks to Pepco’s $1,100 donation, her wishlist is fully funded. Principal Miss Hubbard and the community express gratitude as the school gears up for Monday’s first day, celebrating support from NBC4, Telemundo 44, and corporate partners.
News4’s Molette Green helps get Raymond Elementary hyped for school with a longtime teacher’s rap and a big donation for supplies.
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