Surely Attorney General Merrick Garland knows his authoritarian order to sic the FBI on parents who object to the teaching of critical race theory to their children and forced mask mandates was wrong. Obviously, he acted at the request of the President. Still, a man who has spent his entire career in law knows this is government overreach.

In a letter sent to President Joe Biden last week, the National School Board Association wrote:

We ask that the federal government investigate, intercept, and prevent the current threats and acts of violence against our public school officials through existing statutes, executive authority, interagency and intergovernmental task forces, and other extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of our children and educators.

…

As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

On Monday, Garland sprung into action. Citing “an increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members, teachers, and workers in our nation’s public schools,” he directed the FBI and U.S. attorney offices to mobilize against parents who oppose the inclusion of critical race theory in their children’s public school curriculum. Garland’s memorandum can be viewed here. I posted on the NSBA’s request here and Garland’s mealy-mouthed response here.

The few parents attending school board meetings who cross the line from exercising their right to protest into intimidation of school board members can easily be dealt with by local law enforcement officers. This administration wants the FBI to get involved for political reasons which is why they call concerned parents “domestic terrorists.”

One of my Ricochet readers informed me the NSBA included the “protection of interstate commerce” as a reason for seeking federal assistance because this would grant the federal government authority over a local issue.

The response from the right to Garland’s perversion of justice came back at him good and hard – and fast. How could it not? The attorney general doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on in this case.

The National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney, called this action a “lawless threat.” He wrote:

Attorney Merrick Garland knows this is dangerous nonsense. … I personally know that he knows it. He was a high-ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department, which gave me a very hard time — though it ultimately relented — when I proposed charging a notorious terrorist with soliciting acts of violence and seditious conspiracy.

We had elaborate evidence, much of it in the form of recorded statements, showing that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman believed himself to be in a forcible war against the United States, that his followers had carried out and plotted terrorist attacks, and that he had personally called for both bombings of American military installations and the murder of Egypt’s then-president.

Garland well knows, as he and Clinton officials stressed to me nearly 30 years ago, that in the incitement context, the First Amendment protects speech unless it unambiguously calls for the use of force that the speaker clearly intends, under circumstances in which the likelihood of violence is real and imminent. Even actual “threats of violence” are not actionable unless they meet this high threshold.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Garland “is weaponizing the DOJ by using the FBI to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation.”

In a statement to Fox News, DeSantis’ Press Secretary Christina Pushaw said the governor would “protect the rights of Floridians from government overreach and the inappropriate politicization of federal law enforcement.”

The statement continued:

Several Florida school board members, including Democrats and Republicans, have reported receiving threats and harassment from activists on both ends of the political spectrum. This is wrong, and anyone who is a victim of a crime should report it to their local police department. Florida law enforcement is perfectly capable of responding to crimes in Florida, and we have never heard the FBI suggest otherwise.

However, disagreement is not harassment. Protest is not terrorism, unless it involves rioting, looting, and assault, like some of the left-wing protests of summer 2020. Again, all of those actions are crimes in Florida and will be prosecuted, regardless of political context. Governor DeSantis condemns any attempt by the federal government to silence free speech. It is despicable and anti-American.

In an appearance on Fox & Friends, Bill Bennett, who served as an Education Secretary during the Reagan Administration, prefaced his remarks, as everyone did, by saying no one should be intimidated or attacked.

“But this criticism of school board members is entirely appropriate,” he said. “We should have more of it. This is the Empire strikes back.”

“To use the power of the FBI to suggest that parents should shut up, which is really what they’re saying here, and let the schools do whatever they want to do, this notion that parents should not have the major say in the education of their children – this is what’s at stake right now,” Bennett argued.

“They’re saying this is terrorism, when parents speak up against board members. No, this is overkill and it will not go down well and it shouldn’t go down well.”

Bennett said he had spoken to a mother recently who had pulled all of her children out of public schools. The students were being asked questions like, ‘What gender do you want to be today? What gender do you want to be next week?’

“Rather than curse the darkness, we should be lighting a candle,” he said. Bennett and a group of other like-minded individuals are currently putting together U.S. history courses for 8th- and 11th-grade students (history is a nationwide requirement for those grades) to teach them an accurate version of our history, rather than the distorted 1619 version.

I’m delighted that a growing number of parents are pushing back against the indoctrination of American children. They represent the future of America and if we intend to right this ship that has veered so far off in the wrong direction, this is where we need to press our thumbs.

And I’m with Bill Bennett on this one. We need to see more of it.

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