JEFFERSON CITY – On Monday, Attorney General Schmitt joined a 17-state effort to deter the Biden administration from threatening parents who express their views to school officials on issues regarding their children’s education.
“The Biden Department of Justice is weaponizing its resources to go after parents who dare to advocate for their children at school board meetings. This dangerous federal overreach imposes a chilling effect on free speech by criminalizing dissent. I will always advocate for parents who want the best possible education for their children, and will continue to push back against the Biden Administration’s unprecedented federal overreach,” said Attorney General Schmitt.
The state attorneys general expressed their concerns in an Oct. 18 letter to President Joe Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
On Oct. 4, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum decrying a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
On that premise, U.S. Attorney General Garland called for the FBI and other federal law enforcement agents to fan out across the United States and monitor activities in the nation’s school districts to suppress what they deem unruly behavior.
The Biden administration, however, has provided no convincing evidence of any significant “spike” in threats against school personnel. Instead, these actions by the administration seem designed to chill the lawful dissent of parents who express concerns about their children’s education at local public school board meetings.
The Department of Justice memo echoes a National School Board Association (NSBA) letter sent Sept. 29 to the Biden administration that laments the rise of parents pushing back against divisive ideologies, including critical race theory (CRT). The NSBA letter compares parents’ protests to “domestic terrorism.”
The 17-state letter is attached can be found here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/biden_doj_parent-speech-at-school-board-mtg-final.pdf?sfvrsn=fb5cfe27_2
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office also sent its own letter earlier this month detailing the same concerns, that letter can be found here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/2021-10-5-ltr-doj.pdf?sfvrsn=54c36e8e_2