5 Min.
Attorney General Garland Abuses Power He Doesn’t Have to Threaten Parents Old Guard Audio ❗
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- Politik
Attorney General Garland Abuses Power He Doesn’t Have to Threaten Parents GianCarlo Canaparo / @GCanaparo / Mike Howell / @mhowelltweets / October 05, 2021
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday that essentially directs the Department of Justice and the FBI to intimidate parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory in schools. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
COMMENTARY BY GianCarlo Canaparo@GCanaparo
GianCarlo Canaparo is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Mike Howell@mhowelltweets
Mike Howell is senior adviser for executive branch relations at The Heritage Foundation. A lawyer, he previously worked in the general counsel's office at the Department of Homeland Security and, before that, for the chief oversight committees of the House and Senate.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday directing the Department of Justice and the FBI to “launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
The Garland memo looks like an effort to use the FBI to threaten and silence parents who are outspoken opponents of critical race theory in schools. That alone would be a stunning partisan abuse of power. What Garland has done, however, is even more disgraceful.
Maybe Garland doesn’t actually intend to use the FBI to go after parents—maybe he knows that he doesn’t have that power. In that case, he’s trying to trick parents into thinking that he does. This tactic, he hopes, will suppress parents’ free speech, and throw a bone to a powerful ally of his political party.
Even a few FBI agents questioning parents may be enough to convince others that standing up for their values is not worth the risk.
To understand what Garland is doing with this memo, you’ll need a short primer on the background facts and government legalese.
Starting with the facts: What is this “rise in criminal conduct” against school officials? You won’t find any evidence cited in Garland’s memo. You won’t find any evidence in the FBI’s crime data either.
This claim is parroted from a letter sent to President Joe Biden by the National School Boards Association—a powerful leftist group representing many of the school boards around the country pushing critical race theory curricula. That letter made vague claims about “threats and acts of violence” against school board members from parents who oppose critical race theory.
The letter complained about “disruptions” by angry parents but managed to find only one example of violence against a school official (likely a security guard), which was handled by local law enforcement.
Most of the letter is the National School Boards Association clutching its pearls, aghast that justifiably angry parents are zealously advocating for their children’s interest. The tactics thus far employed certainly are nothing compared to the riots of the summer of 2020 that destroyed over a billion dollars in property and resulted in multiple deaths.
Those tactics were not decried by the National School Boards Association and its liberal friends. In fact, the current vice president organized financial support to the criminals engaged.
The National School Boards Association is not really concerned about an isolated instance of violence adequately handled by local law enforcement. It is much more upset that it is powerless to stop parents from exercising their First Amendment rights to push back against critical race theory in the classroom.
And so, in a move that is nearly a reflex among many leftist organizations, it asked the government to lend it some of its law enforcement power to shut up its meddling critics. Garland was only too happy to oblige. In doing so, he has made a hypocrite out of himself and Biden.
When Biden announced Gar
Attorney General Garland Abuses Power He Doesn’t Have to Threaten Parents GianCarlo Canaparo / @GCanaparo / Mike Howell / @mhowelltweets / October 05, 2021
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday that essentially directs the Department of Justice and the FBI to intimidate parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory in schools. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
COMMENTARY BY GianCarlo Canaparo@GCanaparo
GianCarlo Canaparo is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Mike Howell@mhowelltweets
Mike Howell is senior adviser for executive branch relations at The Heritage Foundation. A lawyer, he previously worked in the general counsel's office at the Department of Homeland Security and, before that, for the chief oversight committees of the House and Senate.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday directing the Department of Justice and the FBI to “launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
The Garland memo looks like an effort to use the FBI to threaten and silence parents who are outspoken opponents of critical race theory in schools. That alone would be a stunning partisan abuse of power. What Garland has done, however, is even more disgraceful.
Maybe Garland doesn’t actually intend to use the FBI to go after parents—maybe he knows that he doesn’t have that power. In that case, he’s trying to trick parents into thinking that he does. This tactic, he hopes, will suppress parents’ free speech, and throw a bone to a powerful ally of his political party.
Even a few FBI agents questioning parents may be enough to convince others that standing up for their values is not worth the risk.
To understand what Garland is doing with this memo, you’ll need a short primer on the background facts and government legalese.
Starting with the facts: What is this “rise in criminal conduct” against school officials? You won’t find any evidence cited in Garland’s memo. You won’t find any evidence in the FBI’s crime data either.
This claim is parroted from a letter sent to President Joe Biden by the National School Boards Association—a powerful leftist group representing many of the school boards around the country pushing critical race theory curricula. That letter made vague claims about “threats and acts of violence” against school board members from parents who oppose critical race theory.
The letter complained about “disruptions” by angry parents but managed to find only one example of violence against a school official (likely a security guard), which was handled by local law enforcement.
Most of the letter is the National School Boards Association clutching its pearls, aghast that justifiably angry parents are zealously advocating for their children’s interest. The tactics thus far employed certainly are nothing compared to the riots of the summer of 2020 that destroyed over a billion dollars in property and resulted in multiple deaths.
Those tactics were not decried by the National School Boards Association and its liberal friends. In fact, the current vice president organized financial support to the criminals engaged.
The National School Boards Association is not really concerned about an isolated instance of violence adequately handled by local law enforcement. It is much more upset that it is powerless to stop parents from exercising their First Amendment rights to push back against critical race theory in the classroom.
And so, in a move that is nearly a reflex among many leftist organizations, it asked the government to lend it some of its law enforcement power to shut up its meddling critics. Garland was only too happy to oblige. In doing so, he has made a hypocrite out of himself and Biden.
When Biden announced Gar
5 Min.