What's more important, training police officers or toeing the multi-cultural line?

In Fairfax County, Virginia, it's the latter.

Fairfax County, Virginia will not allow police trainees from Herndon, one the county’s towns, to attend the Fairfax police academy. And, in high-Orwellian fashion, Fairfax cites its “One Fairfax” policy as the basis for the bar.

Here’s the story, as told by the Washington Post:

When 61 law enforcement trainees graduated last month from Fairfax County’s Criminal Justice Training Academy, including county police officers and some from smaller departments in Fairfax, each received a certificate signed by the academy’s director, county police Maj. Wilson Lee, who is Chinese American.

Lee, whose given name is Lee Wai-Shun, signed the certificates in Chinese, as he typically does. Among those who received certificates March 7 were three new officers from the Herndon town police force — the first trainees from that department to attend the academy since Lee took command more than a year ago. When Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard noticed the Chinese signature shortly before the graduation ceremony, she was not pleased.

“This is not acceptable for my agency,” she told Lee in an email. “I don’t want our Herndon officers to receive these.”

Not only did Fairfax County refuse to issue new certificates as DeBoard requested, but a top Fairfax official also has notified DeBoard that Herndon police trainees will no longer be welcome at the academy.

Why did the County take such a drastic step?

Deputy County Executive Thomas Arnold, who oversees public safety, said in an email to The Washington Post that [the Herndon police chief’s] “comments and actions. . .were inconsistent with the culture of Fairfax County and our One Fairfax Policy.

Call me naïve, but I fail to see how barring a jurisdiction’s police trainees from the county’s training center promotes “one Fairfax.” To me, it’s more consistent with two Fairfax’s.

I’m also not sure why issuing training certificates signed in a foreign language with characters unreadable by the overwhelming number of trainees who receive them, as well as by the clear majority of Fairfax residents, promotes “one Fairfax.” This more consistent with dozens of Fairfax’s.

The language most common to Fairfax County is English. According to the Post, which cites 2022 census data, only 16 percent of Herndon’s residents are of Asian descent,. The countywide figure is about 21 percent.

Moreover, many among the 21 percent are not of Chinese descent. And of those who are, some probably don’t read Chinese.

It’s clear that “One Fairfax” doesn’t mean a united Fairfax. Rather, it means a Balkanized Fairfax. And it’s clear that the “oneness” the County’s leaders seek consists of unquestioning adherence to a left-wing version of multi-culturalism.

The other thing that strikes me about these events is how easily they could have been avoided. They could, of course, have been avoided if the flakey police academy director hadn’t decided to assert his Chinese-ness by signing graduation certificates in a foreign language.

Next, they could have been avoided if the authoritarians who run Fairfax County had accommodated Herndon’s police chief by issuing new certificates to that town’s three graduates.

In today’s America, that was too much to ask. But was it too much to ask that the authoritarians not go ballistic by barring Herndon police hires from the academy? Apparently so.

It looks to me like DeBoard, the Herndon police chief, could also have behaved better. Did she need to make an issue out of the signature in Chinese. To me, this seems like no more than a micro-aggression. DeBoard could have let it go or, at a minimum, requested new certificates in a more civil tone.

Finally, and inevitably, the Washington Post’s report leaves something to be desired. It states:

DeBoard, whose department has about 54 officers, declined to comment on why she objected to the signatures.

But just a few paragraphs earlier, we learned that

[A]fter calling the signature “unacceptable,” [DeBoard] asked [Lee] to sign new certificates for her officers in English, “the language that they are expected to use as an officer.” She said the Chinese signature was a change “implemented with zero input from the participating chiefs and sheriffs.”

(Emphasis added)

That’s why DeBoard objected to the signatures. The Post may not like the explanation, but she has not declined to state it.

In the end, I doubt much will be lost if Herndon officers remain barred from being trained by the county academy under Wilson Lee. In all likelihood, the training is less about effective, crime-preventing policing and more about indoctrination in left-wing policing themes.

But, while telling us little about the future of policing in Herndon, this tale says much about the state of America. In particular, it demonstrates the left’s insistence on accentuating our differences in the name of “oneness” and its readiness to punish those who disagree with this program.