[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FREE SPEECH: THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION'S CHILLING OF PARENTS'
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-11
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-678 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana, Chair MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania,
TOM McCLINTOCK, California Ranking Member
CHIP ROY, Texas STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
WESLEY HUNT, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
Georgia
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
C O N T E N T S
----------
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Mike Johnson, Chair of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Limited Government from the State of Louisiana 1
The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
the State of Pennsylvania...................................... 3
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of New York....................... 6
WITNESSES
Nicole Neily, President and Founder, Parents Defending Education
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Testimony............................................. 11
Tyson Langhofer, Director, Center for Academic Freedom, Alliance
Defending Freedom
Oral Testimony................................................. 17
Prepared Testimony............................................. 19
Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder, Moms for Liberty
Oral Testimony................................................. 32
Prepared Testimony............................................. 34
Nadine Johnson, Managing Director, PEN America Washington, Free
Express Program
Oral Testimony................................................. 38
Prepared Testimony............................................. 40
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Limited Government are listed below........... 76
Materials submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited
Government from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
A special report entitled, ``School boards get death threats
amid rage over race, gender, mask policies,'' Feb. 15,
2022, Reuters
An article entitled, ``Proud Boys' Presence Leads to Metal
Detectors, Deputies at School Board Meetings,'' Oct. 12,
2021, Chapelboro
A report entitled, ``A `Manufactured' Issue and `Misapplied'
Priorities: Subpoenaed Documents Show No Legitimate Basis for
the Attorney General's Anti-Parent Memo,'' House Judiciary
Committee Staff Report, submitted by the Honorable Mike
Johnson, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and
Limited Government from the State of Louisiana, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Chip Roy, a Member of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
the State of Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``Facts about library books in Duval
County Public Schools,'' Feb. 17, 2023, Duvall County
Schools
A book's images entitled, ``Gender Queer: A Memoir,'' May 28,
2019, Maia Kobabe
A book's images entitled, ``This Book is Gay,'' Sept. 7,
2021, Juno Dawson
An article entitled, ``Shocking: Images from book `Gender
Queer,' which is stocked in school libraries across
Iowa,'' Oct. 28, 2021, The Iowa Standard
Materials submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited
Government from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
Attorney General Garland's School Board memo, Oct. 4, 2021
An article entitled, ``FBI, DOJ tagged threats against school
officials, not parents for attending school board
meetings,'' Jan. 10, 2023, Politifact
Materials submitted by the Honorable Mike Johnson, Chair of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
the State of Louisiana, for the record
Handwritten letters from parents dissatisfied with the
education their children are receiving in public schools
An article entitled, ``Southern Poverty Law Center Gets
Creative to Label `Hate Groups': Principled conservatives
are lumped together with bigots,'' Sept. 7, 2017,
Bloomberg
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New
York
Statement from Bruce Lesley, First Focus on Children
Statement from Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
FREE SPEECH: THE BIDEN
ADMINISTRATION'S CHILLING OF PARENTS' FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
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Thursday, March 23, 2023
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:37 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Johnson
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Johnson of Louisiana,
Jordan, McClintock, Roy, Bishop, Kiley, Hageman, Hunt, Fry,
Scanlon, Nadler, Cohen, Escobar, Bush, Jackson Lee, and Johnson
of Georgia.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The Subcommittee will come to
order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We welcome everybody to today's hearing on free speech and
the Biden Administration's chilling of parents' fundamental
rights.
I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. We
want to thank our witnesses for being here this afternoon. I
know you are all busy people. You were delayed a little bit
because of our vote series, so thanks for being gracious with
your time.
This is our Committee's first hearing regarding the Biden
Administration's chilling of parents' fundamental rights. It
sounds provocative, but the evidence shows clearly that this is
exactly what is happening. Given the level of attacks this
administration has waged against parents, it is surely not
going to be the last of these hearings.
Today's focus will be on how the National School Boards
Association colluded with the Biden Administration to insert
Federal law enforcement into local school board meetings. It is
clear that the Biden Administration has no tolerance for those
with ideological beliefs different from their own. The
Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and thought to all
Americans and that certainly includes the rights of parents
over their children's education.
When did it become the role of the government to decide
what children should be taught without informing their parents?
The vilification of concerned parents by this administration is
a gross assault by the Federal government and one that aims to
bolster identity politics at the expense of the interests and
the goals of parents in simply raising their families.
Recognizing that the family is the most important and
sacred institution in any society, the U.S. Supreme Court has
held for more than a century that the due process clause of the
14th Amendment protects a parent's fundamental right to ``make
decisions as to the care, custody, and control of their own
children.''
The First Amendment also protects a parent's right to speak
and advocate for their children, but that right has been
significantly stifled over the past few years because the
leftists have decided they apparently know better than parents
do. That is an outrage, and the American people are rising up
to say that they will no longer tolerate it.
As the radical leftists push this woke agenda on America's
children, parents across the Nation began to speak up. They
went to their local school board meetings, and they spoke out.
They shared their views on issues like critical race theory and
mask mandates and school closures and controversial curriculum.
As more people spoke out, the NSBA, the National School Boards
Association, colluded with the Biden Administration and we use
that term intentionally because that is how it is described.
They colluded with the administration to intimidate these
parents into silence by siccing Federal law enforcement on
them.
These are just a few of the facts and summary. On September
29, 2021, the NSBA sent a letter to President Biden and in the
letter they equated concerned parents voicing their opinion at
school board meetings with domestic terrorism. They urged the
Biden Administration to use the PATRIOT Act against them, to
use the Federal statutory authorities against them.
On October 4th, just five days after the NSBA sent its
letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum
that directed the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Offices to address a
purported, ''disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and
threats of violence at school board meetings.''
The PATRIOT Act was passed in response to 9/11 to combat
international terrorism. This administration is now employing
it to target concerned parents. Attorney General Garland did
not define intimidation, harassment, and threats in his memo,
and that ambiguity has had the effort, of course, of chilling
protected First Amendment activity by parents and law
enforcement because they have to guess as to what speech is
legally allowed, now, at school board meetings. It is absurd.
Whistleblower testimony shows that FBI agents themselves
had immediate concerns about the Attorney General's memo. One
FBI whistleblower testified to our Judiciary Committee that
they were ``stunned that the highest ranking law enforcement
official in the country would publish something like that''
because ``it was leading toward targeting parents for speaking
up about their children's education,'' and that it would
``absolutely chill parents' First Amendment rights.'' That
agent was stating the obvious.
The Biden Administration's DOJ went even further than that.
On October 20th, the FBI's Assistant Director of the
Counterterrorism Division and the Assistant Director for the
Criminal Division in an email notifying FBI personnel about a
new EDUOFFICIALS threat tag that they created to apply to
school board investigations. Another FBI whistleblower told our
Committee that the memo and the creation of the threat tag
suggested,
. . . that the demand for terrorism vastly outstrips the
supply. So, we are going to try to expand out as much as we can
in order to meet the metrics that we have in order to show that
we are a successful agency.
Wow.
Committee Republicans have repeatedly called on Attorney
General Garland to rescind that ill-conceived memo, especially
after the NSBA issued a retraction and apology for its letter.
On February 23rd of this year, Chair Jordan had to subpoena the
Justice Department, the FBI, and the Education Department for
documents necessary to complete our oversight on this issue.
They resisted that. To date, we only have 14 pages turned over
by the FBI. From information obtained through the subpoenas, it
is clear that the Biden Administration has misused Federal law
enforcement and counterterrorism resources for political
purposes. Still, the Attorney General's memo is standing out
there. He will not rescind it.
The Biden Administration's goal is clearly to silence the
critics of its radical educational policies. Obviously, some
Democrats today want to silence parents who disagree with their
woke agenda to indoctrinate American children with
controversial and inappropriate curriculum. If you think I am
engaging in hyperbole, you need to stay tuned for this hearing.
The radical left has infiltrated nearly every institution
in this country and our education system is one of the most
glaring examples. Just imagine just for a moment, if a
Republican president designated an entire group of Americans as
terrorists simply because they disagreed with the
administration, Democrats and the media would go berserk. Yet,
strangely, when the Biden Administration does this, they all
look the other way.
A good conscience and the Constitution require us to
address this with urgency. Our responsibility in these hearings
and in all these investigations throughout this entire Congress
is to do three things very clearly: First, Clearly present the
undisputed facts for the American people to evaluate for
themselves and for us; second, to use as a guide to craft
legislation to reform this chaos and ensure it is never allowed
to happen again; and third, use the power of the purse that we
have here in the House to ensure that Federal agencies are
never again allowed to abuse and use the precious treasure of
taxpayers against them.
The Biden Administration's draconian approach to governance
is a grave concern for Committee Republicans and I think all
Americans. We will continue to fight to restore parental rights
guaranteed in the Constitution.
We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I
yield back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from
Pennsylvania, for her opening statement.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, and because this is the first
hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution this Congress,
I want to congratulate my colleagues, Representative Johnson on
becoming Chair of this important Committee. As the
Subcommittee's new Ranking Member, I look forward to working
with you and the other Members of the Subcommittee to find
common ground wherever possible so that we can work together
for the benefit of the American people.
Of course, one of the challenges is finding an agreed-on
set of facts and I have to challenge much of what we just
heard.
Having served on school boards and having seen what has
been happening across the country in recent months, recent
years, I would have to say that the real First Amendment
threats that our schools, teachers, students, and parents are
facing is the attempt to turn classrooms into the epicenter of
divisive culture wars. Extremists are imposing their beliefs on
all students and parents through library book bans, bans on
certain subjects in the public-school curricula, and censorship
of educators, all to the detriment of students learning.
Since 2021, State legislatures have introduced over 300
bills in 44 States which can be characterized as educational
gag orders. Twenty of these bills have become law and other
States and localities have enacted such restrictions without
legislation. Make no mistake, these bans represent the use of
government power to deny students the chance to read books, to
learn the full scope of our history, or even to be acknowledged
as full members of American society.
It is telling what types of materials these bans have
targeted. These speech-restrictive measures are part of a
systemic effort by MAGA extremists to eliminate portrayals of
LGBTQ+ people and to erase the accurate teachings of racism
from the American story. This march toward censorship and book
bans deprives our students of an accurate and fact-based
education. As these politically motivated stunts take effect,
they shortchange our children and silence parents who want
their children to be fully educated on these subjects.
Extremist politicians are more interested in abusing their
power to bring divisive culture wars into our kids' classrooms
and our neighborhood schools than they are in proposing
solutions to actually help students and parents. If we are
concerned about chilling free speech, we should be concerned
that the conservative attacks on free speech have caused those
who write and publish books to be censored themselves.
According to The New York Times, one textbook publisher has
gone so far as to remove all mentions of race in the
description of Rosa Parks' experience to gain approval to
disseminate those books in Florida schools.
There is a huge difference between attempts to suppress
free speech based on content as we have been seeing in recent
years and addressing speech that may be criminal because it
threatens violence which we have seen directed toward educators
and school board members across the country.
Our Republican colleagues have tried to frame these
potentially criminal acts to intimidate school board officials
as examples of protected free speech by caring and involved
parents. They are not. Any reasonable person can see the
difference between threats of political violence and legitimate
political discourse.
Unfortunately, this hearing is based on that false
narrative or alternative facts, if you prefer to call it that,
designed to promote chaos and division in our communities. Over
the past few years, partisan divides have grown, and bad actors
have exploited those divisions for political gain. In the
process, we have seen teachers, school officials, school board
members, and their families subjected to threats and violence
that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
I know this from personal experience. All three of my
children received public education and I served for a decade as
a school board member including as president of my local school
board, just as my father and sister before me had. During that
time, I had endless conversations with involved parents and
constituents in grocery stores, at school concerts, on soccer
fields, and at formal school board meetings about how our
schools could best serve our children and our taxpayers.
Sometimes the discussions were emotional, passionate, heated,
and people didn't always agree, but everyone always respected
our democratic process and the boundaries of civility and
protected speech as we sought to reach the best possible
solutions for our community. Not once in that decade did I ever
witness threats to the personal safety of board members,
educators, or their families.
In recent years, we have seen the weaponization of school
board comment periods as part of an operative fueled with dark
money, sought to create chaos in our communities to promote
their own political ambitions. Near my district in Southeastern
PA, school board members received threats of invoking gas
chambers and acts of physical violence. Other school boards had
to suspend meetings and call the police when brawls erupted. In
school districts across the country, school board members and
their families were threatened with death and physical violence
based on the positions they took in school board meetings. This
kind of political violence is not normal. It is un-American and
it must be remembered that these attacks were happening against
the backdrop of rising political violence across the country,
in part stoked by these extremist right-wing conspiracy
theories that have endangered public officials from election
workers to teachers to law makers to law enforcement in this
very building.
When school authorities sought help from law enforcement to
address this terrifying trend of threats against them and the
people they serve, the Justice Department made clear in its
memorandum on the subject that it was concerned not with the
constitutional right to engage as Merrick Garland said ``to
engage in spirited debate about policy matters'' but, was
concerned with criminal conduct, specifically, threats that are
not protected by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court established long ago that the First
Amendment does not protect threats and incitements to violence
or intimidation, so when some parents alleged that their free
speech rights had been impeded by the Department of Justice's
memo outlining its limited investigation of unprotected speech
and potential criminal conduct, Federal court dismissed that
case and held that the violence was not constitutionally
protected free speech. These are deeply troubling developments.
I hope we can hear from our witnesses about the true
dangers to First Amendment freedoms in our country, of teachers
being censored and books being banned, and ways that are
dangerous to our children's education, to our democracy, and to
our social fabric, instead of hearing more about fake culture
wars that are stoked by political actors.
I thank all our witnesses for participating in today's
hearing and I look forward to a fair, balanced, and substantive
discussion of these issues.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentlelady. The Chair
of the Full Committee, Mr. Jordan, is present, but I think he
is waiving his opening statement in the interest of time. Thank
you, Mr. Jordan.
I now recognized the Ranking Member of the Full Committee,
Mr. Nadler, for his opening statement if he has one.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would also like to
thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. Scanlon, and to
congratulate her on becoming Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee, the first woman to do so in the position I also
held for many years.
Mr. Chair, our First Amendment protections are precious.
There is a reason the Framers enshrined the freedoms of
religion, speech, the press, and the right to peaceably
assemble and petition the Government for redress as the First
Amendment to the Constitution. These rights limit Government's
power over our individual lives, thereby helping enable us to
effectively participate in democratic self-governance.
Restrictions on these freedoms is certainly a topic worthy of
examination in this Subcommittee.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that the new Republican
majority would waste an opportunity for serious discussion of
this issue and is instead using the first hearing of this
Congress to advance the spurious assertion that the Biden
Administration and the FBI are somehow chilling parents' free
speech rights. There is scant evidence to back up the bogus
claim of a wide-ranging Federal government conspiracy to quell
opposition to COVID-19 policies or so-called woke
indoctrination by targeting parents who protested at school
boards as our colleagues across the aisle would have us
believe.
The Republican majority has wasted untold taxpayer dollars
in a failed attempt to corroborate an elaborate conservative
persecution fantasy built atop just two documents. The single
September 2021 letter sent by the National School Boards
Association, NSBA, to President Biden requesting Federal
assistance in the face of real and credible threats of violence
at school board meetings, and a brief, one-page memo issued by
Attorney General Merrick Garland simply directing the FBI and
Federal prosecutors to hold meetings with local law enforcement
partners to discuss criminal threats against school personnel.
Notably, neither the NSBA letter nor the Attorney General's
memo mentioned the word parent and the Attorney General's memo
did not use the term domestic terrorism. No amount of hysteria
that we will hear from on the other side today will change
those two facts.
Instead, this false Republican narrative, unsupported by
the evidence, appears to have originated in messaging guidance
designed by a documentary film maker associated with the
Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. The majority
has also relied on so-called whistleblower testimony to
reinforce this manufactured narrative, pointing to the FBI's
use of ``threat tags'' as they investigate potential criminal
conduct.
In fact, the use of such threat tags is nothing nefarious.
According to the FBI, it simply uses these tags to track
information and to spot trends, but it does not necessarily
signal a full investigation. Here, the tag was used to track
threats directed against school officials, not parents who
attended school board meetings, as has been claimed by the
majority.
Moreover, as the Republicans' own recent interim staff
report acknowledges, the FBI has indicated that none of the
school board related investigations have resulted in Federal
arrests or charges. The majority would have the public believe
that this all adds up to some murky, nefarious conspiracy
orchestrated by the Biden Administration to chill parents of
free speech rights. There is a simpler explanation.
The DOJ is doing its job. We are living during an epidemic
of gun violence and mass shootings. Sadly, workplaces, grocery
stores, places of worship, and perhaps worst of all, schools,
have been targets. Political violence of all stripes has become
an increasingly common occurrence. For those us who were in
this House on January 6th know that all too well. In this
environment, it is both reasonable and legal for the Department
of Justice to ensure that State and local law enforcement have
the resources they need to protect American citizens from
violence and threats of violence.
Of course, the First Amendment protects the right to
protest vigorously, even with offensive or acerbic language.
The Supreme Court has also recognized that the First Amendment
does not protect speech that is an incitement to imminent
violence, a true threat of violence or other criminal conduct.
When a parent or any other person crosses the line from
mere protest to credible threats of violence at school board
meetings, this unprotected conduct undermines free speech
values by intimidating other parents into silence. The DOJ memo
explicitly acknowledges this very point, a fact my Republican
colleagues always seem to ignore. Indeed, when a group of
parents filed a lawsuit alleging a First Amendment violation
based on the Department of Justice memo, a Trump-appointed
District Court Judge dismissed the case concluding that the
memo did not target First Amendment protected activities, but
rather it targeted unprotected criminal conduct.
Bogus conspiracy theories aside, Americans are, in fact,
currently facing a very real threat to their First Amendment
rights in the education context. That threat, however, is
coming from State and local governments. Republican-controlled
State governments across the country have enacted or proposed
book bans and restrictions on training and curriculum.
Undoubtedly, my Republican colleagues will cherry pick out of
context examples to justify this wave of legislation and other
censorship measures, arguing that they are meant to protect
children from age-inappropriate material of ``divisive
concepts.'' These extremely, often vague, legislative mandates
ultimately targeted particular groups and invariably focus on
books by Black and LGBTQ authors and on the teaching of
American history that includes an honest examination of race
and bigotry.
Let me be clear. This State-mandated censorship does not
protect students. Instead, these legislative efforts will
likely harm students, teachers, and the quality of public
education. We do not serve the interests of students when we
shield them from the truth, as uncomfortable as the truth may
be at times. Moreover, such ham-handed censorship statutes can
lead to absurd results. For example, a Texas school
administrator had to apologize after she advised faculty
members to teach ``opposing perspectives'' about the Holocaust
to comply with a State law aimed at curbing the discussion of
critical race theory in the classroom.
An inclusive education is important for all children
because it prepares students for participating in civil life in
a pluralistic democracy. This State-imposed censorship will not
protect our children or improve their education. To the
contrary, it will harm them by promoting ignorance. Rather than
chasing conspiracy theories and inventive scandals that advance
the false narrative, we have plenty of true threats to free
speech that we can examine. That would be a much better use of
this Subcommittee's valuable time and resources. I hope that we
will chart a different course going forward. With that, I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman. Without
objection, all other opening statements will be included in the
record.
We will now introduce today's witnesses.
Ms. Nicole Neily is the President and Founder of Parents
Defending Education, a national membership organization that
provides parents with resources and support to advocate for
their children's education. Parents Defending Education also
advocates for and informs children and parents through
investigative reporting and litigation and engagement with
relevant local, State, and national educational bodies.
Mr. Tyson Langhofer is a Senior Counsel and Director for
the Center for Academic Freedom at the Alliance Defending
Freedom. Mr. Langhofer represents students and faculty at the
public high school and college level in defending their First
Amendment freedoms. ADF is the world's largest organization
committed to protecting free speech, religious freedom, and
parental rights.
Ms. Tiffany Justice is a Co-founder of Moms for Liberty.
She is a mother of four school-aged children of her own and has
served on a school board for four years. Moms for Liberty is a
national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to
unify, educate, and empower parents to defend their parental
rights at all levels of government.
Finally, Ms. Nadine Johnson is with us. She serves as
Managing Director of PEN America Washington and Free Express
Program. She spearheads PEN America's engagement with the U.S.
Government on free expression issues in the U.S. and around the
globe, focusing on matters of foreign policy, tech policy,
privacy, and educational censorship.
We welcome our witnesses and thank all of you for appearing
today. We will begin by swearing you in. If you wouldn't mind,
please rise, and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm under penalty of perjury
that the testimony you are about the give is true and correct
to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief so help
you God? Thank you.
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask you to
summarize your testimony in five minutes. The microphone in
front of you has a clock and a series of lights. When the light
turns yellow, you should begin to conclude your remarks. When
the light turns red, your time has expired.
Ms. Neily, we will begin with you. Push that button and we
can hear your voice. Thank you. Is that button lit up there?
You have got to--there you go.
STATEMENT OF NICOLE NEILY
Ms. Neily. Chair Jordan, Chair Johnson, Ranking Members
Scanlon and Nadler and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today.
My name is Nicole Neily, and I am the President and Founder
of Parents Defending Education. I am also the Executive
Director of PDE Action and founder of the free speech
organization Speech First, so this hearing topic is one that is
near to my heart.
On September 29, 2021, the president of the National School
Boards Association sent a letter to President Biden requesting
Federal intervention in school board issues, invoking, among
other statutes, the U.S. PATRIOT Act to prove that Federal
engagement was warranted. Her letter stated that the
classification of these heinous actions could be the
equivalence to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.
The NSBA sought assistance from the Department of Justice, FBI,
Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, and its
National Threat Assessment Center. Although an early draft of
the letter revealed that the NSBA also initially demanded that
both the National Guard and military police be deployed against
parents.
Families across the country were shocked by this letter and
even more taken aback when five days later, lightning speed in
Washington, DC, Attorney General Merrick Garland signed a memo
on October 4, 2021, directing the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, working with each United States Attorneys 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. Unsurprisingly,
parents were frightened by this escalation. In the days
following the release of DOJ's memo, we fielded dozens of
requests from concerned parents who worried whether they should
continue their advocacy work or simply stay home fearing a
knock at the door from Federal law enforcement.
Family fears turned out to be well founded. On October 14,
2021, the Acting U.S. Attorney for Montana sent a memo to the
Montana Attorney General, all county attorneys, all sheriffs,
the Montana Office of Public Instruction, and the Montana
School Boards Association outlining a short summary of Federal
statutes that may serve as a basis for prosecution of such
threats and violent conduct in a move that calls to mind the
law school game can you indict a ham sandwich?
Two days later, on October 16, 2021, the Deputy Assistant
Director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, sent a
joint message from his division and the FBI's Counterterrorism
Division enacting the creation of a threat tag EDUOFFICIALS to
be applied to investigations and assessments of threats
specifically directed against school board administrators,
board members, teachers, and staff. This memo wasn't revealed
until a whistleblower provided it to this Committee in November
2021. In May 2022, Chair Jordan stated that the Committee on
the Judiciary had evidence that this tag had been used against
parents dozens of times.
The question remains, however, what was the genesis of such
a memo? On October 11 and 12, 2021, I personally filed public
records request in the home districts of all NSBA board members
to learn about the letter's creation. The FOIA results revealed
that not only were the majority of the NSBA Board not told of
the letter in advance, but that they were nearly all opposed to
its contents and furthermore, that NSBA leadership had been
[inaudible] to the White House over the letter's content for
``several weeks.''
In addition, I contacted each State affiliate of the NSBA
to ask if their organization was involved in the creation of
the letter, if they agreed with the substance and tone, and if
they planned to report individuals in their State to DOJ. At
last count, 26 States have either withdrawn their membership,
participation, or dues from the NSBA.
Attorney General Garland asserted in sworn testimony before
both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in October 2021
that his memo was written solely in response to the NSBA's
letter. The NSBA apologized for its letter on October 22, 2021.
Yet, curiously, the Attorney General has yet to rescind DOJ's
memo. Accordingly, it appears to remain in effect to this day,
hanging over parents like the sword of Damocles.
To be clear, my colleagues and I of Parents Defending
Education have always opposed violence and we continue to do
so. Yet, school boards seem to forget parents have a
constitutional right to assemble, to speak, to petition their
government for a redress of grievances. Sadly, the airing of
these concerns is now viewed by elected officials as violence,
offensive, or hateful, in many cases, based solely on the
speaker's viewpoint.
American families have many concerns about education which
merits discussion and open debate, but there is no question
that people have been chilled from speaking out against
children's education. PDE has a tip line and approximately 99
percent of the tips that we receive people check a box because
they want to be anonymous. They credibly fear retaliation, both
against themselves as well as their children. It is lamentable
that American parents no longer trust their local school
officials. It is tragic that they now fear the Federal
government.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Neily follows:]
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Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Ms. Neily.
Mr. Langhofer, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF TYSON C. LANGHOFER
Mr. Langhofer. Thank you, Chair Johnson, Ranking Member
Scanlon and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Tyson
Langhofer. I'm the Director of Alliance Defending Freedom's
Center of Academic Freedom.
Alliance Defending Freedom is the world's largest legal
organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free
speech, sanctity of life, marriage and family, and parental
rights.
My team works to protect the constitutional rights of
students and faculty at America's schools and universities. I
also work closely with ADF's Center for Parental Rights so it's
my pleasure to testify today on these two important subjects.
The Supreme Court has recognized that parental rights are
perhaps the oldest fundamental liberty interest protected by
our constitution. A fundamental distinction between a free
society and a totalitarian one is whether the State exists to
serve the people or whether the people exist to serve the
State. This is often determined by a separate question: Who has
primary authority over children, parents, or the government?
Our constitutional tradition answers this question
unambiguously. The child is not the mere creature of the State.
It should hardly need saying how central free speech is in
distinguishing a free society from a tyrannical one, but today
many Americans are questioning the value of free speech,
especially speech they may find offensive. So, it bears
repeating that the kind of free speech that actually
distinguishes a free society is the kind that permits its
people to speak their mind even on the most contentious issues.
As the Supreme Court said,
. . . freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not
matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test
of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch
the heart of the existing order.
Given the centrality of these two rights they're all the
more important when exercised in tandem as when parents address
their elected representatives about matters affecting their
children's well-being and education. Unfortunately, the Biden
Administration has acted to curtail these rights. This action
has come in many forms, but I'd like to direct this
Subcommittee's attention to two: Attorney General Merrick
Garland's 2021 memorandum and the proposed rulemaking
redefining sex in Title IX.
With the wave of remote learning brought on my COVID-19
parents garnered a new perspective in their child's education.
Many didn't like what they saw, especially when it came to
curricular materials promoting radical unscientific views about
sex and gender. So, they did what every citizen has a right to
do: They went to their school boards. The school boards were
not very receptive. Loudoun County was infamously hostile.
One elementary school teacher, Tanner Cross, spoke in a
public comment period about his opposition to a proposed policy
that would require him to engage in social transition of his
students. Within 48 hours he was suspended. ADF represented him
in a lawsuit against the board and secured his reinstatement,
which was affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court. The school
board subsequently enacted the policy and continued silencing
people.
Here's where the administration comes in: The Biden
Administration admitted that it worked with the National School
Boards Association in producing a letter from the NSBA to the
administration. The letter cited the events in Loudoun County
and generalized parental opposition as, quote, ``acts of
malice,'' that were, quote, ``equivalent to a form of domestic
terrorism.'' The NSBA later apologized, but the Biden
Administration had already gotten what it wanted: A pretext to
target parents.
A few days after the NSBA letter AG Garland issued his
memorandum mobilizing Federal law enforcement officials. AG
Garland claimed that this was focused exclusively on violent
acts, but his own memorandum sweeps much broader and it
unquestionably chilled parents in exercising their rights. Even
though the public outcry was severe, the administration would
not rescind the memorandum.
After intimidating parents into silence then the
administration moved to codify the very policies, they were
objecting to by proposing to redefine sex in Title IX to
include sexual orientation and gender identity and it expressly
blesses policies that would require schools to engage in social
transitions for students even while hiding this from parents.
ADF successfully represented a teacher in Kansas
challenging such a policy and ADF is currently representing
parents in Wisconsin. In that case the school wasn't just
keeping social transition secret; they were insisting on doing
it over the objection of the parents.
The Title IX changes also dramatically impact free speech.
ADF is representing a student, parent, and teachers, all of
whom were punished for expressing a view about gender identity
that was different from the view the school requires. In all
these cases the school cites to Title IX as a basis for their
coercive actions.
The Biden Administration's actions are both chilling and
outright curtailing parents' most fundamental constitutional
rights. I urge this Subcommittee to use all means at its
disposal to counter this Executive overreach and I welcome any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langhofer follows:]
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Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Langhofer.
Ms. Justice, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF TIFFANY JUSTICE
Ms. Justice. Good afternoon, distinguished Members of the
Constitution and Limited Government Subcommittee. My name is
Tiffany Justice, Co-founder of Moms for Liberty. Founded in
2021, Moms for Liberty has 275 chapters in 44 States and is
growing every month.
I want to begin by thanking you for taking up this
important topic. Free speech has been chilled for too long by
our own government. I applaud you for bringing attention to the
intimidation and harassment of law-abiding citizens.
Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing
of their children. That includes their education, medical care,
morality, and religion. I want to be clear: These are inherent
natural rights. Parental rights do not stop at the classroom
door. We do not co-parent with the government.
In March 2020 public schools across the country were closed
without parental input. Tina Descovich and I, Co-founders of
Moms for Liberty, were serving on school boards in Florida.
School districts shifted to virtual learning, but
accountability for teaching and learning was lacking. Despite
documented low student engagement graduation rates remained
steady and federally-mandated services were not being provided
despite continued funding.
Parents watched in horror as teachers' unions fought to
keep schools closed. We watched as our children struggled with
depression and anxiety, the development regressing at every
turn. Nationally parents were asking when and how had we become
a Nation that was more concerned with protecting adults than
protecting children. Parents desperately wanted to help their
children and they turned to their school boards to try to
understand why it was OK for people to gather and riot in the
streets and not for children to gather and learn in classrooms.
In the U.S. the right to petition the government to correct
a wrong or achieve a goal is fundamental to the workings of our
constitutional republic. Parents who took up this right were
silenced. Then the premier law enforcement agency of the United
States of America, the FBI, was used as a weapon by the DOJ
against parents who dared to voice their concerns at the most
local level, their school board.
Thanks to the whistleblower we now have evidence that
Attorney General Garland instructed the FBI to take action
against parents and that a threat tag was created for parents
who spoke up in public meetings. How dare they?
One of your moms was one of those parents targeted. One
minute you're making peanut butter and jelly and the next
minute the FBI is calling you. You answer the phone, and they
want to talk to you about your comments at a school board
meeting last week. Do you have any guns in your home? Do you
have a history of mental health illness? Oh, and by the way,
don't tell anyone we called.
When this mother called me, I was numb; I was shocked; I
did not know what to say. Can the FBI ask you to be
confidential about their inquiry to you? I immediately worked
to make the Judiciary Committee Members aware of the situation.
Did the actions of the Biden Administration chill the free
speech of parents? Yes. There is no doubt. It sent shockwaves
across this country that we still feel today. What did this mom
do wrong? She disagreed with her school board. That is not
illegal in this country. We not allowed to have differing
views?
A hundred and 15 thousand members strong, we attended
school board meetings often facing unjust treatment. Parents
were expelled, their mics were cutoff, and many were prevented
from speaking. We are moms, dads, uncles, aunts, grandparents,
and concerned citizens. We are not domestic terrorists, and we
will not be silenced to protect a failing system. The DOJ
betrayed the trust of the American people. There must be
accountability.
While the FBI made phone calls to parents who spoke out at
meetings and wrote memos calling concerned parents domestic
terrorists, I submit to you what the Federal government was not
doing was paying attention to educating our children. America's
public education system is failing. Perhaps the silencing of
parents was meant to hide these facts, but we see. Our eyes are
opened to a distressing truth that our children are being
taught to distrust the sanctity of their own homes and to view
the Nation as broken and unjust. We witness schools and States
fueling this fire, encouraging such beliefs to take hold.
I ask you to hold accountable those that violated their
oath to the constitution, who trampled on our right to be
heard, and who sought to use their position of power to subvert
we the parents. The No. 1 indicator of student success is
parental involvement. Any action by the government that
undermines that jeopardizes the very future of this Nation.
We are joyful warriors. We are going to fight like hell for
the future of this country with a smile on our face because our
children are watching. Our members build relationships, spread
truth to educate their communities and empower parents to do
the same. That is the power of parents.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Justice follows:]
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Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Ms. Justice.
Ms. Johnson, now you may begin.
STATEMENT OF NADINE FARID JOHNSON
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Chair Johnson and Chair Jordan,
Ranking Member Scanlon, and Members of the Subcommittee. My
name is Nadine Farid Johnson and I am the Managing Director for
Washington and Free Expression Programs at PEN America. It is
an honor to testify here today.
I am a daughter of immigrants, a mother of two young
school-age children, an attorney by training, and a proud
American who had the privilege of serving her country under
both the Obama and Trump Administrations.
PEN American, my employer, is a no-profit, nonpartisan
organization that stands at the intersection of literature and
human rights to protect free expression in the U.S. and around
the globe. We view free speech as an underpinning of democracy
and a cause above politics and we are unwavering in our
commitment to upholding this foundational right.
Today, we are in the midst of the broadest attack on First
Amendment rights in schools and universities this country has
seen in generations. Throughout our Nation's history we have
seen waves of efforts to curtail access to books, but at every
turn these censorious efforts have ultimately failed and the
rights protected by the First Amendment have been preserved.
In this new era of censorship, we have tracked 303 bills
which we term educational gag orders in 44 States. These
government restrictions forbid the teaching of specific
curricula or ban certain concepts from the classroom. We have
already seen the chilling effects that this kind of legislation
on educators around the country. Book banning is a compounding
trend. We documented more than 2,500 instances of individual
books being banned in the last school year alone affecting four
million children in 32 states.
National and local groups purporting to represent the
wishes of all parents are overwhelmingly targeting books with
LGBTQ+ characters or themes, or primary characters who are
people of color.
We must not confuse access to books and ideas with
endorsement of their content. Books such as Mein Kampf, The
Communist Manifesto, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Gone With the Wind
are on public and school library shelves as they should be. The
right approach to such materials is to contextualize them and
to read and teach them with sensitivity and a critical eye, not
to deny access. The right answer when it comes to different
ideas about books cannot be to cull the ones to which anyone
objects. That would too easily leave nothing on the shelf.
Parents have a right and a responsibility to be aware of,
involved in, and express concerns about their children's
education. That's why we have parent teacher associations. sign
up for a parent teach conferences, attend school board
meetings, and see school districts across the country publish
their curricula. For many of us, myself included, it's why we
check our children's homework, read to them or encourage them
to read each night, and advocate for them when the need arises.
Yet, much of what we are seeing now is not just parents
being involved in their children's classrooms. It is instead an
effort to impose the wishes of a few onto entire communities by
enlisting the government to act as a proxy and engage in
censorship on their behalf.
Supreme Court jurisprudence has repeatedly made clear that
the First Amendment, including the right to receive ideas and
information, applies in public schools. School boards may not
contract the spectrum of available knowledge. We can certainly
disagree about and debate training materials, classroom
discussion topics, and more. At times materials in use in
American schools may be tendentious or heavy-handed, but the
right approach to handling this is to raise concerns and work
together to address them. The answer is not legislated bans.
Given our work all over the world to fight threats to free
speech we at PEN America are particularly attuned to the fact
that educational censorship laws and book bans are a long-
standing tactic of repressive regimes. Apartheid South Africa
banned 12,000 books. The Nazi Party burned un-German ones. More
recently Iran banned the study of English in primary school.
Hungary banned all curriculum referencing homosexuality from
schools. Russian laws ban so-called LGBT propaganda as well as
criticisms of the State.
Right now, in the U.S. measures aimed at silencing the
exchange of ideas and open inquiry in schools are creating a
climate of intimidation and fear that detracts from teaching
and learning. We risk giving students only a sanitized narrow
education that will constrain their ability to understand and
engage with the multiplicity of ideas, perspectives, people,
and stories that make up our world. An erosion of trust in our
educational institutions, our education professionals and one
another risks undermining fundamental elements of our
democracy.
I want to end with the words of a speaker at a meeting of
the Martin County, Florida School Board earlier this week. A
100-year-old woman named Grace Lynn stepped up to speak
indicating she had attended to share her shock and dismay at
the recent book bans in her county. She noted that her husband
had died young fighting in the Second World War to defend our
democracy, our constitution, and our freedoms. She said,
``Banned books and burning books are the same. Both are done
for the same reason: Fear of knowledge.''
Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control.
Let us choose courage instead. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
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Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you.
Thank all our witnesses. You all kept it under five
minutes. That is beautiful.
We will now proceed under the five-minute rule that we hold
our members to as well. Those questions will begin by myself as
the Chair recognizing the gentlewoman from Wyoming for her five
minutes.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses for
being here today.
