A coalition of 17 state attorneys general is demanding that the U.S. Department of Justice immediately rescind a recent memo they say would “chill lawful dissent by parents voiced during local school board meetings.”
The DOJ memo, which has been the center of much criticism since its Oct 4 release, directs the FBI to work with state and local governments to address an alleged “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against teachers and school leaders. It came shortly after National School Boards Association (NSBA) urged the Biden administration to invoke counter-terrorism laws to handle “angry mobs” of parents seeking to hold school officials accountable for the teaching of the Marxist critical race theory and for imposing COVID-19 restrictions on their children.
In a letter (pdf) sent on Monday to President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the chief legal officers argued that the memo doesn’t appear to be based on facts, but on a flawed NSBA narrative, which described disruptions at school board meetings as violent threats akin to “domestic terrorism.”
“The vast majority of incidents that NSBA cites involved disruptive and disorderly conduct rather than threats,” the letter reads. “In fact, in no known instance, has there been anything like the burning, looting, police assaults, vandalism and other criminal activity that occurred in the summer of 2020.”
The letter was referring to riots involving anarcho-communist group Antifa and Marxist group Black Lives Matter.
“Actual threats and violence towards school administrators, board members, teachers, or staff are rare,” the attorneys general noted, adding that there are already sufficient criminal and civil remedies available, without the need for FBI to intervene in “what is a quintessential local issue.”
The attorneys general further stated that the DOJ memo “is likely intimidating to parents,” who in many cases are, for the first time, exercising their First Amendment right to speak in a public forum.
“We as a country should celebrate their participation in our system of self-government, not silence them by accusing them of ‘domestic terrorism’ and threaten them with the prospect of the FBI knocking on their door to investigate their activities,” they added.
The letter was written by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, and co-signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
The letter comes as school board organizations in at least a dozen states distance themselves from the NSBA, citing disagreement over the way it characterized concerned parents. School boards in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, have released statements opposing the NSBA letter to the Biden administration or Garland’s memo or both.
Internal communications show staffers privately complaining about overtures from Catholic school officials
The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) shut out religious groups from a controversial curriculum development process, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The original draft of the agency’s sex education standards included plans to teach elementary school students about gender identity and transgender hormone therapy. Internal emails obtained by a concerned parentshow the NDE added a Planned Parenthood ally to the 28-member advisory team for the standards, while it excluded input from religious education groups. The documents show NDE employees were privately aggravated that Jeremy Ekeler, the associate director of education policy at the Nebraska Catholic Conference, wanted to be included in the curriculum process because they suspected he would be critical of their approach.
“Jeremy is coming on pretty strong,” one NDE employee emailed with a frowning face symbol.
“I know. I really think they want to advocate for abstinence only education as well as gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.; but that is only my assumption,” another employee responded.
Ekeler, a former principal at a Nebraska Catholic school, was able to schedule a Zoom meeting with the NDE after inquiring three times about the development process. Ekeler said the NDE told him in August 2020 that the advisory team was already full—a claim he said in hindsight feels like a cop-out.
“To know that a tax-funded state entity boxed out the beliefs of such a huge portion of our population is sadly ironic,” Ekeler told the Free Beacon. “The NDE has preached inclusion and diversity through this whole thing and then they excluded anybody who doesn’t fit with their agenda.”
Ekeler vouched for three Catholic experts with relevant experience to be on the advisory team, which the NDE told him was handpicked with no formal application process. Two told the Free Beacon the NDE never reached out. The third did not respond. Planned Parenthood activists, however, had no trouble getting access to policymakers.
Internal emails show that Deborah Neary, a state board of education member, pressured the NDE to include Lisa Schulze, a Friends of Planned Parenthood board member and former Planned Parenthood employee, in the curriculum draft process. “I am very disappointed that none of the folks that I recommended to participate in the Nebraska Department of Education Standard Writing Team were selected,” Neary said in an email. Schulze and two other activists—the executive director of OutNebraska and a local professor dedicated to the “intersection of sexuality and social justice”—requested by Neary were eventually added to the advisory team, which provided feedback on the standards to the writing team.
The NDE did not respond to questions on how it selected the advisory team. The agency has denied any influence from activists in drawing up the standards.
The first draft of the health standards, published in March, detailed a curriculum to teach gender identity in first grade, transgender hormone therapy in fifth grade, oral and anal sex in seventh grade, and abortion in eighth grade. Fr. Sean Kilcawley is a Nebraska priest who is certified as a Pastoral Sexual Addiction Practitioner Supervisor. Ekeler recommended him to be on the standards advisory team, but Kilcawley never heard from the NDE. Kilcawley said the radical nature of the sex education standards can be attributed at least in part to the fact that there was no Christian representation in the drafting process.
“Young people are going to be googling the content they are learning in class,” he told the Free Beacon. “So if they’re teaching about overt sexual actions in class it can lead to more pornography exposure, which leads to compulsive sexual behavior, which has led to an uptick on child to child sexual abuse.”
The original Nebraska sex education curriculum proposed in March was nearly identical to the 2020 National Sexuality Education Standards. These national standards are a collaboration between three deep-pocketed progressive advocacy groups: the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), Advocates for Youth, and Answer. SIECUS and Advocates for Youth have raked millions annually from the CDC and abortion-focused nonprofits for decades, a Free Beacon review of 990 forms found.
All three of the national sex education groups have ties to the Nebraska curriculum process. Schulze worked for Answer at the University of Rutgers. Emails show Neary scheduled a meeting between NDE members and a policy director at SIECUS. The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation has given $20 million to Advocates for Youth since 2008. Warren Buffett, the billionaire progressive philanthropist who heads the foundation, is an Omaha native. The Women’s Fund for Omaha, where Schulze works as an education and training manager, owns $12 million worth of stock in Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway.
Neither Schulze nor Neary responded to requests for comment.
The state’s board of education in September suspended the health standards after months of pushback from parents. Ekeler compared the dispute between parents and the school system to the battle of David and Goliath.
“Two things happen before David casts the stone with the sling,” Ekeler told the Free Beacon. “First he’s made aware of the battle and then, in one of my favorite Bible verses, he ran to the giant. Our parents, once they were made aware, ran to the battle—and I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has now repeatedly and clearly demonstrated his intention to tow the party line, as it drifts inexorably from Constitutional principles and the Bill of Rights—in lieu of serving as an independent and objective enforcer of federal law.
He first exposed his partisan contempt for objective facts in a speech given back on June 15. There he stated that “In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.” Not Antifa. Not BLM.
