FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—America First Legal is demanding answers after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden intervened in a Virginia school district’s adoption of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies that center parental rights in transgender issues.
“The Department of Justice seems to suggest that protecting the constitutional rights of parents and students will lead to ‘hate crimes,’” Ian Prior, senior adviser at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Monday. “Once again, we are witnessing the top law enforcement organization in the land come unglued from reality and unmoored from its core functions, all in the name of opposing anyone that doesn’t approve of its state-approved message.”
America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday demanding Justice Department records related to Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.
On July 27, the Roanoke County School Board discussed the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies on transgender issues, finalized July 18 under Youngkin, a Republican. The state policies require schools to refer to each student by his or her legal name and sex, unless a parent submits a legal document substantiating a change in either. The policies also require schools to use sex, rather than gender identity, as the benchmark for bathrooms, intimate spaces, and sports reserved for boys or girls.
Pro-transgender activists reportedly disrupted the school board meeting. Police arrested two vocal protesters who refused to leave and repeatedly yelled, “Protect trans lives” during the meeting.
Although local law enforcement and the school board were addressing the disruption, Hannah Levine, a staffer at the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, sent a July 31 email offering “conflict resolution services.”
Her agency in the Justice Department “serves as ‘America’s Peacemaker,’ preventing and responding to community tensions and hate crimes, bias, bullying, and discrimination committed on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability,” Levine wrote in the email, which The Daily Wire first reported.
“CRS is aware of ongoing community tensions in Roanoke County following the release of the new model policies for transgender students,” Levine said in the email to the Roanoke County school system. “I’d like to connect to see if we might be able to offer support and services as you work to manage conflict in the community related to this.”
America First Legal contends that the email from Levine and the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service is suspicious.
“It is unclear why CRS would inject itself into an issue that is properly one for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Roanoke County Public Schools,” reads America First Legal ‘s request to the Justice Department for related records. “What is clear, however, is that CRS has positioned itself not as a neutral arbitrator of issues related to transgenders but as a government entity that is fully behind the Biden administration’s radical transgender agenda.”
The Community Relations Service says it trains law enforcement on “engaging and building relationships with transgender communities.” The agency’s home page features the White House’s “fact sheet” on actions “to protect LGBTQI+ Communities.”
America First Legal also noted the Biden Justice Department’s record of opposing parental rights in education.
In October 2021, the DOJ issued a memo asking the FBI and U.S. attorneys to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings. The DOJ memo followed a letter from the National School Boards Association comparing parents who protest school district policies to domestic terrorists and encouraging Biden to use the Patriot Act against those parents. Documents revealed later that the White House had worked with the school boards association to draft the letter.
The Justice Department ultimately rescinded the memo and the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter. However, the Biden White House has worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization that recently put parental rights organizations on a “hate map” with KKK chapters. America First Legal has demanded DOJ documents citing the SPLC.
Pointing to this history and Levine’s email, America First Legal demanded DOJ documents related to Roanoke County Public Schools and Youngkin’s model state policies.
“Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn’t appear to have learned any lessons after his 2021 memo directing U.S. attorneys and the FBI to investigate parents speaking at school board meetings,” America First Legal’s Prior said in a written statement on the request. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to intervene in another purely state and local matter, namely the Roanoke County School Board’s adoption of the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies that prohibit schools from forcing students, parents, and teachers to sacrifice their constitutional rights in the name of transgender ideology.”
“America First Legal will continue to serve as a watchdog over the Department of Justice’s continued attempts to interfere with parental rights on local issues,” Prior added.
Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By Tyler O’Neil
It is None of Dictator Beijing biden’s or the DOJ’s business what parents are doing at the Virginia School OR any other school to PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN from a SICK agenda by Dictator Beijing biden and Fascist liberals.
How about the DOJ go after Corrupt Communist Chinese Agent Hunter and Dictator Beijing biden.
AND for the FACT of ELECTION INTERFERENCE by Dictator Beijing biden and the DOJ with 4 False (Witch Hunts) Illegal, and Unconstitutional Indictments against President Trump.
