Garland asks FBI to address recent threats against teachers
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday ordered the FBI to work with local leaders nationwide to address what he called a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence” against educators and school board members over highly politicized issues such as mask mandates and interpretations of critical race theory.
In a memorandum to FBI Director Christopher Wray and federal prosecutors, Mr. Garland wrote that the Justice Department will hold strategy sessions with law enforcement in the next 30 days and is expected to announce a series of measures in response to “the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” in the nation’s public schools.
“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” he wrote. “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
Mr. Garland’s order comes days after the National School Boards Association, a group representing school board members across the United States, pleaded with President Joe Biden for federal assistance to help investigate and stop the recent threats against educators. The group said in a letter to Mr. Biden that much of the vitriol has involved policies focusing on mask mandates to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The NSBA likened the harassment and abuse over face coverings in schools to domestic terrorism.
“America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” the group wrote to Mr. Biden.
The “disturbing spike” in threats in public schools is playing out at a time when educators, parents and school boards continue to clash with each other over a litany of issues. The NSBA noted more than 20 instances of intimidation, threats, harassment and disruption in states such as California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Georgia.
Mask disputes have regularly made headlines in recent months. A Northern California father was banned from his daughter’s school after he allegedly struck a teacher in the face while arguing about masks. In Austin’s Eanes Independent School District, the superintendent said one parent ripped a teacher’s mask off her face, while others yelled at another teacher to remove her mask because they claimed it made it difficult to understand what she was saying.
School meetings in Michigan and Pittsburgh’s Fox Chapel Area School District were disrupted when men performed Nazi salutes to protest masks in the classroom. A letter mailed to an Ohio school board member called an official “a filthy traitor” for instituting a mask mandate.
“We are coming after you,” the letter said, according to the NSBA. “You are forcing them to wear [a] mask — for no reason in this world other than control. And for that you will pay dearly.”
The order also comes as educators and elected officials nationwide are engaged in heated and fraught debates over how far teachers can go in teaching about history, race and systemic racism in the classroom. Most of those battles have been focused on critical race theory, an academic framework for examining the way laws and policies perpetuate systemic racism.
The backlash over the issue, which has become a focus of heavy coverage by right-leaning news outlets, has led to what the NSBA describes as “propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula.”
“This propaganda continues despite the fact that critical race theory is not taught in public schools and remains a complex law school and graduate school subject well beyond the scope of a K12 class,” the group wrote.
The back-and-forth over critical race theory has also spilled over into the classroom. James Whitfield, a Texas high school principal, was suspended last month after being publicly accused of promoting critical race theory, which he has denied. The school board voted to not renew the contract of Mr. Whitfield, the first Black principal for Colleyville Heritage High School, due to the controversy.
He told The Washington Post last month that he was the target of political activists who want to block attempts to make schools more inclusive.
“That sounds absurd,” he said, “but that is the nature of what we’re dealing with.”