As FBI field agents are well aware, the domestic threat posed by white supremacists was successfully dissipated in the ‘80s and ‘90s, largely as a result of high-risk large-scale undercover operations targeting the Aryan Nations and other white militia organizations. Garland’s speech parroted statements made in congressional testimony by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Sept. 17, 2020, wherein much the same conclusory statements were made, unsupported by data, reflecting Democrat talking points rather than independent determinations based on articulated facts.
Garland’s and Wray’s statements have lent credibility to the newly expanded definition of white supremacy to include all those who disagree with progressive policies—the moral justification thus being created for repressive tactics directed at eliminating dissent. And—significantly—at ostracizing dissenters.
Garland has now taken another step in the politicization of the Department of Justice, by categorizing parents disturbed by progressive indoctrination of their children as domestic terrorists. And the FBI, whose resources are already overtaxed—approximately 10,000 special agents to protect a nation of 330,000,000 plus—has been directed to investigate this imminent threat to national security.
In his Oct. 4 memorandum to the FBI Director, Garland warns parents that “in the coming days, the Department [of Justice] will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
Missing in the memo is any clue as to the federal jurisdiction that might justify the FBI’s involvement in what appears to be in essence the suppression of opposing views—suppression of the expression of opinions which are contrary to the views propagated by individuals and institutions currently wielding the reins of power. Garland’s misuse of the government’s overwhelming power—proscribed by the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights—is barred precisely because the Framers anticipated such abuse of power, and went to great lengths to prevent it.
The assault on the Bill of Rights appears to be coordinated and nearly overwhelming in nature.
From the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, denied to the Jan. 6 unarmed Capitol Hill trespassers, to the utilization of tech companies as proxies to circumvent First Amendment limitations on government action, the onslaught has many fronts.
Apple is now monitoring and reviewing the images maintained by millions of customers on the cell phones that it sells. Ostensibly a measure to identify pedophiles, this is realistically a first step to monitor the public at large—actions by a powerful corporation that would be clearly illegal if conducted by the government without a warrant.
The right to a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers—the Sixth Amendment—was effectively eviscerated by the Biden administration’s declaration that mounted Customs and Border Protection officers were guilty of whipping illegal Haitian immigrants prior to any formal charges being brought
The administration’s disregard for free speech rights of millions of federal employees is evidenced by the White House’s list of prohibited words and phrases—a list that altogether too many corporate entities are quick to incorporate into their own private sector cultures.
Thus the Government achieves its proscribed goal of controlling speech through indirect means. And as is, or should be, self-evident, controlling permissible language is the first step toward controlling permissible thought.
An assault on property rights—heretofore secured by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ due process clauses—has utilized the back door of COVID-19 to justify regulation of small businesses, circumventing the legislative process, and severely restricting the exercise of business decisions by small entrepreneurs.
Civil rights have been curtailed by the insidious substitution of equity for equality—and by the insertion of critical race theory in lieu of the content of character theory of Martin Luther King.
The constitutional right to “security of person,” guaranteed in Article Three, along with the pursuit of happiness , as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, are being subtly undermined by the defund the police movement. How can happiness be pursued in an insecure, crime-ridden environment?
Rather, the assault on law-enforcement authorities has been ramped up. In the military, police, and in the Department of Homeland Security, witch-hunts are underway, with the search for dissenting opinion—mislabeled as a search for white supremacist conspirators—being encouraged and pursued by the media and left-wing think tanks. And the failure to provide secure borders undermines security on a number of levels, from the entry of violent criminals to the propagation of the dreaded virus.
Diversity of opinion is being routed out, and replaced by unquestioning obedience and propagation of dogma. How can the First Amendment’s freedom of religion be pursued when church and synagogue doors are barred whenever lock-downs are declared, while the doors to taverns remain open?
Powerful political leaders on the left—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—continually question the relevance of the Constitution, while enthusiastically supporting movements, such as the 1619 rewriting of American history, questioning the Framers’ relevance in the modern age.
The Second Amendment’s right to bear arms has been under constant attack from the Democrat Party. The attempt to place David Chipman, one of its most fervent opponents as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms proved beyond the pale, even for middle of the road supporters of firearm bans. However, individuals such as Mark and Patricia McCloskey of St. Louis, who have exercised their Second Amendment rights in the defense of their security and their property, have been ridiculed by the media and prosecuted by local authorities.
The elephant in the room regarding blatant disregard of our precious rights is of course COVID-19. The Biden administration, as well as state executive officers, have used the pandemic to justify the sweeping away the right to privacy that justice William Douglas interpreted into the Constitution, as emanating from the “penumbra of rights“ that the founding document enshrined as guarantees for future generations.
These privacy rights have for years been used to justify the legalization of abortion as part of a woman’s “right to choose.” Yet these privacy rights and the right to choose are disregarded entirely when it comes to the right to choose as to whether or not a medical product is to be injected into one’s body.
Although members of the military have historically been bound by certain limitations on their ability to communicate personal views, the imprisonment of Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller subsequent to his statements dissenting from disastrous decisions made by general command officers with regard to Afghanistan, is chilling indeed.
The move, in addition to being clearly intended to send a message to others in the military who might be so inclined, is additionally another step in the administration program to suppress and eliminate dissenting voices in the military and federal agencies.
To further enforce the message, Marine officials are also investigating Lance Corporal Hunter Clark for having consented to appear at the podium with non-candidate Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday, Sept. 25. Clark received national attention after rescuing an infant in the course of the chaotic evaluation at Kabul airport in Afghanistan.
What we are witnessing is a purge.
The true purpose of using vaccination mandates to fire employees from schools, civil service positions, hospitals, airlines, law enforcement, has nothing to do with COVID-19 and everything to do with disenfranchisement and diminution of our previously inalienable rights. The purpose is to weed out dissent.
It is the next step, following and building upon the redefinition of white supremacy to include any who disagrees with the party line, anyone who dissents. Just as the labeling of angry parents as domestic terrorists is simply a subterfuge to weed out dissent. It is a campaign to disempower, to eliminate those with dissenting ideas, ideas that diverge from authorized, “correct” thought. Those who could pose a threat to the power elite.
It’s another day ending in “Y,” so there’s more upside-down, crazy stuff from the left.
As in — let’s all be Holocaust deniers.
That’s what Gina Peddy last week told Texas teachers in a school district near Fort Worth.
Peddy, an executive director of curriculum for Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, was training teachers on how to stock their classroom libraries in light of new legislation requiring schools to present varied viewpoints on controversial subjects, according to the Southlake podcast of NBC News Digital.
The details are contained in Texas Senate Bill 3, set to go into effect in December, and in House Bill 3979, which went into effect last month. The laws require the teaching of essentially traditional civics in Texas schools. They allow teachers to opt out of addressing controversial subjects, but if they choose controversy, they must present a balanced viewpoint.