ALL THIS IS ABUSE OF POWER AND OFFICE.
Bottom line; The US Government IS NOT ENTITLED to enforce its rhetoric on state issues. This is how a CIVIL WAR might be INTIATED.
Biden is just a useful pawn for the progressive Democrats. Their goal is to destroy American society as we know it. They keep coming up with agendas to future divides our country. Garland is another pawn in their March to socialism, along with the rest of Joey’s administration.
The federal government has no authority in this matter.
Its the parent’s responsibility for the child and they need to know what is going on in their lives. It amazes me that this is an ISSUE! Only a Democrat would believe that innthis “village” of theirs the parent is not included.
These are state and local matters. Get out, Garland and Biden. Parents are capable and states have the rights to set rules for their states. Why don’t you go spend time and money harassing illegals at the border where our safety is being destroyed.
The biden mob which includes the doj (neither have earned the significance of capital letters) are doing this in search of votes. They will say and do anything for a vote. They do not care who is injured along the way. Until the American people understand how much and how deeply they are hated this is all just noise.
Education is clearly left up to the states and the people and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. Even the existence of a Federal Department is illegal and Bush Administrations refusals to abolish the monstrosity resulted in the exodus of many Constitutional Republicans (including myself) from the Republican Party. The abolition of the illegal department had long been a plank in the Republican Party but the New World Order Republican Leaders chose to ignore the plank.
They are getting involved because the entire left is a bunch of sick perverted scum.
If you vote democrat you are a sleazy person.
Biden administration obviously believes they are all-powerful, even over Congress and SCOTUS. I seriously doubt they are even aware of Constitutional states’ rights come first, not federal. OR they simply don’t care because the Dems have been skirting the Constitution and Bill of Rights for years with absolutely NO BLOWBACK from Congress or the people. So why not just throw it out altogether? This is what they are doing.
How about all the non-profit legal organizations do a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the states (at least those presently governed by Republicans) to point out states’ rights come first and foremost, and the feds need to cease and desist in their attempts to dictate to the states.
Since the federal gov’t pays only 8% of public school budgets, why does any federal entity have the right to dictate or control what any one (or all for that matter) public school does, including the PTA or parents’ role in their children’s education? That’s the elephant question in this!!!!
BECAUSE under JACKASS JOE thinks that ALL CITIZENS are OWNED BY THE GOVERNMENT but ONLY WHEN COMMUNISTS err DEMOCRATS ARE IN POWER! COMMUNISM IN ACTION!
Hey, AMAC, are you aware of all this spam? You censor good debates from patriots but allow this drivel to appear in the comments.
On the subject of the article, this is a case where a very small minority of people wish to alter state law so all citizens must bow to outrageous demands. Parents have the absolute right to raise their children in the manner deemed appropriate for that family…within reason, of course. If a child has been severely beaten or sexually abused, I’m all for the school contacting authorities after speaking with the parents. That’s a tightrope issue for sure, but I wish someone had intervened when I was a child.
Federal and state governments have already legislated against discrimination in LGBT issues. What more do they want? A person’s sex or gender is determined at conception and is recognized at birth. Blurring the lines (more “no borders” policies) in restrooms, sports, and in families’ private lives is unacceptable. Biden is grossly overreaching the authority of government when he sics his lapdog, Garland, on private citizens and attempts to take away parents’ rights. They’re also blurring the lines between states’ rights and federal authority. Just another step on the road to Marxism.
Majority (not all) of the comments here are obviously not from Mature American Citizens.
There does not seem to be any parents or grandparents commenting about the Virginia parents being able to have a say in what their schools are teaching. The COVID shut down short changed the progress of our young students in the very basics. Instead of trying to teach the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic to catch up with what was lost, the standards were lowered to match where the students are, not at the level of where they should be.
Let the local school districts do their job and keep the federal government out of the classroom.
About time parents started speaking out
Thank God, this despicable Biden administration has only 15 months left in power. These people will be shown the door in Jan 2025.