CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — Turning Point USA supporters wore custom t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Thank you ACPS,” a nod to the Western Albemarle High School’s decision to allow a conservative activist to speak at an upcoming student club meeting.

Opponents of the decision wore their own shirts expressing pride and support for the LGBTQ community, waved pride flags and held signs, with some expressing support for trans rights and other attacking TPUSA.

Thursday night’s Albemarle County School Board meeting was thick with emotion and tension as people turned out to express their opinion of the controversial decision to allow Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation, to make a presentation to the Western Albemarle High School chapter of TPUSA at a lunchtime meeting next month. Her presentation is entitled, “Two genders, one truth.”

And many also wanted to voice their displeasure with Allison Spillman — the at-large representative to the school board and parent of a trans student at Western Albemarle — who made a post on her personal Facebook page, comparing the club to the Ku Klux Klan.

“Shame on us adults,” TPUSA parent Will Woodrow said during the public comments. “We are a community. We get to choose, ‘Do we want to look like the rest of the country, or do we want to build an oasis of kindness where we can disagree with ideas, without attacking the people who hold them?'”

But those in opposition argued that inviting a speaker that invalidated trans students’ identity could incite bullying and harassment. Sabr Lyon, a transgender Western Albemarle alum, shared how they and their friends were “deeply suicidal” in high school, and they recently lost a friend to suicide last week at just 23 years old.

“If we’re pretending this doesn’t turn into bullying, this doesn’t turn into cyber attacks, this doesn’t turn into blood and knuckles,” Lyon said, “then you’re doing nothing but deluding yourselves.”

Two sides converging

Dozens of people representing both sides of the issue piled into Lane Auditorium, so much so that the meeting had to be paused multiple times so latecomers could find seats.

Board policy limits the number of speakers during the public comment to 20. In total, 52 people signed up to speak by the start of the meeting, with the 18 who did speak being selected via a random number drawing. Two additional names were drawn, but one wasn’t present and one was a duplicate.

Due to said increased attendance, at least nine police officers were at the county office building, with metal detectors and a bag checker at the front entrance.

Some TPUSA members sported buttons, with one reading, “Free Speech over Fact Checkers.”

As the school board entered, a few Spillman supporters cheered for her, while one man countered by saying bluntly “Resign.” Shortly after the meeting began, Albemarle County Superintendent Dr. Matthew S. Haas gave a timeline of events to fully explain the controversy from the County’s perspective. During the presentation, some against the decision to allow Cobb waved pride flags and held up signs, with one reading in all caps “Liar + Coward.”

A controversial guest speaker and a controversial social media post

Haas told the board and the crowd that Western Albemarle High School principal Jennifer Sublette contacted both Haas and school board legal counsel upon learning about the proposed presentation. Haas said he was the one who advised that the speech be moved to after school, saying that he did not realize TPUSA and other organizations had hosted guest speakers during the 35-minute lunch block previously.

On Sept. 26, when Founding Freedoms Law Center sent a letter to the County, asserting that the decision constituted viewpoint discrimination, referencing the Equal Access Act.

After that, Haas said he advised Sublette – on Sept. 30 – to allow the speaker, which she did.

After the decision was reversed, the club and Cobb opted to schedule for next month due to the short notice.

When Haas finished presenting his timeline, some in attendance began to clap, but Acuff stopped them, stating that cheering or audible comments were not permitted during the meeting, and that doing so was in violation of state code. The reminder would be needed numerous times during public comment

Disruptions in public comment

Before public comment, Vice-Chair Rebecca Berlin made a statement, stating that while the Board disagreed with the content of Cobb’s speech, county policy stated access cannot be denied based on the content of the speech. She said the decision to have the speaker during the school day ensure the event takes place in “a supervised, structured setting.”

Acuff added her own statement, reaffirming TPUSA’s right to hold the event and adding that Spillman’s statement did not reflect the Board or any of its other members.

Spillman then tearfully gave her own statement, sharing that she and her family had been sent messages containing threats. and they had to involve law enforcement and seek help to sort through the sheer volume. She read a few, in which she was called a “demon” and “terrorist scum,” among other things. She reaffirmed the intent of her post, which she said was to “raise a crucial question about principle and policy,” but apologized to the TPUSA students and their families.

Right before the first public speaker, she asked the room to, “Please be respectful.” But despite county policy allowing for comments to only be directed toward the board, many still called her out directly, representing just some of the myriad policies speakers violated during the meeting.

The public comment period had to be stopped numerous times by Berlin over audible comments, heckling, cheering and other disruptions. The disruptions got so bad that Berlin called for a five-minute recess “to allow order to be restored” during the comments made by the 11th speaker, Western Albemarle chemistry teacher and TPUSA’s advisor Michelle Karpovich, who was interrupted by numerous people when she argued that Cobb’s speech was “biology-based.”

Among other speakers were three WAHS students and one alum, each of whom voiced concern over the speaker, as well as parents of the school’s TPUSA chapter who expressed pride in their children and expressed frustration over the situation.

Ultimately, despite countless disruptions, the public comment concluded after just under an hour. At the conclusion of a ten-minute recess, Acuff told the now mostly empty auditorium that the session has gone “reasonably well” given the circumstances.