Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum defending parents’ ability to stand up for their children at school board meetings.
The memo, dated September 8, asserts that “parents have the right and responsibility to speak out in defense of their children.”
“The Department of Justice remains steadfast in its obligation to protect the constitutional liberties of every American especially when those rights are exercised in the defense of family, faith, and the future of our nation,” the memo read. “Recent years have seen a disturbing trend in which state and local authorities have brought radical gender and racial ideology into our public schools while suppressing dissenting viewpoints. Worse still, they have ignored, dismissed, and even retaliated against concerned parents who speak out against these morally and factually bankrupt ideologies and in defense of their own children.”
Bondi asserted that the First Amendment protects parents’ speech at school board meetings, declaring that these rights “do not yield to political trends or bureaucratic convenience.”
“Let me be clear: when school board members, administrators, and other government officials threaten law-abiding parents, they can and will be held accountable,” she added, directing the Civil Rights Division to “be alert to violations of parental rights and First Amendment liberties in educational settings.”
“We are restoring the rule of law and returning the federal government to the people it serves,” she said. “This Department stands with America’s parents.”
Emails released by America First Legal reveal that Biden officials scrambled to respond to a now-retracted letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) suggesting concerned parents should be treated like “domestic terrorists.”
“We’re aware; the challenge here is finding a federal hook,” DOJ aide Kevin Chambers wrote on Oct. 1, 2021. Days later, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a directive mobilizing the FBI against parents who voiced concerns over COVID mandates, critical race theory, and gender ideology at school board meetings.
