The Sconi

The Wisconsin Education Association Council refused to comment after  U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland released a memo earlier this month to governmental and state agencies regarding threats to to school administrators, faculty and staff.

A surge in harassment and threats to school administrators led Attorney General Merrick Garland to release a memo earlier this month to governmental and state agencies, informing them that the threats are illegal and that "the Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate."

Garland added that “coordination and partnership with local law enforcement is critical to implementing these measures for the benefit of our nation's nearly 14,000 public school districts.”

The National School Boards Association recently informed President Joe Biden that there were "threats, harassment, disruption and acts of intimidation," including “school board meetings [being] disrupted in California, Florida, Georgia and other states because of local directives for mask coverings to protect students and educators from COVID-19.”

Garland did not identify what incidents would require a federal investigation but wrote in the memo: "I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response."

Senior Fellow Andrew C. McCarthy wrote an op-ed in the National Review that the First Amendment protects free speech in all cases except when "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."

Real Clear Politics reported that Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe said in a September debate that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” in a response to a the topic of what pull parents have in a student's education, transgendered students and library books. His opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, posted on Twitter that he believes "parents should be in charge of their kids' education."

McAuliffe added that, “parents had the right to veto books (and) also take them off the shelves. I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions."