Recently, the National School Boards Association decided to ask the Biden Administration for some help. Parents were showing up at school board meetings and objecting to the nonsense being taught to their children. Alleging various threats, and citing only one example that could be construed as a criminal offense, the Board wanted Biden to treat these parents as "domestic terrorists," and sought prosecutions under the Patriot Act and federal hate crime laws. You see, parents were disruptive, were shouting and acting like a mob. The Board claimed, as all the talking heads on the left do, that no schools teach critical race theory (CRT); therefore the parents should have no complaints.
There have been numerous reports of children being taught CRT, even if under a different name. Nevertheless, not wanting to alienate any part of their base, the Biden Administration dutifully complied with the School Boards' request. On October 4, Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memo to the Director of the FBI, the Director of the US Attorneys and the Assistant AG in charge of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department. Here is part of the memo: "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 public schools. 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."
He then directed the FBI and the various United States Attorneys across the country to meet with federal, state, local, tribal and territorial leaders within 30 days. Imagine that. A federally run, nationwide task force to address what? Unruly parents who are upset with the racist pedagogy being pushed on their children. Where is the task force going after Antifa? Or Black Lives Matter? What is the AG doing about United States Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who was harassed and followed into a bathroom, no less, by left-wing immigration "activists." How about a task force to go after the Palestinians and their supporters who have harassed and intimidated Jews?
The First Amendment to the Constitution provides, of course, for a right to free speech. But it also provides for "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Does "peaceably" also mean that people must speak softly? I don't think so. Yes, I saw scenes of parents holding up signs against CRT. I saw parents taking pictures and/or recording audio with their phones. And I saw parents shouting. How does any of that warrant a federal task force headed up by the FBI? Are there no more local police and District Attorneys able to handle actual criminal violations? The federal government has no business being involved in these local matters.
Does the FBI have nothing else to do? See two paragraphs up. Maybe they can also be used to determine who is entering our country illegally, with an estimated 2 million people likely to have entered during Biden's first year in office. Are any criminals, members of gangs or criminal cartels, or terrorists crossing our borders? No, the biggest threat seems to be parents fed up with left-wing propaganda being taught in the schools. Terry McAuliffe, the once and hoping to be future governor of Virginia, said this: "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." Maybe not, if it was just about "reading, writing and arithmetic." But when it comes to propagandizing their children into left-wing ideology, you better believe parents will be speaking up.
Former US Representative James Sensenbrenner was a principal author of the Patriot Act (per his Op-Ed in the 10/13/21 Wall Street Journal). As such, he wrote that "the legislation defined terrorism as unlawful acts of violence or acts dangerous to human life intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or to affect the conduct of government by 'mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping." It was not intended to put a chill on free speech and civil liberties.
But teachers and the bureaucrats in the school boards across the country are major donors to the Democrat Party. So Biden did not push back. Perhaps Gerard Baker, in his 10/12/21 Op-Ed in the WSJ, said it best: "This flagrant attempt to intimidate parents into handing their children over to the mercies of the state is as sinister as anything the modern progressives who now control the Democratic Party have done." When parents are told to sit down and shut up it sounds an awful lot like communist or totalitarian societies. And with federal crimes often carrying sentences of 10 to 20 years, the threat to civil liberties - speech and assembly - is substantial.
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