Remember when parents showed up at school board meetings to complain about “critical race theory” and “transgender” policies that violated girls’ privacy and put them in danger during the Biden administration?
School board members did not like parents criticizing them. The National School Boards Association (NSBA) asked Joe Biden in September 2021 for federal intervention over alleged threats against school officials. The organization invoked the Patriot Act and compared parents to domestic terrorists.
Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general, responded by directing federal law enforcement to coordinate with state and local authorities on threats of violence.
Parents wanted answers about their children’s education, and this was the response? Backlash against the NSBA and the “Garland Memo” was swift. The NSBA apologized, and numerous state associations withdrew or suspended participation.
An independent review released in May 2022 found that the letter’s drafters collaborated with the White House. An earlier draft even proposed military intervention. The full NSBA board hadn’t reviewed the letter.
Now the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has released a report about the Garland Memo. According to DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, White House pressure drove the memo despite little evidence of violence or violent threats.
The FBI opened 25 assessments involving parents. From the press release (emphasis added):
One FBI whistleblower disclosed that a mother was investigated because she “is a gun owner” and belonged to a “right-wing mom’s group.”
Over a dozen DOJ and FBI personnel criticized the memo, calling it “ridiculous,” “horrible,” “nothing remotely federal,” and more.
“The Working Group officially acknowledges what many Americans already assumed: that as Biden Administration actions chilled the exercise of parental and free speech rights, parents who lawfully exercised their parental rights and freedom of speech were often targeted by members of the educational establishment.”
Parents should never have been put in this position, but the Trump administration will make sure it won’t happen again.