That’s where Peddy decided that, somehow, the Holocaust is controversial. Peddy, in effect, said there’s more than one viewpoint to genocide.
“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said, as she was secretly recorded, with the recording given to NBC. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing … that has other perspectives.”
Right.
Does Peddy really believe there’s more than one viewpoint on whether or not the Holocaust was justified? Or was she just using a juvenile way to object to the new Texas legislation, which tempers indoctrination in topics like critical race theory? Education professionals are supposed to teach the children, not act like them.
Actually, there’s a backstory to Peddy’s nonsense. At the macro level, it’s about what’s going on nationwide in public schools — parents are realizing the indoctrination that is taking place and are objecting.
And the priests and priestesses of Big Education are responding by telling parents to butt out.
At a local level, in Southlake and elsewhere, some parents have been concerned about the school district’s elevation of diversity and inclusion teaching.
Texas law prohibits teaching that could make individuals feel “guilt or anguish,” regarding their race, according to NBC.
There has been concern about the teaching of CRT, and some Southlake teachers are incensed that the school board voted to reprimand a fourth-grade teacher who had in her classroom a book on “anti-racism.”
(For those having trouble keeping up, you can consider the term anti-racism to be as against racist attitudes as Antifa is against fascism).
Not surprisingly, Peddy’s Holocaust comment has brought reaction.
Karen Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the district is trying to aid teachers in compliance with the new legislation, not only in teaching but in books they provide students, according to NBC.
“Our district recognizes that all Texas teachers are in a precarious position with the latest legal requirements,” she said. “Our purpose is to support our teachers in ensuring they have all of the professional development, resources and materials needed. Our district has not and will not mandate books be removed nor will we mandate that classroom libraries be unavailable.”
Union spokesman Clay Robinson of the Texas State Teachers Association said the new legislation doesn’t cover classroom libraries. And he criticized what Peddy had said.
“We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history,” Robison told NBC. “That’s absurd. It’s worse than absurd. And this law does not require it.”
Republican State Sen. Bryan Hughes, who wrote Senate Bill 3, concurred. Schools don’t have to present both sides of “good and evil,” and there’s no requirement to ban books with only one perspective of the Holocaust.
“That’s not what the bill says,” according to Hughes.
Following publicity surrounding Peddy’s teacher training, Carroll school superintendent Lane Ledbetter posted on Facebook: “We recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust,” and said the district would work to clarify expectations for teachers.
Some teachers have expressed concern over what they have in their classroom libraries. One anonymous interview conducted with two teachers by NBC addressed the statement that the district is not pressuring teachers to purge their bookshelves. “That’s a lie,” one responded. “It is a flat-out lie … How could you even make that statement?”
Asked by NBC what was at stake, the anonymous teacher said: “In books, children see what the world can be. And to have that taken away because we’re afraid of a few parents getting upset about a word or two or an idea that they have imagined is in a book is unthinkable.”
And true to form for ongoing militancy among those in the education establishment, one teacher’s classroom library has been covered with yellow caution tape, similar to what is seen at police or construction sites.
Ever think that maybe what we call public schools are really private schools, as in what Big Education thinks is its own private domain?
The superintendent of a Virginia school district on Friday appeared to admit the district violated state law in failing to properly report alleged sexual assaults, as a state official confirmed the matter is under review.
Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler made the admission during a brief appearance before reporters, where he read a prepared statement and took no questions.
Ziegler said that the district made “errors in our state reporting regarding disciplinary incidents in schools,” adding that it “inadvertently omitted some information in the past.”
“That is extremely concerning, and we are taking steps to make sure that process is improved. I will say that I have no reason to believe at this time that any missing reports were due to an intent to hide any information from the Virginia Department of Education,” he said, blaming an alleged “lack of oversight” that was in place before he was appointed in June, even though he served as interim superintendent starting Jan. 1.
Ziegler appeared to be responding to a report by The Daily Wire that the district failed to record multiple instances of alleged sexual assault even though it’s required to by state law.
Ziegler said during a school board meeting on June 22 that he was unaware of any record of assaults happening in the district’s restrooms, nearly a month after a girl was allegedly raped by a male in a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.
State law says that reports “shall be made” to school and district authorities regarding all assaults on school buses, on school grounds, or at a school-sponsored activity.
State law also directs district superintendents to annually report such incidents to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). But a public database of reports showed at least one assault that was not reported to state authorities.
A Loudoun County Public Schools spokesperson declined to comment on Ziegler’s Friday remarks but did not dispute the characterization that Ziegler acknowledged state law was not complied with.
Superintendents who fail to comply or secure compliance with the reporting requirements are subject to sanctions.
A VDOE spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency has reviewed the submissions made by Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) concerning discipline, crime, and violation “and is in communication with LCPS regarding the accuracy of their reports and whether the division is in compliance with state reporting requirements.
The spokesman confirmed that the submissions are required annually and that superintendents are required to certify their accuracy.
“This is a matter that VDOE takes very seriously and is actively investigating discrepancies in the LCPS reports,” he said.
Attendees are seen during a school board meeting in Loudoun County, Va., on June 22, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)
In his statement, Ziegler said he made misleading comments during the June meeting. He said his remarks came after wrongly interpreting a question about incidents in bathrooms as only involving transgender or “gender-fluid” students.
“I regret that my comments were misleading and I apologize for the distress that error caused families. I should have asked Board Member Barts clarifying questions to get to the root of her question, rather than assuming what she meant. I will do better in the future,” he said.
He also apologized for how the district handled two recent alleged assaults. “Let me say to the families and students involved: My heart aches for you, and I am sorry that we failed to provide the safe, welcoming and affirming environment that we aspire to provide,” he said.
A spokeswoman for father Scott Smith said in a statement to news outlets that Ziegler’s statement on behalf of LCPS “is the first acknowledgment that we have had that they are in fact responsible for their bad decision-making and policies that resulted in the two sexual assaults that happened in our high schools.”
“Today, Superintendent Ziegler said what we already knew: that the actions of the Loudoun County School Board and Administration ‘failed to provide the safe environment’ for the Smith’s daughter,” an attorney for the family added, before accusing LCPS of prioritizing “misguided policies of political correctness over student safety.”
Ziegler’s statement came as the county’s education leadership is under heightened scrutiny, in part because the board passed a policy that forces LCPS staffers to address students by any pronoun they choose, and lets students who claim to be another gender use that gender’s facilities.
The policy drew a fiery response at the June meeting, which was disbanded after Smith and another parent were arrested.
Smith recently revealed that his daughter was allegedly raped by a male inside a girl’s bathroom in her high school. He has described the male as utilizing the softness toward transgenderism to get inside the facility.
Smith has accused district leadership of covering up the assault.
