Testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland was grilled on a memo aimed at combating threats against school board members across the country. The school board memo came out earlier this month. It also came out a week after the National School Board Association wrote the Biden administration about the threats to school officials. The letter asked for federal assistance to combat harassment and violence against school officials, saying some of the acts could be “domestic terrorism”. The Association has since said “we regret and apologize” for the letter.
The video above shows clips from Garland’s testimony.
“Judge, this is shameful. This here, this testimony, your directive. Your performance is shameful,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) said. “Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace.”
“The letter that was subsequently sent does not change the association’s concern about violence or threats of violence,” Garland said Wednesday. “It alters some of the language in the letter, language in the letter that we did not rely on and is not contained in my own memorandum.”
Republicans say Garland went too far in instructing Justice Department and other federal divisions to coordinate with local law enforcement to address “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools.”
“These parents are trying to protect their children. They’re worried about divisive and harmful curricula based upon critical race theory. They’re speaking their minds about mask mandates,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said. “Mothers and fathers have a vested interest in how schools educate their children. They are not, as the Biden Justice Department apparently believes them to be, national security threats.”
In response, Garland re-emphasized the message he’s had since the release the school board memo; it is only focused on “violence, threats of violence and other criminal conduct”.
“If senators were concerned about this, they would quote my words. This memorandum is not about parents being able to object in their school boards. They are protected by the First Amendment,” Garland said. “As long as there are no threats of violence, they are completely protected.”