Parents have every right to know what their children are
being taught, what information is being given to them, and how
schools are spending our tax dollars. Parents have every right
to engage with their local school district and to make their
concerns known and to demand accountability for the education
of their children. They also have every right to demand that
their children not be indoctrinated, but again be educated
instead.
Even though there are now multiple ways for information to
be provided to parents today, it seems that educational
institutions are more opaque than ever. We must ask why is
that? Could it be that if parents actually got to see what
their sons and daughters are being taught that maybe the far-
left agenda of critical race theory, gender confusion, and
environmental alarmism might be in danger of elimination? I
think that is exactly right.
Ms. Justice, in the NSBA letter that has been discussed
calling on parent--that called parents domestic terrorists and
asking for the Federal government to crack down on them, the
NSBA claimed, quote,
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 K-12 class.
Moms for Liberty has done a great deal of work all over the
country, including in Wyoming. Have you found examples of CRT
and other concerning political ideology in classrooms?
Ms. Justice. Sorry, first time here. Yes, ma'am, we have.
It's been really unfortunate, and Nicki can speak to this as
well, the incidents of propaganda, of ideology in the
classrooms.
Many people will say, well, CRT isn't being taught. No,
it's not being taught, and they're not teaching a graduate
level course in schools. What they are doing is teaching
through the lens of critical race theory and critical theory in
general.
It's demoralizing our children, and it's having an affect
that's causing division among the children. We're seeing
increases of violence across the country that we're very
concerned about.
Ms. Hageman. Well, and I think that is exactly right. So, I
am going to be very blunt in my next question. Is it fair to
say that the NSBA lied to the Biden Administration and DOJ
about the teaching of CRT in our lower grades?
Ms. Justice. Yes, I absolutely think they did. What we
saw--the National Center for Education Statistics conducted a
study of long-term trends and reading and math assessments for
nine-year-olds to examine student achievement during the
pandemic. Average scores declined five points in reading and
seven points in mathematics compared to 2020.
My question continues to be, why so we continue--you're
talking about books here. No one wants to talk about reading
proficiency. American parents are very concerned about what's
happening in our schools, and I think it was a real effort to
silence us when we came to the school boards. The school board
members did not want to answer questions and they wanted to
protect the system.
Ms. Hageman. I think that is exactly correct. There is one
other point that I think is important to make and that is that
we have a Committee report that cites numerous instances which
the National Threat Operations Center routinely received tips
based on everything related to parents and their involvement
and attendance at school boards, except they are engaging in
unlawful action.
Through the Full Committee and our Select Subcommittee on
the Weaponization of the Federal Government, we have routinely
exposed that the DOJ has not been going after violent acts or
unlawful acts. They have been going after people with whom the
left disagrees. Would you agree?
Ms. Justice. Yes, ma'am, I would.
Ms. Hageman. Ms. Johnson, I just have a real quick question
for you. Do you believe it is censorship to prohibit teachers
from exposing first graders to Penthouse magazine?
Ms. Johnson. Do I believe it is--I'm sorry, ma'am. Do I
believe it's censorship to--
Ms. Hageman. Do you believe it is censorship to prohibit
teachers from exposing first graders to Penthouse magazine?
Ms. Johnson. I don't know of any instances in which a--
Ms. Hageman. That isn't my question. My question is, do you
believe that it is censorship to prohibit teachers from
exposing first graders to Penthouse magazine?
Ms. Johnson. I believe that it is important that we have
parents, teachers, and educators who are involved--
Ms. Hageman. You are not going to answer my question then.
Is that right?
Ms. Johnson. I believe it is important to have parents,
teachers, and educators involved and understanding what is
being presented to students and that there is--
Ms. Hageman. Do you believe that it is appropriate to
present Penthouse to first graders?
Ms. Johnson. Of course not.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentlelady. I now
recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Scanlon, for five minutes.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. As I noted in my opening statement,
we have seen a troubling rise in violence, threats, and
intimidation against school officials in recent years. I would
note that most of these school officials are, in fact, parents,
grandparents, mom, and dads in their own right, furthermore,
overwhelmingly unpaid public servants, unlike those who are
seeking to weaponize the school board proceedings for their own
attention getting or political purposes.
Yes, parents have a right to protest vigorously at school
board meetings under the First Amendment. Intimidation and
threats are not protected by the First Amendment when they go
too far. That is certainly what we saw.
It wasn't people offering peanut butter sandwiches to
school board members. It was people saying to school board
members, we are going to kill you, or contacting the children
of school board members and saying, we are going to kill you
and your parents. So, we are not talking about idle policy
discussions here.
We are talking about threats against individuals based on
their political positions. Political violence is un-American.
Ms. Farid Johnson, can you speak to the difference between
protected speech under the First Amendment and threats of
violence?
Ms. Johnson. Yes, thank you for the question. You are
correct that there are certain narrowly defined types of
expression that do not receive First Amendment protection.
These do include incitement and true threats.
The key with incitement is that the imminence of the
reaction, will there be an immediate unlawful reaction as a
result of speech advocating illegal conduct? Will there be an
immediate violent reaction as a result of the communication?
These are quite different from protected speech, even
passionate or zealous speech that is certainly protected.
PEN America, we want people to show up at school board
meetings. We want people in the community to be able to engage.
It's critically important that we have that discourse. What we
also understand is that there are limitations. Those do
include, as I mentioned, incitement and true threats.
Ms. Scanlon. Sure. Certainly, we have seen situations where
there is a disruption to a public proceeding. In fact, there
was one across the Capitol this afternoon as the Republican
Chair of a Subcommittee had a father of a child murdered at
Parkland removed from a hearing and arrested. So, perhaps the
protected speech is in the eye of the beholder at certain
times.
I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a
Reuters report documenting over 200 threats to school officials
made during the relevant time period. It is a special report on
USA education threats.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I would also enter into the record
an article from Chapelboro, Proud Boys Presence Leads to Metal
Detectors and Deputies at School Board Meetings.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Ms. Farid Johnson, American
democracy relies on an informed and engaged citizenry. How do
attacks on the First Amendment in terms of what books students
have access to and what subjects teachers are allowed to teach,
how does that impact our democracy and hinder student's ability
to participate in real world experiences?
Ms. Johnson. It is critically important that we allow a
diverse perspective of viewpoints and information to be taught
in our schools. I want to be really clear here that generations
of children have read stories about experiences and lives that
are different from their own. Reading about the Holocaust does
not make one a Nazi.
Understanding what happened during the Jim Crow era does
not make on anti-civil rights or otherwise. What we need to be
able to do is to ensure that people are informed because as the
Supreme Court has said, when we allow free expression in the
classroom because we know that First Amendment rights do not
stop at the schoolhouse door, when we allow that type of
expression, what we are doing is preparing these students for
life in a democracy, a participatory democracy, one that does
require us to debate, to understand, and to discuss. The more
that we shield people from understanding the world around them,
the worse off we will be.
To also say this is a global issue as well. At PEN America,
we work on issues all around the world, and we see what happens
when authoritarian types of decisionmaking can affect what
happens to a populous. It is critically important that we have
an informed population that understands how to debate civilly,
that understands discourse, and that works together so we can
move forward as a Nation.
Ms. Scanlon. I think that is one of the big fears here that
it undermines our communities to allow a very noisy minority to
dictate what everybody gets to hear. So, it is not that a
particular voice is being silenced. It is that we need to work
together, parents and teachers, to develop our community
standards. So, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady's time has
expired. I will enter without objection into the record a copy
of the Interim Staff Report on the Committee on the Judiciary
and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government dated March 21, 2023 and entitled, ``A Manufactured
Issue and Misapplied Priorities: Subpoenaed Documents Show No
Legitimate Basis for the Attorney General's Anti-Parent Memo,''
with a conclusion that the overwhelming majority of judicial
districts supporting not having heard of any instances or
threats of violence being leveled at school board officials. I
will now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina for his
five minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing
today and thank you to our witnesses for being here. Families
stand at the center of our society and every family has a
personal stake in promoting excellence in education. Excellence
does not begin in Washington.
This is straight from Ronald Reagan's 1984 State of the
Union speech. Mr. Chair, I think that quote is as true today
and even more so than it was 40 years ago. Due to liberals
pushing their woke agenda on our kids, school boards have
become ground zero for some of America's most contested issues,
mask mandates, critical race theory, pronoun insanity, and
rewriting U.S. history just to name a few.
Thankfully, the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution
reiterates that fundamental right of parents to make decisions
as to the care, custody, and control of their children. So, it
is only natural for parents to advocate on their child's
behalf. It is interesting that President Biden as a proud
father himself fails to relate to parents in this way because
as a result of parents speaking out as you have experienced,
the Biden Administration and the National School Boards
Association colluded to issue a memo to bring in law
enforcement to these school board meetings and effectively
silence parents.
In November 2021, the NSBA's letter to the Biden
Administration referred to those parents advocating for their
children as domestic terrorism and hate crimes. Are you kidding
me at this point? When I was a member of the South Carolina
legislature, I along with 36 other Republicans called on the
South Carolina School Board Association to pull out of the
NSBA. Within a week, South Carolina joined the long list of
States that were no longer a part of that national association.
These parents are not domestic terrorists. They are simply
parents who want the best for their kids. In fact, I would
offer that it is important for parents to work with school
board members and not to have that divide between them that is
arbitrarily put up by this administration. Mr. Langhofer, can
you describe an instance where you represented a parent or
teaching who was being retaliated against for speaking at a
school board meeting?