The Loudon County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to The Epoch Times an incident took place in May at Stone Bridge High School but declined to provide more details, citing an ongoing investigation. It also declined to confirm reports that the same male was behind a sexual assault that took place at a different LCPS high school in October.
A Freedom of Information Act request seeking more details on the incidents and the arrest of Smith was sent.
LCPS told The Epoch Times earlier in the week via email that school board members “are typically not given details of disciplinary matters” and were not aware of the alleged rape until it was reported on in media outlets.
A member of the school board facing a recall petition resigned from the board on Friday, and attorneys for the Smith family filed a lawsuit this week against the district.
An ethics complaint has been filed against White House press secretary Jen Psaki after she indulged in a bit of political cheerleading during a White House briefing.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel calling for an investigation of an alleged Hatch Act violation by Psaki, according to The Hill.
The Hatch Act bans government employees from partisan campaign activities and other political activity while acting in their official capacity.
CREW, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said Psaki crossed the line Thursday during a White House briefing when she gushed over Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia. McAuliffe is locked in a tight race against Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin.
Psaki was asked if the White House was interpreting the race as a referendum on President Joe Biden’s policies, which McAuliffe strongly supports.
“Well, I have to be a little careful about how much political analysis I do from here and not (inaudible) into that too much,” she said, according to a White House transcript of the briefing.
“Look, I think the president, of course, wants former Gov. McAuliffe to be the future governor of Virginia. There is alignment on a lot of their agenda, whether it is the need to invest in rebuilding our roads, rails, and bridges, or making it easier for women to rejoin the workforce,” she said.
“I will say as — I will leave it to other outside analysis to convey that off-year elections are often — are often not a bellwether, but — and there’s a lot of history here in Virginia. But, again, we’re going to do everything we can to help former Gov. McAuliffe, and we believe in the agenda he’s representing,” she said.
The letter from CREW said Psaki’s comment was a foul when it came to the Hatch Act.Did Jen Psaki violate the Hatch Act?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“By mixing official government business with support of a candidate for partisan political office in the weeks before the election and engaging in political activity while on duty, Ms. Psaki appears to have used her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election, political activity that is prohibited by law,” the letter said.
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany scolded the establishment media for not making a peep when Psaki crossed the line.
“Why does the media not hold @PressSec accountable for potential Hatch Act violations? She has twice advocated for political candidates from the podium. There is no problem in engaging in First Amendment political activity, but it must be done separate and apart from the podium,” she tweeted.
Why does the media not hold @PressSec accountable for potential Hatch Act violations? She has twice advocated for political candidates from the podium.
There is no problem in engaging in First Amendment political activity, but it must be done separate and apart from the podium. https://t.co/ICLldHRCgs
Psaki shrugged off the complaint as a case of poor word choice, according to CNN.
“I take ethics seriously. So does the president, of course,” she said in an interview.
“As I understand it, if I had said ‘he’ instead of ‘we,’ that would not have been an issue at all, and I’ll be more careful with my words next time,” Psaki said. “Words certainly matter.”
“While the President has publicly expressed his support for McAuliffe, we’ll leave it to the press and the campaign to provide commentary on the race,” Psaki told CNBC.
Earlier this year, the Office of Special Counsel ruled that Marcia Fudge, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, violated the Hatch Act in talking about Democrats’ chances to win an upcoming election in her home state of Ohio.
The Ohio State Board of Education has rescinded a racial equity resolution it adopted last summer, citing a “troubling focus” on students’ skin color rather than their character.
The resolution in question, approved in July 2020 amid the nationwide unrest sparked by George Floyd’s death, highlighted “significant gaps” in academic performance between black students and their white peers, acknowledging that “profound disparities” between white and non-white students “exist in all parts of the Ohio education system.”
To address the said racial inequity, the resolution directed the Ohio Department of Education (DOE) to require training for all employees and contractors to “identify their own implicit bias,” and recommended that all Ohio school districts reflect on potential bias in their curricula and policies for hiring, staff development, and student discipline.
Following a four-hour debate on Wednesday night, the education board voted to repeal the 2020 resolution by a margin of 10-7, with two members absent, reported Advance Ohio.
In a new resolution put forward as a replacement, the board said it has observed since last July “not only a growing national divide but a troubling focus on the color of one’s skin rather than on the content of one’s character.”
“The Board seeks excellence in education for all children and families, without prejudice or respect to race, ethnicity, or creed,” the resolution reads, adding that it not only acknowledges the disparities between students of different races, but also those among “additional diverse groups, such as economically-disadvantaged students.”
The new resolution no longer asks that the Ohio DOE employees or contractors undergo implicit bias training, citing a legal analysis of the original resolution by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. In his opinion released last month, Yost said the board does not have authority to require private contractors to take such training.
While the Wednesday resolution doesn’t specifically mention critical race theory (CRT), it condemns any attempt to teach the idea that people of a certain race are inherently racist and should feel guilty for historical injustice and oppression committed by those of that race—one of the key premises held by CRT proponents.
“The Board affirms its condemnation of racism, hate speech, hate crimes and violence in the service of hatred,” it reads. “The Board condemns any standards, curriculum, or training programs for students, teachers, or staff that seek to divide or to ascribe circumstances or qualities, such as collective guilt, moral deficiency, or racial bias, to a whole race or group of people.”
Board member John Hagan, who voted in favor of the new resolution, said the original one excessively focused on race.
“I think the initial resolution was very pointed,” Hagan said, according to Advance Ohio. “It kind of said the boogeyman in the problem with these gaps is based on race. I don’t think anyone questions whether race might be a factor in this. But there are a lot of factors.”
House Judiciary Committee Republicans sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding an ethics review and public report regarding the AG’s memo, which directs the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Attorneys to use law enforcement to investigate parents who “intimidate” school board members.
“This letter is to express our serious concerns about your recent decision to involve federal law enforcement entities in local school board debates and to stifle First Amendment-protected political speech. Your actions are not just inappropriate, but also appear to have been improperly influenced by politics and by your family’s interest in the matter,” wrote the Republican Judiciary Committee members in their letter (pdf), including Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).
L: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 12, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) R: Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 27, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The letter is referring to the memorandum that Garland sent to federal agency heads on Oct. 4 directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to mobilize their states’ law enforcement to investigate parents who “threaten violence” toward school board members or administration officials.
“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” stated Garland’s memo.
Garland’s memo came only days after the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to crack down on parents who are “threatening” school boards.
“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” stated the NSBA’s letter.
Parents across the United States and most prominently in Loudon County, Virginia, have been speaking out at crowded school board meetings to oppose some of the curriculum being used in their children’s public schools and divisive ideas such as America is systemically racist. Parents in many areas have also been questioning some of the sexual content in the books being used at their children’s schools.
Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) one of the Reps. who signed the letter to Garland, said he attended Loudon County public schools for most of his childhood but that now the curriculum being taught is an “embarrassment.”
A crowd is seen at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Ashburn, Va. (File Photo/Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
“I also want to know where he thinks he has the power to send FBI into communities to go after parents who are simply going to the school board to express their discontent with what’s happening in school boards,” Roy told Newsmax on Thursday.
A Virginia mother, Asra Nomani, told The Epoch Times those parents are only advocating for what they think is best for their children.
She is the vice president of strategy and investigation with Parents Defending Education, an organization working to “reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas,” their webpage states.
Nomani said in an Oct. 8 interview that parents going to school board meetings are, “asking the school board serious questions about how money is spent, the ideology that’s being promoted in the classroom, and these school board members don’t like getting these hard questions.”
“What’s happening in Loudoun County, Virginia, is incomprehensible. … And parents obviously have a right to exercise free speech and demand accountability from public officials. … This should be the time for all parents to get engaged. Do it lawfully, exercise your free speech, but certainly, we have to have some accountability at these local school boards,” Rep. Johnson said during a recent interview with Fox News.
Nomani’s advice to parents is to not be intimidated by the DOJ’s directive but to continue to voice their opposition to the ideas they disagree with, at public school board meetings and videotape their interactions.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Republicans’ letter to the AG.
A controversial letter sent to President Joe Biden, in which the National School Boards Association (NSBA) asked that some parents attending school board meetings be considered domestic terrorists, was the final straw for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA).
The letter (pdf) prompted the Department of Justice to announce that the FBI and U.S. attorneys would discuss ways to address threats against school employees and board members, a task traditionally left to local law enforcement.
After what it describes as “significant deliberations,” the PSBA voted unanimously to withdraw from the National organization and sent a statement (pdf) to its Pennsylvania members Thursday, explaining the decision.
“The value of the NSBA federation membership has been questioned numerous times over the past several years both within Pennsylvania and amongst many other state school boards associations,” the statement to members says. “This misguided approach has made our work and that of many school boards more difficult. It has fomented more disputes and cast partisanship on our work on behalf of school directors, when we seek to find common ground and support all school directors in their work, no matter their politics. Now is not the time for more politics and posturing, it is the time for solutions to the many challenges facing education.”
PSBA serves 500 school districts and 4,500 elected school board directors. It said a school board meeting should be the model of democracy in action.
“Civility is the bedrock of this approach to local governance,” the statement said. “Board members, the public, and parents need to be held to a high standard of responsible participation in this process. No school board member or administrator should ever be the subject of threats or violence—it is shocking that someone would ever use violence to solve a difference of opinion over educational policies. However, attempting to solve the problems with a call for federal intervention is not the place to begin, nor a model for promoting greater civility and respect for the democratic process.”
PSBA has been unhappy with NSBA for quite a while. “It has been a struggle for the board and leadership of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association to identify a reason to continue to be a part of a federation that is not focused on bipartisanship, civility, and seeking solutions to the internal problems,” the statement said.
PSBA is not alone in its displeasure with NSBA. Florida School Boards Association sent an Oct. 11 letter (pdf) to NSBA encouraging a review of NSBA’s leadership and urged a public acknowledgment of the federal overreach expressed in its letter to the president. “As you are aware, we did not submit payment for 2020–2021 dues, which were due July 1, 2021,” the Florida association wrote. “We have been clear about reassessing the value of our affiliation with NSBA due to concerns surrounding NSBA’s governance, leadership, transparency, and failure to embrace non-partisanship.”
The Montana School Boards Association issued an Oct. 5 statement (pdf) saying NSBA did not consult the Montana organization before it issued its request. “We have full trust and confidence in the civility of constituents, the sincerity and good intentions of those providing input and trusted local law enforcement to address any isolated criminal issues that may arise,” the Montana statement said.
In an Oct. 6 statement, Denotris Jackson, executive director of the Mississippi School Boards Association called the NSBA letter inflammatory. “It has created great dissension, much unproductive discussion, and a rise of distrust in public school board members and educators,” Denotris wrote. “Hearing from passionate stakeholders can be a sign of healthy community engagement. NSBA’s action is counter-productive to board efforts to engage parents and other stakeholders in the activities of the district and to our efforts to solicit stakeholder input and support.”
Parents Defending Education, an advocacy group, contacted state school board associations for comment on the NSBA’s letter to Biden. According to its website, 16 states have distanced themselves from the NSBA’s letter as of Oct. 14, including Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming.
NSBA did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland to demand an explanation concerning his memorandum to the Federal Bureau of Investigation over “serious concerns” regarding parents at school board meetings.
The letter, first reported by the Daily Caller, was led by Lousiana Rep. Mike Johnson and joined by 18 additional GOP House members on the committee.
“This letter is to express our serious concerns about your recent decision to involve federal law enforcement entities in local school board debates and to stifle First Amendment-protected political speech. Your actions are not just inappropriate, but also appear to have been improperly influenced by politics and by your family’s interest in the matter,” the representatives wrote.
“As members of the House Committee on the Judiciary, we have a responsibility to conduct oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and we trust that you will fully cooperate with our inquiry,” they added.
Part of the letter’s request included a call for Garland to submit himself to an ethics investigation.
The House members concluded with the “request you promptly consult with the designated agency ethics official to determine if your actions in this matter have resulted in an ethics violation for a breach of impartiality.”
“Judiciary Republicans trust that Mr. Garland will submit to our requested ethics inquiry, publicly release its results, and take whatever actions are necessary to protect the integrity of the office of Attorney General, including either recusing himself from this issue and/or rescinding the October 4th memorandum,” Johnson told the Daily Caller.
Part of the controversy stems from allegations that Garland’s son-in-law profits from work to promote critical race theory.
“The Justice Department usually has very broad standards for the appearance of impropriety that would trigger at least the inquiry into whether there was a conflict of interest,” former U.S. Assistant Attorney Andy McCarthy said during a recent interview with Fox News.
Garland’s son-in-law reportedly co-founded and works with the company Panorama Education. An educational workshop released by the company includes materials that promote critical race theory and fixate on overcoming “white supremacy,” according to Fox.
“The idea is that Garland’s son-in-law is profiting lucratively from peddling this stuff to the schools. And Garland, even though the Justice Department doesn’t appear to have jurisdiction to do what it’s done, is siccing the FBI on parents who are dissenting against these kinds of materials,” McCarthy added.
Garland sent the Oct. 4 memorandum to the FBI concerning “threats” against school personnel.
“In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s schools,” the attorney general wrote.
“The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate,” Garland continued.
