Letter to Hon. Merrick Garland, Attorney General - Parents Have A Right to their Children's Education

Letter

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

At the whim of a thinly sourced letter led by the National School Board Association
(NSBA) sent on Sept. 29 likening parents to domestic terrorism, you sent a memo directing your
Department to work in concert with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Offices to implement a strategy
to investigate parents at school board meetings.

Since that letter was first published, the American public has not only learned that
individuals in the Biden administration worked with the NSBA to craft that letter, but you
yourself admitted during a recent Congressional hearing that it was the only "source" you had to
justify your decision to baselessly investigate parents, chill constitutionally protected acts, and
discourage their parental rights to have a say in their children's education.

It was alarming to hear that the Department was moved to target parents by a single
letter, especially a letter that the Administration had a hand in molding. Then late on the evening
of Friday, October 22nd, the NSBA - after facing the backlash of nearly 20 state school board
associations - publicly released a letter admitting they "regret and apologize for the letter."

We ask now: If the NSBA can no longer stand by its letter, how can the Department of Justice
proceed with its actions spurred by that same letter?

The past year and a half of lockdowns and school closures motivated parents to take an
even closer look at their children's education, sparking a nationwide wave of renewed parental
engagement. The Administration should encourage and embrace motivated parents, as research
overwhelmingly supports the positive impact parental involvement has on student success.
Instead, the message from the Biden administration, including from his own Secretary of
Education, is that they do not believe parents should be the primary stakeholders in their own
children's education. It is a stance they doubled down on when they decided to activate the FBI
to investigate school board meetings.

Asking questions about the kinds of books your school district has on their library shelves
is not domestic terrorism. Inquiring about politically-charged rhetoric potentially being injected
into classrooms is not domestic terrorism. And demanding answers about sexual assault cases
that happen on school grounds, is definitely not domestic terrorism. In disavowing their letter,
the NSBA has abandoned this train of thought, the Department of Justice should as well.

We believe, like the majority of Americans, that every parent has a right to be involved in
their child's education. Second, parents who are concerned about material and curriculums in
classrooms should be celebrated and admired, not made to feel like villains for simply asking
basic questions regarding curriculums in their local schools.

We are requesting that you immediately retract your October 4th memo, and dissolve any
plans to stand up the superficial and unnecessary parent task force. The Biden administration
also owes every parent in America an apology, and a clear commitment to end this senseless
harassment, intimidation, and targeting of parents.

Sincerely,

Source