Mr. Langhofer. Sure, absolutely. We represent and currently
still do represent Tanner Cross. Tanner is a teacher in Loudoun
County for many years. He went to an open school board meeting
to object to a proposed policy which was going to force him as
a teacher and all students to participate in the social
transition of students.
He spoke his one minute, left, went the next day to school
and taught his PE class. He got a call that night, you need to
come to H.R. tomorrow. The next day, he was suspended for
simply exercising his constitutional right to speak about a
proposed policy that was going to adversely affect every
student in his class.
We had to file a lawsuit, get an injunction, and get him
reinstated. They fought that, even after they lost to the
Circuit Court, to the Virginia Supreme Court. We are still down
there now fighting that policy that they enacted over the
objections of the teachers and parents later that year.
Mr. Fry. Thank you. Do you think the Attorney General's
October 4th memo, did that result in hostility toward parents
that were advocating against some of the liberal agenda items
that were coming in front of school boards?
Mr. Langhofer. It absolutely did. We had calls from parents
and teachers across the country who indicated they were really
worried about whether they still had the right to go speak at
these school board meetings. When you've got the power of the
Department of Justice and the FBI telling you that if you go to
these school board meetings, you may be labeled by the NSBA and
DOJ may target you, it absolutely affected them. It took away
their right to advocate for their kids which is their
constitutional right.
Mr. Fry. Right, on the one hand it would seem to indicate
that parents were not welcome at a school board meeting to talk
freely with their elected representatives. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Langhofer. That's absolutely what's fair to say because
the DOJ issued their letter solely based on the NSBA. The NSBA
has now retracted that letter and apologized for it.
Mr. Fry. Right. On the other hand, instead of kind of
setting up a collaborative approach where parents are working
with school boards, you kind of have that divided line with
this memo that makes it a very adversarial process when a
parent comes before a school board. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Langhofer. Absolutely. I created a much more hostile
environment for parents to be able to collaborate in the
political process.
Mr. Fry. In your experience, what are some of the topics
that parents bring up at these school board meetings? Do you
think that these parents have valid concerns in bringing them
up at a school board meeting?
Mr. Langhofer. Our experience with the parents and teachers
that we represent, they were advocating against policies which
would force every teacher at a school to participate in the
social transition of students as young as kindergarten and
first grade without the permission of their parents and hiding
that information from the parents. They also were objecting to
curriculum and materials and presentation which classified
students based on their race or their religion and sex and
classified them into oppressors or oppressed. Labeled them and
then created this divide at the school that wasn't there prior
to those curricular materials.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With that, I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. The gentleman's time
is expired. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York,
Mr. Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Farid Johnson, you
wrote in your testimony that we must distinguish between well
developed, widely accepted methods of interplay between
political bodies, educational systems, parents, and citizens
and the current State of deliberate methods to exert
ideological control over what can be read, learned, or thought
about in schools. Can you explain how current book bans and
other forms of censorship are ways you describe to exert
ideological control of what can be read, learned, or thought
about in schools?
Ms. Johnson. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. The
issue that we are seeing here is that there is--in our research
we have found that there is this sweeping movement to ban all
these books in schools, sometimes hundreds of books at a time.
What we're seeing here is a particular direction toward the
books that are being banned.
We are seeing books that have topics of LGBTQ+ issues or
identities, books that talk about race or racism. What is
happening then is that students do not have access to this
information. When a book is taken out of circulation, when it
is banned from use by a student, that is censorship and its
government censorship.
That is denying students the right and the ability to
access this information. What that does in a bigger picture is
that, again, it points us in a direction whereby we have a
narrowing of the understanding of students. We're doing two
things that I think are critical to understand.
The first is that we are risking creating an environment in
which students feel excluded. Students deserve to have access
to information and to see themselves reflected in books. Not
only that but to understand others. We're also missing the
opportunity or we're throwing away the opportunity really to
allow students to develop empathy and to exercise that empathy.
Then finally, we are also not preparing our students then for
active and effective participation in our pluralistic society
in a way that will make them the engaged adults we hope they
will be.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Ms. Farid Johnson, the Supreme
Court, its plurality opinion in Board of Education v. Pico
rejected a school board's claim of absolute discretion to
remove books from a school library. In reaching its opinion,
the Court observed that, quote,
. . . access to ideas makes it possible for citizens generally
to exercise their right to free speech and press in a
meaningful manner and that such access prepares students for
active and effective participation in a pluralistic, often
contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.
What effect does censorious legislation have on student's
preparation for adulthood?
Ms. Johnson. If we do not have students who understand the
world around them, they will be less prepared to engage in that
world. We need students to understand not only different types
of people, different types of families, different types of
communities. We need them also to understand what has come
before.
So much of what we're seeing in the bans actually has to do
with U.S. history and world history. That, again, contracts the
amount of knowledge that these students have and allows them--
and does not prepare them well to engage. Also, it doesn't
allow them to learn from what came before.
When we're talking about these situations that have come,
sometimes we have many dark periods in history. What we need to
be able to do, though, is understand from those periods of
history, to learn from them, and to do better. If we don't give
students information, then they won't be equipped to do better.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Ms. Farid Johnson. Did the NSBA
letter call parents domestic terrorists? If not, what did it,
in fact, say?
Ms. Johnson. I actually don't have the letter before me. My
understanding is that it did not refer to them--refer to
parents as domestic terrorists. I'm a parent. I'm a parent who
gets involved in her children's education.
Some might use the term, helicopter, to describe me. I wear
that badge with pride. It is something that is really important
for parents to be engaged.
PEN America, we consistently stand up against the chilling
of speech. We believe that people have a right and frankly a
duty to speak up and be heard at school board meetings and
other public fora. We would oppose efforts to restrict that.
We also understand that true threats, whether they be
against school members, Supreme Court justices, Members of
Congress, these must be taken seriously. We believe that we can
achieve both. We can ensure that you have a right to speak and
without infringing on or chilling speech.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Finally, Ms. Farid Johnson, what are
you currently hearing from parents, students, librarians, and
teachers? What challenges are they facing and what are they
most concerned about?
Ms. Johnson. So, we're hearing quite a bit? I will say--
again, I mention I'm a parent. Most parents, we're tired. It's
making breakfast and seeing what's coming up in homework and
what's on the schedule and who has what sport.
We are also wanting to ensure that our school systems are
really working for everyone. That means that we don't have the
viewpoints of one or two or a handful of parents then twisted
and used by the government to censure. That's really what we're
worried about, from teachers, from librarians.
There's an incredible study by RAND recently that talked
about over a quarter of teachers who have in these 20 different
States where these ego bans have passed. They are worrying
about they're examining their curricula. They're concerned
about potentially offending someone.
That's the situation in which I'm not actually allowed
because of their jobs, the jobs they were trained to do. Same
thing with librarians, and we see the empty shelves, pictures
of empty shelves. They're not allowed--they're not being able
to do their jobs, and they're being asked--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady--
Ms. Johnson. --to take on something that is really beyond
the scope of their role in a way that ultimate chills their
speech in terms of their ability to do their job, I should say.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. Time has expired.
Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas for his five minutes.
Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the
witnesses for being here. I really appreciate your time. Really
appreciate it. Thank you.
When parents begin exercising their right to question their
local school boards during the height of COVID amid mask
mandates, woke curricula, and harassment in schools, how did
the DOJ respond? The Department of Justice responded under
Merrick Garland with directing the public to report threats of
violence to school board members, officials, and workers in our
national public schools to a national hotline. One particular
case, a mom was reported to the hotline as a threat because she
was (a) a conservative, and (b) she was a lawful gun owner like
myself.
The complainant alleged that the mom was a threat because
she belonged to a right-wing group known as Moms for Liberty. I
have a real problem with identifying people like this because
it is your right to belong to wherever you want to belong to.
That is your freedom.
Another investigation opened because a tip to the hotline,
a dad was investigated because according to the complainant the
dad fit the profile of an insurrectionist. I don't really know
what that means, but that is interesting. He had a lot of guns
and threatened to use them.
When the FBI asked the complainant about these threats from
the dad, the complainant admitted that no specific information
or observations or any crimes of threats. According to the FBI,
not one of these school board-related investigations resulted
in Federal arrest or charges, not a single one. Recently, the
DOJ announced that they were going to continue to prosecute
people from January 6th to the tune of around 1,000 more people
to be charged in a not so distant future.
Now, January 6th was over two years ago, and the DOJ is
still looking to charge more people. Yet, when there is a true
domestic terrorist threat like Antifa, the DOJ did not direct
the people to a national hotline. Where do they report these
threats to our communities?
Now, my colleagues on the left will tell you that Antifa
doesn't exist. It is an idea. My question is, where is the
intellectual curiosity to determine how Antifa, a highly
coordinated domestic terrorist organization, is funded and
organized.
The DOJ did not set up a hotline for Antifa. They set up a
hotline for you. No Federal resources were set aside to
investigate the violence that we saw unleash across this
country during the summer of love in 2020. Please note some of
these photos.
That is not January 6th. That is May 31, 2020. That is
right in front of the White House. That is where the President
lives. At the time, President Trump was ushered to a bunker
because his life was being threatened. Where was the hotline?
Next photo.
That is not January 6th either. That is July 27th. That is
in Portland, and that is Antifa rioting and pillaging our
country. Where was the hotline? Next slide.
