What’s Happening: School Board Meetings and the Federal Government
National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Biden asking for federal help in managing “the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation” at school board meetings.
The Department of Justice later released a memo stating its commitment to “using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate.”
AP fact-checked the contents of the letter and the reactions that followed.
What else is each side focusing on?
- School board meetings on COVID-19 and anti-racism policies have become violent.
- We must keep school board members safe as they try to protect our children and teachers from COVID-19.
- The NSBA isn’t calling parents who voice their opinion domestic terrorists. They are concerned about real threats and violence from some parents against civil servants.
- The NSBA and DOJ don’t cite any real threats against school boards to justify federal intervention — only instances of civil disobedience.
- Conservative voices are often censored by the media, tech companies, and in education institutions.
- AP failed to fact-check the letter’s central claims of violence at meetings and ignores that the NSBA explicitly stated that the “heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
The Narrative
For parents’ voices to be heard, school board meetings must remain civil. Localities are failing to keep their civil servants safe, so federal intervention is justified. While these parents’ concerns about simple safety measures are ridiculous, no one is trying to stop them from speaking. Instead, the NSBA is merely trying to keep its members safe.
Requesting federal intervention in response to civil disobedience at local school board meetings is an egregious overstep of power and a violation of parents’ right to be heard. Calling parents who voice dissent “domestic terrorists” is just a way to discredit their ideas. Media outlets like the AP ignore this reality because they don’t care about freedom of speech for those they disagree with.
How could a reasonable person come to think this?
What else is the left focusing on?
- School board meetings on COVID-19 and anti-racism policies have become violent.
- We must keep school board members safe as they try to protect our children and teachers from COVID-19.
- The NSBA isn’t calling parents who voice their opinion domestic terrorists. They are concerned about real threats and violence from some parents against civil servants.
The narrative: For parents’ voices to be heard, school board meetings must remain civil. Localities are failing to keep their civil servants safe, so federal intervention is justified. While these parents’ concerns about simple safety measures are ridiculous, no one is trying to stop them from speaking. Instead, the NSBA is merely trying to keep its members safe.
What else is the right focusing on?
- The NSBA and DOJ don’t cite any real threats against school boards to justify federal intervention — only instances of civil disobedience.
- Conservative voices are often censored by the media, tech companies, and in education institutions.
- AP failed to fact-check the letter’s central claims of violence at meetings and ignores that the NSBA explicitly stated that the “heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”
The narrative: Requesting federal intervention in response to civil disobedience at local school board meetings is an egregious overstep of power and a violation of parents’ right to be heard. Calling parents who voice dissent “domestic terrorists” is just a way to discredit their ideas. Media outlets like the AP ignore this reality because they don’t care about freedom of speech for those they disagree with.