“In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel,” he went on. “Coordination and partnership with local law enforcement is critical to implementing these measures for the benefit of our nation’s nearly 14,000 public school districts.”
When the Department of Justice announced they’d be investigating possible “acts of violence” against school authorities, parents quickly responded. Many saw this investigation as something else.
While the DOJ apparently wants to probe a “disturbing trend” of harassment and threats, many Americans say it’s more about government stepping on their rights as parents.
And former Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos agrees 100%.
On Monday, the news broke that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s officers were going to have meetings with federal, state and local law enforcement in the next month.
The plan: to combat the aforementioned trend of harassment, supposedly perpetrated by parents against school board officials.
Of course, while it’s important not to dismiss legitimate threats, most parents likely aren’t guilty of anything so serious. And many just want to be part of their children’s education.
Now, parents around the nation are calling out this investigation, saying it further diminishes their input, and elevates the power of state and federal leaders.
In speaking to Fox News, DeVos echoed these sentiments:
This memo is a shameless attempt to intimidate parents into silence and to continue to limit their control of their children’s education.
…this is yet another example of the Biden Administration being more focused on keeping the union bosses happy than putting America’s students first.
DeVos added that the DOJ should be more worried about “real civil rights concerns involving indoctrinating students with false, race-based narratives.”
She’s referring to the ongoing battle with CRT (Critical Race Theory), which millions of parents have already spoken out against. DeVos has also been vocal about her criticism of the theory.
As for the DOJ’s investigation, to lots of parents it feels suspiciously like a threat itself.
DeVos said these parents won’t easily be pushed around, however. “Fed-up parents who want the best for their children will not be intimidated into silence,” she noted.
The memo in question came after the National School Board Association penned a letter to President Biden, asking his team to look into parent protests and potential acts of “domestic terrorism.”
This is the sort of terminology that rubs many parents the wrong way.
In fact, here’s what Asra Nomani said; she’s the vice president of investigations and strategy of Parents Defending Education:
I am what a domestic terrorist looks like? You owe parents an apology!
Education remains one of the hot-button issues of the day, and now it’s going beyond topics like CRT.
At this point, parents are very concerned that the state is essentially taking full control of the entire system, and will even push things in school parents absolutely don’t want their children to see and hear.
The progressives claim it’s important for the child’s education — but many moral, common-sense parents vehemently disagree.
Key Takeaways:
Former Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called out the DOJ’s investigation into parent protests.
The FBI has been asked to look into possible acts of “domestic terrorism” by parents against school officials.
DeVos and many parents claim this is just another way to “intimidate and silence” Americans.
A Virginia-based parent group attempting to oust five Loudoun County School Board members was given a small win after a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday in favor of the organization’s recall petition against a board member who sought to dismiss it.
On Tuesday, a judge denied Loudoun County school board member Beth Barts’ motion to dismiss the case and also removed Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj from the case.
The group Fight For Schools and others have alleged that Barts was involved in a private Facebook group that violated the School Board’s Code of Conduct and other laws after members allegedly tried to attempt to reveal private information about parents and opponents.
Judge Jeanette Irby, meanwhile, ruled that Biberaj should be removed from the case due to a public perception issue, arguing the public may not trust the prosecutor to be impartial.
“I have the utmost respect for Ms. Biberaj … however, if she continued on this case there would never be acceptance on this case,” Irby said, according to local media outlets.
An attorney for Citizens of Leesburg, another plaintiff in the case, cited a Twitter post made by Biberaj in which she shared a letter to the editor published in Loudoun Now that supported the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work—which is closely aligned with the quasi-Marxist critical race theory that’s now at the center of many heated school board debates across the United States.
Biberaj was also listed as a member of the same private Facebook group in which Barts had belonged—Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun—where members were allegedly sought to reveal private information, or “doxx,” parents and opponents of critical race theory.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office and the school district for comment.
Ian Prior, who is involved in the charge to remove Barts from the school board, said he is pleased with the judge’s decision on Tuesday.
“We are ecstatic,” Prior told WJLA. “I can say for months, parents have been asking for a seat at the table. We haven’t been heard by the school board. They haven’t given us that opportunity. The leaders here haven’t stepped up to try to come to resolution about what’s going on in schools, but yesterday the court gave us that seat at the table.”
“I feel like the judge looked at the evidence and made a decision that was right,” Fight for Schools supporter Erin Dunbar, also a parent, said after the hearing, according to Loudoun Now. “I think she’s unbiased. She’s looking at the evidence in front of her and I think she’s actually going to give us a fair trial.”
Earlier this year, when she was censured over her social media activity, Barts said in a statement: “It’s not my job to be liked. It’s my job to ask hard questions, work to provide the best education for our kids, make sure our teachers are paid what they really deserve, and represent the people of Leesburg.”
Her statement came after School Board Vice Chairwoman Atoosa Reaser asserted in March that Barts repeatedly violated the school board’s code of conduct.
Meanwhile, a several-month-long Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office investigation found that social media posts in the private Facebook group did not constitute criminal action, according to local media. The office, as a result, did not pursue criminal charges against any of the members after they received complaints alleging “evidence of organized criminal activity intended to infringe upon 1st Amendment rights and [violations of] certain laws surrounding the crimes of stalking, harassment, and racketeering.”
With the emergence of U.S. Constitution focus groups in North Carolina comes their different strategies on reasserting what they say are breached liberties.
The WNCFreedom2020 group in Asheville, North Carolina, has convened a Grand Jury of the People, according to its founders, pursuant to the 1215 Magna Carta and the North Carolina State Constitution, to question the authority of the Buncombe County Commissioners and Board of Education’s COVID-19 policies.
According to the documents, a people’s civil grand jury is recognized as the authority on correcting, admonishing, and reining in “tyrannical actions” of government.
Kay Olsen, WNCFreedom2020’s secretary, told The Epoch Times, “There are four branches of government: the judicial, legislative, and executive branch. Then there’s ‘We the People.’ Somehow, the other three branches have forgotten that we put them there.”
Olsen referred to a quote from the late Antonin Scalia, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until 2016.
The quote comes from his opinion in the case of United States vs. Williams, a 1992 ruling during which the purpose of the grand jury was debated surrounding a hearing in which exculpatory evidence had been withheld from the grand jury, a decision that might not have led to indictment based on that evidence, according to the defendant.
Scalia says that the grand jury is alluded to in the Bill of Rights, but not in the U.S. Constitution, and has not been “textually assigned” to any of the branches in the first three Articles.
“In fact, the whole theory of its function is that it belongs to no branch of the institutional government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the government and the people,” Scalia says.
Thus, the citizens have an “unbridled right” to create their own grand juries, Scalia says, and present “true bills of indictment” to a court that can lead to criminal proceedings.