Well, hot damn. That is not January 6th either. Those are
more rioters that are destroying and rioting in Salt Lake City.
Next slide. I believe--is that it? Wait, there is more.
That is not January 6th either. That is June 1, 2020, and
that is the streets of D.C. They are being rioted and pillaged
by rioters. Where is the outrage? Where is the hotline?
This is what domestic terror looks like. This is not a
school board meeting. There is no hotline for any of these
riots. We are going to have a hotline that is going to report
parents for caring about their children's education.
Even further, the DOJ would rather investigate 1,000 more
people from January 6th than any single person in these photos.
What a shame. That is why this is no longer the Department of
Justice. It is the Department of Subjective Justice. With that,
I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, gentleman. Chair
recognizes next the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My friends on
the other side of the aisle, the MAGA Republicans want you to
believe that ex-President Trump won the election and is still
the President. They want you to believe that the insurrection
of January 6th was not an insurrection. It was just a tourist
visit.
They want you to believe that the tooth fairy is woke and
anti-Christian. They also want you to believe that they will
find something incriminating in Hunter Biden's laptop. They
also want you to believe that there are some chilling of
parents' fundamental rights by the Biden Administration.
There is absolutely no evidence to support the MAGA
conspiracy theories about far ranging Federal government effort
to chill parents' speech. If the MAGA Republicans were truly
concerned with protecting free speech, they would focus on the
efforts of some Republican controlled State legislatures to ban
books, censor our history, and limit what can be discussed in
schools. According to research by PEN America, State lawmakers
have introduced 303 educational gag order bills since January
2021 and have instituted more than 2,500 book bans in the 2021-
2022 school year.
Now, if MAGA Republicans were interested really in
protecting free speech, they would not throw out grieving
parents from a congressional hearing like they did today for
voicing their opinions about their children being killed by gun
violence. Schools are where children learn how to be engaged
and thoughtful citizens in a democracy. These educational gag
orders that are being promoted by some of these witnesses today
are such that they prevent children from learning their full
history about what really happened in America and learning
basic skills to understand and analyze different viewpoints.
How can we have a healthy democracy if we put blinders on
our children's education and act like an authoritarian regime?
Beyond that, these educational gag orders erase the experiences
of our Black children and our LGBTQ children. Kids deserve to
know and see themselves in books.
They deserve to be able to express their true selves.
Children of all races deserve to learn their history so that
they understand the present. How can we expect adults of the
future to consider and address contentious issues if they are
taught as children that they should shut down discussion of an
opposing idea, deny uncomfortable truths, and erase the
existence of people who are different from them?
We should all be able to agree that State-imposed
censorship and book bans violate our cherished right to free
expression and send the wrong message to children about core
principles of democracy. Now, Neily, you are president of
Parents Defending Education which takes money from the Koch
brothers. Isn't that true? Well, you take money from the Koch
brothers. That is my question. Isn't that correct?
Ms. Neily. We believe in donor privacy, and I do not
discuss where our money comes from. However--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. All right. Let me--
Ms. Neily. --I do actually--no, I'd like to--I'd like--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Reclaiming my time. Ms. Justice,
your group is a dark money group, and you got your start
opposing mask mandates to protect children and school workers
from COVID. Isn't that true? Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Langhofer--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. If you speak, make sure you push
the button. Hold on. Mr. Johnson, hang on just a second. I want
to remind everybody to push the button so we can hear your
voice when you respond.
Ms. Justice. May I answer now?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr.--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes, you can answer.
Ms. Justice. Oh, thank you. Sir--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Reclaiming my time.
Ms. Justice. I didn't have my mike on.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Langhofer, the Southern Poverty
Law Center has designated the Alliance Defending Freedom as an
LGBTQ hate group. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Langhofer. Alliance Defending Freedom is one of the
world's most respected Supreme Court advocates. We've won 14
Supreme Court cases in the last 12 years. We advocate for the
rights--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You are a hate group, are you not?
Mr. Langhofer. --of all people, all walks of life.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You have been designated as a hate
group, correct?
Mr. Langhofer. We are an experienced Supreme Court advocacy
organization--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I will yield back my time.
Mr. Langhofer. --that advocates for everybody's rights.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes, you yield back. SPLC has
zero credibility. They have made a habit over the last four
years of labeling all conservative groups as hate groups. So,
you need to expand your sources.
Mr. Nadler. They labeled all hate groups as hate groups.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK. All right. The gentleman's
time has expired, and the Chair now recognizes the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Roy.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana.
Ms. Neily, I know you wanted to comment just a minute ago.
I just wanted to see if I can get you to within maybe two or
three minutes so I can go to another subject explain a little
bit of the great work that your organization has been doing.
I think you're one of the true experts here and one of the
heroes in exposing what has been going on in this
administration to target parents.
On September 29, 2021, the National School Board
Association sends a letter to President Biden equating parents
to domestic terrorism. Scott Smith was one of those people. I
invited him to be my guest at the State of the Union.
He was trying to defend his daughter to a school board and
then he suddenly becomes the poster father for, quote,
``domestic terrorism.'' The superintendent at Loudoun County
has been fired. The Commonwealth attorney on the case has been
removed.
On October 4th after that September 29th memo the Attorney
General put out a memo, and I know that the gentlelady is
familiar with it, on October 20th and the FBI Assistant
Director of Counterterrorism, sent an email referencing the
October 4th Garland directive and then established the threat
tag domestic terrorism which the Judiciary Committee Ranking
Member just blithely just sweeps aside. It would be not
concerning at all for an American to be--have a threat tag
associated with them as a domestic terrorist.
This year on January 11, 2022, you told officers--he was
writing a letter to provide information to the White House from
a request from Secretary Cardona. I want you to explain that,
and on February 14, 2022, NSBA leadership knew a DOJ memo
before its release.
Can you walk through all your great work through the
Freedom of Information Act to establish these facts that we are
now relying on to understand the dangers of this
administration?
Ms. Neily. Through the Freedom of Information Act requests
that we received back from the NSBA board members and their
districts, two of the board members, Kristi Swett from the Salt
Lake City School District, was corresponding with Marnie
Maldonado from, I believe, Washington State, and she speculated
that Secretary Cardona had been the impetus for that letter.
I know that this Chair and this Committee has requested
documents from the Department of Education and Department of
Justice, which have not yet been turned over to them by either
department and so we are unable to prove the veracity of that.
That is something that, again, an Executive Committee
Member of the NSBA asserted and I think it's something that the
American people deserve answers on. The fact that Mary C. Wall,
who is a Senior Advisor in the Domestic Policy Council at the
White House, was intimately involved in this, maintains her job
to this day, and is, I believe, a leader in the COVID-19
Response Team, has not yet been held accountable for this.
No one who was involved in the genesis of this memo has
ever been called to account for this and so we demand answers
on that. I think we deserve to know answers that how our tax
dollars were weaponized against us as American citizens. This
is a betrayal of us as Americans.
Mr. Roy. Is there any doubt in your mind that there was
collusion between the National School Board Association and the
White House and the Department of Justice to target parents and
coordinate the threat tag of domestic terrorism in light of the
engagement and parents and school boards like Scott Smith?
Ms. Neily. There's no question in my mind whatsoever. This
had been in the works for several weeks before. There was also
evidence at the National Association of Secondary School
Principals they released a statement on September 16, 2021,
calling for Federal intervention.
The American Association of School Superintendents also put
out a statement, although they in NSBA documents that were
later released in May 2022, declined to request Federal
intervention. It feels very much like there was an effort afoot
by a number of outside organizations to gin up support for a
pretextual investigation by the Federal government.
Mr. Roy. Moving on to another subject in my minute and a
half that I have left, I've heard a lot of colleagues on the
other side of the aisle talking about book bans and accusing
people in Florida, particularly Governor DeSantis and the
people of Duval County, Florida, saying they want to ban books.
Well, let me just say this. I hope they're successful in
banning a number of books. The question is which are those
books? Are those books, for example, ``Gender Queer: A
Memoir''--that book or ``This Book is Gay.''
In that book, there are all sorts of depictions, depictions
with body parts, the male body parts. I can't even put on the
screen the stuff that is in this book ``Gender Queer'' where
there's two men engaged in a sexual position, another page
where I can flip to where there's two men engaged in oral sex.
Another picture here in which there are any number of
ridiculous graphic pictures that are being put in front of our
kids in schools.
Now, my question for this entire panel is do you believe
that parents have a right to know whether this stuff is in
their schools, in the libraries, or being pushed or promoted by
teachers in their schools. I would like a yes or no answer from
each member of the panel.
Start with you, Ms. Neily, and work down.
Ms. Neily. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Langhofer. Absolutely.
Ms. Justice. Yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Roy. Ms. Johnson?
Ms. Johnson. Yes. Parents have a right to know.
Mr. Roy. Parents have a right to know. Well, that's good to
know. I would like to submit these for the record without
objection of the Chair.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Mr. Roy. I would also like to submit for the record an
article called, ``Facts about Library Books in the Duval County
Public Schools,'' which makes very clear that there are no
books being banned about Rosa Parks or Roberto Clemente, that
in fact there was a process for reviewing the books, that these
books have been put on the shelves, left on the shelves.
There are 13 books about Rosa Parks on average in every
elementary school in Duval County. Our colleagues on the other
side of the aisle are lying about it. The facts are here, and
I'll submit this to the record, and I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Very good. Without objection.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, for
five minutes.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for
organizing this hearing on such an important topic, which the
committee has very carefully laid out what happened.
