A debate over racism is playing out on the Prince William County Board of Supervisors — this time, in response to a heated school board meeting where three Republican supervisors walked out to protest a presentation about unconscious bias training.

To some, the incident illustrates a larger issue in the politically divided but increasingly liberal county. Critics say the Republicans on the board seem more interested in making political statements than in doing the hard work of local governance and accepting the realities of the county’s racial diversity. Republicans say the emphasis on anti-racist training is a distraction from more important issues facing the county.

The tension surfaced during a joint meeting between the Prince William County School Board and the Board of Supervisors. One item on the agenda was a presentation titled “Raising Awareness of Unconscious Bias to Foster Inclusivity and Equity.”

School Board Vice Chair Loree Williams said the goal of the presentation was to learn about implicit bias, especially given that the county and its public schools are majority-minority.

As soon as the topic was introduced, several Republican members of the Board of Supervisors took issue with it.

“I think this is frankly highly insulting, because you’re insinuating that somehow members of the board of county supervisors hold these implicit biases against different racial groups,” said Gainesville Supervisor Pete Candland.

“Your objection is noted,” responded Williams. “But implicit bias is something that every human being walking the earth has… it’s not specific to you personally or to your board. It’s just good leadership.”

“I’m going to pack up and leave, because I’m offended that you find that I need to be trained, and that this is also a priority to you…this is all about Critical Race Theory, anti-Americanism, and I am leaving,” said Brentville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson.

To justify her objection to the training, Lawson also brought up a past disagreement with Williams over funding construction of a new high school. Lawson’s language mirrored the rhetoric of President Donald Trump, who issued an executive order banning “racial sensitivity trainings” for federal contractors.

For minutes, the conflict escalated and board members spoke over each other.

“You are somehow thinking this is a political thing,” Williams said to Lawson. “You are wrong.”

Eventually, three Republican supervisors — Candland, Lawson, and Coles Supervisor Yesli Vega — left the meeting. Other members of the boards applauded the training and said they were looking forward to learning more about implicit bias.

“The good news is that two boards in this county got together and we talked about diversity and inclusion to move our county forward,” said Supervisor Andrea Bailey, who represents the Potomac District, after the 20-minute presentation. “If we are leaders, we’ve got to feel the fear and do it anyway to be successful. We’re going to be criticized, we’re going to argue…but if we are truly leaders and devoted to this community, we have to feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Meanwhile, the Republican supervisors posted a video on Candland’s Facebook page sharing their objections.

“We should be using this time to talk about the critical issues facing kids of Prince William County, and I think it’s an absolute disgrace that the school board took time and resources … to talk about this issue,” said Candland.

“I felt that it was important to walk out and not sit there because I refuse to legitimize this notion that we are all somehow racist,” said Vega. “This is not the time nor the place to have this discussion.”

In the week since, the walkout has continued to generate debate and highlight the ideological divides on the Board of Supervisors and among county residents.

The walkout came up repeatedly during the public comment portions of this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Some members of the public, like a man who identified himself as Bob Hand, expressed support for the Republican supervisors.

“Walking out of the school board meeting last week? That’s heroism,” he said, adding that it was a sign that the supervisors were standing up for what they believed in.

But other commenters said the walkout was demonstrative of a lack of leadership and willingness to learn on the part of the Republican supervisors, who represent the western portion of the county.

“As a parent of a child of color, I can honestly say racism is an issue in our schools,” said another county resident, who testified virtually.

Another resident who testified online and identified herself as Grace Lintner also denounced the walkout as a performance. She said she viewed the unconscious bias presentation online and found it informative.

“Watching a presentation about implicit bias did not turn me into a Marxist. It just made me aware to be mindful of not making snap judgments about people based on bias I may have gained from decades of consuming American culture on movies and on television,” said Lintner. “After viewing the school board meeting and the three western supervisors protesting in their social media feeds, I think they might perhaps wish to resign their positions, move to Hollywood, and take up acting careers. The talent is there.”

Prince William County, along with the rest of the state, has grown more Democratic. Democrats flipped the Board of Supervisors and gained a 5-3 majority in last year’s election. Corey Stewart, the former chair of the County Board of Supervisors, built his political career on anti-immigrant policies. This year, a year after Stewart left politics, the county’s jail board voted to end the collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that he had championed. 

“Clearly, the era of Corey Stewart in Prince William County is over, and it’s over with a vengeance,” Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, told the Washington Post at the time. “Republicans right now are starting to feel the way that Democrats did in county government for many years. When the shoe goes on the other foot, it starts to pinch.”

Luis Aguilar, the Virginia director for the immigrant advocacy group CASA, said he has seen the county grow more politically polarized during the Trump years—a phenomenon he said was due to the county’s political diversity and its physical proximity to Congress in D.C.

“It’s very similar to how Richmond operates and very similar to how the Senate of the country operates: very divisive,” said Aguilar. “And I think it’s … that closeness to D.C.”

And this is not the first time Republican members of the Board of Supervisors have clashed with other members of the board over race-related matters in recent months. One such clash happened during a tense June meeting where the board’s four Black supervisors read a proclamation declaring that Black lives matter. Lawson and Vega both ultimately supported the resolution, but the two supervisors pushed back on it during discussion, according to reporting in the Prince William Times. Vega, for example, had questions about whether some non-Black constituents might feel “excluded” by the language.

During the June meeting, Lawson said she hoped to see more conversations among board members about race, adding that the community could not heal “unless we have dialogue.”

Meanwhile, the public commenters at Tuesday’s board meeting — a number of them young and Black or Latino — were outspoken on issues of race and racism. In addition to criticizing the walkout, a number of the speakers were also protesting the county’s decision to tap current D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham to head the county’s police department next year, citing his police department’s record on racial profiling and its handling of protests over racial justice this year.

Larry Bell, a resident who testified at Tuesday’s board meeting, said he had lived in the county for 40 years and spoken during public comment at numerous meetings over that time. He said the walkout demonstrated an unwillingness from Republicans to accept the county’s shift to the left.

“When I came to speak to this board all those years, for every year I came here Republicans were in charge .. and the Democrats sat there and listened and they took whatever went down all that time,” said Bell. “I think you guys can do the same.”