“Our Founding Fathers presciently thereby created a ‘buffer’ the people may rely upon for justice, when public officials, including judges, criminally violate the law,” Scalia says.
Findings of the Grand Jury
The group published three findings in its civil grand jury specifically directed at the Buncombe County State Government in Asheville, North Carolina.
The jury said that the state has no authority to mandate masks or vaccinations in its school system and demanded that its schools eradicate Critical Race Theory (CRT) from its curriculum.
CRT is a Marxist philosophy that describes society as a class struggle between oppressors and the oppressed; it labels white people as the oppressors, and all other races as the oppressed.
The Grand Jury of the People served its findings to the Buncombe County School Board, County Commissioners, and the Sheriff’s Department in August.
In its second meeting in September, Olsen said the grand jury awarded financial restitution to parents of children who had been what the grand jury alleged as abused by restrictive COVID-19 masking and medical discrimination policies.
“This past week, the grand jury—after hearing sworn testimony by several parents, the distressful, and in many cases, unlawful conduct of teachers, principals, and other school employees—unanimously determined the following offenses and have determined damages be rewarded,” the findings reported.
This restitution, according to Olsen, is to be paid by the board of education to five parents: $60,000 to one, and $55,000 to the four others.
“The board has 30 days to respond,” Olsen said.
The grand jury sent notices of its actions to Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Democrat Attorney General Joshua Stein, Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby, Republican House Speaker Tim Moore, and Republican state Sen. Phil Berger.
“We have sent them the findings of the first grand jury and the second grand jury, with a letter stating that Buncombe County has not responded to our first grand jury, and that it’s the governor’s responsibility to remedy this,” Olsen said.
Grand Jury of the People’s Structure
The Grand Jury of the People is comprised of 24 people or more who aren’t required to be named.
The meetings are held in secret, and no one is allowed to discuss what took place in the meeting.
The foreperson, assistant foreperson, the secretary, and the grand jury sign an oath, and hear testimony from people who choose to come before the grand jury.
The oath is specifically to uphold the U.S. Constitution of 1787 and the NC Constitution of 1776, Olsen said.
Later, findings are made based on the testimonies given.
Those findings are then delivered to what the grand jury decides are the transgressing entities, such as the school board and the commissioners that have mandated masks and enacted what the jury has deemed as medical discriminatory policies.
The grand jury alleged that county officials have not done their due diligence in researching the science that contradicts the effectiveness of the policies and their harmful outcomes, nor does the county have the authority to prescribe medical accommodations, therefore they must terminate the policies, according to its findings.
Right to Assemble
According to one of the advisors of the grand jury, Mike Flannigan, the word “assemble” must be viewed from a 1776 perspective.
“It’s not people sitting on the street corner with signs saying, ‘Hell no,’” Flannigan told The Epoch Times. “An assembly is an assembly of the people called together to correct their government, and the grand jury is the ultimate form of that. It’s a grand jury because it has a larger number of people than a petit jury, which is used during the trial.”
The people have the right to assemble to instruct their representatives, Flannigan said.
“And if they ignore the instructions of the people, they are creating a constitutional crisis, and should be removed from office,” Flannigan said. “The people don’t ask for permission. If you go to the government and ask for permission, who is really ruling the roost?”
Buncombe County Response
Though the Buncombe County Board of Education did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for a statement on its reply to the Grand Jury of the People, the Buncombe County Commission Chair, Brownie Newman, told The Epoch Times that he’s aware of the group.
“My response to these groups is that if they really believe that ‘the people’ agree with their views, they should file to run for elective office just as the people serving on the county commission and county school board have done,” Newman said. “Elections are how we decide who will represent the community. For a small group of self-selected people who have never been elected by anyone in our community to decide they have the authority to impose their agenda on everyone else goes against everything our Constitution stands for, in my opinion.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has a conflict of interest in his order to federal officials to target parents who are suspected of intimidating, harassing, or being violent toward school staffers, activists say.
Garland in an Oct. 4 memorandum directed FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to address what he described as “a disturbing spike” in such behavior in recent months. He said a series of measures will be announced soon “to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
Parents have increasingly protested against the rise of critical race theory teachings in schools, but few incidents have turned violent.
Some activists say Garland’s order constitutes a conflict of interest, pointing to contracts that his son-in-law’s company, Panorama Education, has signed with school districts across the country.
In one case, Asra Nomani of Parents Defending Education said, the company signed a $1.8 million contract with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia that will see Panorama collect information on students with surveys including questions about whether they feel “gender fluid.” There are also portions allocated for “equity” professional development, a word often used by critical race theorists.
“Panorama Education staff gets status as ‘school officials’ so they have the right to private student data under federal law, according to an email just sent by a Fairfax County school district official. This is federal law that Garland would have to enforce and Big Tech is now circumventing,” Nomani wrote in a blog post.
“The Attorney General is instructing the FBI to investigate parents who might pose a financial threat to the business of his daughter’s husband,” she wrote in another blog, under the moniker Sundance.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he’s been reviewing notes on Garland’s connections.
“The allegations that Attorney General Garland’s family is potentially profiting off his recent decision to use federal law enforcement to shut down debate at school board meetings is deeply troubling. If this turns out to be true, Congress must hold oversight hearings now to investigate potential corruption,” he told The Epoch Times via email.
Panorama and the Department of Justice (DOJ) didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.
A Panorama spokesperson told news outlets that the company “only uses student data for the purpose of helping schools and districts better serve their students.”
The company isn’t linked with “any particular academic philosophy, including critical race theory,” the spokesperson said. “The only relationship between Panorama Education and Attorney General Merrick Garland is that Panorama’s co-founder Xan Tanner is AG Garland’s son-in-law.”
Lisa Monaco, a top DOJ official, defended the order before Congress this week, arguing that “spirited debate” was welcome at school board meetings but that “violence is not appropriate.”
Most of the incidents were merely parents growing “rowdy or disruptive,” writer Zaid Jilani said.
The National School Boards Association urged the Biden administration to deal with “angry mobs” of parents just days before the order was issued, listing a number of incidents it deemed over the line. “The classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the association wrote.
The association welcomed the new order, saying it sent “a strong message to individuals with violent intent who are focused on causing chaos, disrupting our public schools, and driving wedges between school boards and the parents, students, and communities they serve.”
Parents opposed to critical race theory (CRT) in California classrooms are outraged over accusations from school boards that criticism of ethnic studies curriculums based on CRT and other neo-Marxist ideologies is linked to domestic terrorism.
The National School Boards Association (NSBA), which denies CRT is being taught in K-12 schools, in a Sept. 29 letter (pdf) said parents at local school board meetings opposed to CRT and mask mandates are contributing to a “growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation” and asked President Joe Biden’s administration to address the issue.
The NSBA letter states: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
Celeste Fiehler, a member of ParentsUnion.org, told The Epoch Times the NSBA comparison of parents to “domestic terrorism” is ludicrous and wrong.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s an intimidation tactic,” she said. “I’m not afraid of the FBI knocking on my door because I stood up for my kid as a parent.”
She opposes CRT, which she calls “hate-based” education that divides students into oppressed and oppressors based on race and privilege.
“When you take power away from parents, or their ability to raise their children, you’re going to get angry parents—parents who love their children,” said Fiehler, whose children attend the Desert Sands Unified School District (DSUSD) in Riverside County.
“We’re not knocking down podiums. We’re not burning down school buildings. We’re asking for fair education for our children, and what we oppose is the curriculum,” Fiehler said.
A Desert Sands Unified School District school board meeting on Oct. 5, 2021. (Screenshot via DUHSD)
AG and DOJ Respond
Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland responded with a memorandum and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a press release announcing a concerted effort to target threats of violence, intimidation, and harassment by parents directed toward school board members, teachers, and other personnel.
“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” wrote Attorney General Garland. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
Garland has directed his office and the FBI “to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response by law enforcement,” according to the press release.
The DOJ will create a task force consisting of representatives from the department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service and the Office of Justice Programs “to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes, and ways to assist state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.”
The DOJ will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and administrators to “help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.”
Riverside County
Fiehler blasted the “domestic terrorist” label at a DSUSD meeting on Tuesday.
“If you think for one second, that parents who love their children and are here to protect them … are domestic terrorists, then consider every single one of us just that,” Fiehler said.
“Being a domestic terrorist, you’ll see me in the pickup line and the drop-off lines of three different schools, rushing three kids to sports, and at the high school football games because I love my children,” she told the board.
“What you won’t see is this tired terrorist mom doing is burning down buildings, destroying property, physically assaulting people throwing Molotov cocktails out my car window, or murdering anyone,” she said, referring to incidents during the 2020 summer riots. “I’m a law-abiding citizen who wants a fair and healthy education for my children.”
“So, don’t mess with parents protecting their children because you will lose,” she concluded.
Fiehler said Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris downplayed the violence that occurred during protests following the death of George Floyd last year.
“Thousands of people were injured, hundreds of lives were changed forever, and a lot of people died because of them,” she said.
Rather than policing parents, she said “the activists should be investigated.”
Fiehler said some school boards have taken steps to disrupt the conversation on CRT and other important topics, including censoring videos of public meetings on YouTube to remove parents’ comments and removing chairs to limit the seating capacity at meetings.
Monterey County
Kelly Schenkoske, a Monterey County parent who homeschools her children, has opposed the ethnic studies curriculum and CRT at Salinas Union High School District (SUHSD) meetings.
The NSBA’s comparison of parents protesting CRT to domestic terrorism, suggesting there is some kind of moral equivalency, is simply false, she said.
“They want to shut down any dissenting voices. They want conformity,” Schenkoske said. “While they’re attempting to silence the civic engagement of parents and taxpayers, they’re ramping up efforts to push civic engagement on youth.”
Many teachers in public schools are actively recruiting unsuspecting “young foot soldiers” to promote their own political ideologies, she said.
The book, “Rethinking Ethnic Studies,” by R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, encourages student activism and talks about the youth voice as imperative, Schenkoske said.
“It showcases their agenda for all,” she said.
SUHSD has recently used a new tactic, allowing students to comment first at school board meetings, Schenkoske said. Though there hasn’t been a change in official board policy, she said it’s another strategy the board has used to silence dissenting opinions and block criticism.
At the last board meeting, parents who requested their three minutes to speak were denied the opportunity because of the new policy.
“None of them were ever allowed to speak. Students were given the entire allotted time,” she said.
SUHSD teacher Peter Williams has mentioned several times at recent school board meetings that parents opposed to CRT should not be allowed to speak.
Orange County
Irvine parent David Whitley told The Epoch Times many parents in Orange County are fed up with what public schools are teaching, and many parents have chosen CRT as “a hill to die on.”
“We’re either going to get this nonsense tampered down, or people like me are going to leave the state. There’s no reason to stay in a place that is completely anti-American and growing to be anti-white under the guise of anti-racism. It just defies logic and reason,” he said.
Comparing irate parents to domestic terrorists is “completely absurd,” he said. “If there’s one thing parents should be doing, it’s being extremely angry at what the public schools are teaching their kids … so I am ecstatic that more and more parents are going to the school board meetings and speaking up.”
Though “it’s a little bit late in the day” to try to fix public schools in the state, Whitley said parents can no longer sit back and watch what’s happening.
Whitley said it’s not surprising that the recent backlash from parents has left local school boards and other government officials feeling threatened.
“They should,” he said, “because the country is run by families and by parents. The public schools are there to educate their kids so that they’re informed and good citizens, and what they’re doing in the public schools is literally dividing the nation and destroying the country.”
Whitley urged more parents to stand up against the school boards.
Children are being taught to have “different moral views, different views on sexuality, different views on American history, different views on the nuclear family and their place in life itself,” he said. “It’s just absurd.”
While he’s glad to see so many mothers at school board meetings, Whitley said more fathers are now showing up.
“That may be why they’re intimidated, because it’s not just a bunch of soccer moms that are talking at the school board meetings now,” he said.
“And, they want to intimidate us with the power of the FBI? Well, I know people in law enforcement, and they don’t like what’s going on either,” Whitley said. “So, it’s going to come to a head at some point because what I know is the parents that are upset by this aren’t going away until they’re either in handcuffs or they stop indoctrinating their children.”
Californians for Equal Rights
Meanwhile, the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) on Oct. 1, joined forces with 20 organizations in response (pdf) to NSBA’s “fear-mongering” letter,” the organization stated in a media release.
“Going forward, CFER will stand with our parent and community supporters in the unifying and broad-based movement against toxic racial divisions and political indoctrination in our public education system,” according to the media release.
“CFER is particularly alarmed by DOJ’s categorical allegation of grassroots activities at the school district level as ‘criminal conduct,’ and how this call for federal investigations can gravely discourage civic participation,” the media release stated.
“In response to community demands for more transparency and parental access to controversial educational activities, CFER has engaged in local organizing and awareness building on issues such as ethnic studies, critical race theory and racial preferences,” said Frank Xu, CFER president.
“Contrary to the victim narrative promoted by DOJ to coddle school board personnel, lack of responsiveness and accountability on the part of many public-school authorities has prompted a growing number of parents speaking at open meetings and seeking legitimate channels to express their concerns,” the release stated.