We had the powers of the Federal government--
counterterrorism powers, criminal powers, law enforcement
powers--mobilized for the purpose of restricting and chilling
the most core protected form of speech. That is the right to
petition your government and to try to seek changes and on the
most important of topics, the education of one's children.
I had hoped this would have been a bipartisan effort toward
accountability. After all, the National School Board
Association, which laid out the predicate for this whole thing
with its letter, has apologized for it.
Yet, instead of a bipartisan inquiry into what happened
here and what reforms we can make, the other side of the dais
has engaged in an exercise of what aboutism, saying, well,
we're not going to even address this but what about this whole
other issue? As we have learned in the course of this
discussion this other issue is really a red herring.
So, Ms. Johnson, language really matters, and you throw
around terms like book bans and censorship and gag orders. So,
I guess I'll just ask you what, in your view, is the difference
between banning books and selecting age-appropriate materials
for classrooms?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you for the question.
What we're seeing now in terms of banning books--I'll back
up a minute. PEN America defines a book ban as the removal of
material that have been previously available for students,
whether that material is being removed for, as a permanent
matter or for a review, that sometimes turns into a long form
review and ultimately ends in or it results in, excuse me, the
access to the book being removed.
When we're talking about a book ban, what is happening is
the government--the heavy hand of government coming in and
saying that this book may no longer be accessed by children.
Age appropriateness is a different matter. When we're
talking about age appropriateness there are actually a number
of frameworks that exist for this. There's a Lexile framework
that talks about what books should be--how books should be
categorized and what ages.
There are publishers who talk about this book is for young
adults, this book is children--
Mr. Kiley. Sure. So, let's just take an example. You said
earlier that you think ``Mein Kampf'' be available in
classrooms.
Ms. Johnson. What I said is that ``Mein Kampf: the
Communist Manifesto'' and other such books are available in
public and school libraries and should be so we can learn about
them in a historical--
Mr. Kiley. And should be. So, did you mean for high school
or elementary school?
Ms. Johnson. That is not for me to say, sir. I am not an
expert in terms of the age appropriateness.
Mr. Kiley. That's fair. So, if ``Mein Kampf'' were not or
were in elementary school and they decided we're not going to
have it there anymore would that be a book ban?
Ms. Johnson. If it had been in an elementary school and was
removed for--and was removed and placed in the high school,
that's a good question. I mean, look, it depends on the actual
situation, and you're talking to someone who's going to--
Mr. Kiley. You're right. It does depend--
Ms. Johnson. I know. I mean, I'm not trying to be--
Mr. Kiley. It does depend on the situation.
Ms. Johnson. It depends on the situation.
Mr. Kiley. So, clearly, you agree that there are some books
that shouldn't be available to some grade levels?
Ms. Johnson. I think that from my perspective as a parent
there are some books that I would not want my children to read.
You might have a different perspective than I do. You might say
those books are fine for parents.
Mr. Kiley. That's right.
Ms. Johnson. I completely respect that.
What my concern is, sir, is that when--it was my decision
and I say, I want you to ban all these books and the school
board says great because she said so. That's what I don't want
to happen because it is not up to me. It is not up to me as one
parent to--
Mr. Kiley. That's right, and you have school boards who are
making these decisions with input from the community. So, I
just want you to be careful about the language that you use
because you as well think it's appropriate to limit access to
certain types of materials in classrooms.
You just go ahead and say that anyone who disagrees with
you on the particular limitations that are put in place is
guilty of banning books or violating the First Amendment when
that just isn't the case.
Now, on a related topic, are you aware that right now
schools are shut down in the Los Angeles Unified School
District?
Ms. Johnson. I am aware of that, yes.
Mr. Kiley. Because of yet another school shutdown and
strike. Are you aware that in that school district kids were
out of class for up to a year and a half?
Ms. Johnson. I was not aware. You mean during COVID?
Mr. Kiley. During COVID. In many districts across the
country, of course, schools were shut down for extended
periods.
How many books did kids have access to inside of
classrooms, inside of school libraries, in those schools when
they were shut down?
Ms. Johnson. That I don't know if there are ways to bring--
if there were some students who had access to books that were
brought to them. That I can't tell you.
Mr. Kiley. Certainly, not very many, I would think. Is that
right?
Ms. Johnson. There's a difference, sir--I'm sorry?
Mr. Kiley. Certainly, not very many books were available.
Is that right?
Ms. Johnson. Ostensibly, that would be correct. There's a
difference here between--
Mr. Kiley. OK. I'm sorry. I'm out of time. I'm sorry to cut
you off. I just want to say as you might be aware Ms. Justice
and parents like her tried to get schools open, and we know at
this point it was a catastrophic mistake to keep them closed,
and that enabled students to have access to all the books that
were there.
You've been fighting--your whole testimony has been getting
access to a few, but she got them access. They fought to get
students access to all the books. So, I just--would you like to
take the opportunity to thank Ms. Justice and the other parent
leaders for their efforts?
Ms. Johnson. I add that Ms. Justice was a member of a
school board, which I really appreciate. I think the public
service is incredibly important. Look, what we're talking--
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. OK, wait. Hold on. The
gentleman's time has expired. I've got to move on.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Texas, Ms.
Escobar.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This has been a surreal
hearing--a surreal experience. I am so fortunate. I'm the
mother of two children. They're adults now--26 years old. My
son is 26 years old. He's in law school. My daughter is 24 and
she's working on her license to be a social worker.
I am so proud of them, so proud of the role that their
father, my husband, and I played in their education and our
goal always was to ensure that our kids had a robust education,
that there were great debates that they participated in so that
they could be part of a country that honors and uplifts
important debates and discussions.
I wanted them to be prepared as prepared as possible for
the workforce and I am so grateful that they are not young
people in school today.
When I talk to constituents of mine who are parents, with
school-aged children who share with me what their number-one
concern is, their number-one concern is that their kids will
not come home because we are a country awash in guns, and that
their kids have to go through horrific drills to--that mimic
school shootings.
That is the real crisis in our schools today. That is the
real crisis for young people in America, and instead of talking
about that and confronting that crisis and talking about how we
can create places that are safe for kids so that they can
survive yet another day without fear of gun violence, this is
what we're talking about.
There's not been any evidence whatsoever of anyone being
arrested or prosecuted and instead now we have this extremist
agenda that seeks to create the most limiting experience
possible for children by limiting their access to important
books about slavery, about the Holocaust, about aspects of
human history that are important for us to learn from.
Ms. Johnson, can you talk a little bit about the real
chilling effect that laws such as the educational gag order can
have on parents, students, and teachers?
Ms. Johnson. Yes, thank you for the question. What we are
seeing with these laws is, as you know, it's essentially a
threefold issue. The first is that educators now do not know
what they are permitted to say based on what a political
official has told them they can or cannot say in the classroom.
The second is that there are now parents who are having
less and less of being able to have input into what's happening
in the schools, and as mentioned before we do believe that
parents have an essential role to play alongside teachers,
alongside other educators, in what happens in schools.
The third is that the students are not getting information.
The entire point here is that we are talking about access. We
want students have access to information. As I've noted
previously, the Supreme Court has held--it held long ago that
the First Amendment rights are not stopped at schoolhouse gate.
That also that also extends to students and it extends to
the receipt of information. When we are not allowing students
to have access to information, when we are not teaching them
about the very basics of our history, we are doing them a
disservice.
I completely understand we might have disagreements in this
room. We might agree--maybe we'd be surprised by with whom we
agree about what actually should be taught in the classroom, to
what age and what manner. I completely get that.
What we don't want to see is a legislative ban saying it
must be silenced. What we need to be doing is talking about it.
Let's converse. Let's discuss. Let's debate. Let's figure out
what's the best. Let's not silence.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Ms. Johnson. One last thing
that I'd like to say. I've had the privilege of meeting with
many teachers in my district and teachers have a really tough
job.
They have to balance a lot of needs that the kids have and
the last thing that we should be doing with professionals who
we are lucky to have in the workplace like the great teachers
that teach across this Nation is inserting politics into their
job.
So, it is my hope that this Committee can and the
Subcommittee can get back to focusing on real issues that
American families face so that we can create the best kind of
environment for our kids so that they can then go on and become
as competitive and brilliant as they can be as part of our
workforce future.
Thank you so much. I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. The gentlelady yields
back. The Chair recognizes the Chair of the Full Committee, Mr.
Jordan, for five minutes.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the Chair.
Ms. Johnson, in your written remarks you said that the PEN
Center has a steadfast devotion to free expression. In fact, I
counted 16 times in your written testimony you used the terms
free expression or free speech.
I just want to know two weeks ago when Senator Schumer
stood on the Senate floor and said to a major American news
outlet that they should not play video footage from January 6th
was that something that's consistent with a steadfast devotion
to free expression?
Ms. Johnson. I'm sorry, sir. When Senator Schumer--
Mr. Jordan. Told Fox News don't play video footage from
January 6th. Was that a commitment to steadfast devotion to
free expression?
Ms. Johnson. Senator, I cannot speak to Senator Schumer or
what he intended.
Mr. Jordan. I'm not asking you to speak for him. I'm asking
you to comment on what he said.
Ms. Johnson. If there is an issue of national security,
sir, I'm not going to comment on what--
Mr. Jordan. How about the very next day when this Committee
released a report where the Federal Trade Commission sent a
letter to a private company Twitter and asked them who were the
journalists you were talking with and named four journalists by
name? Would that be consistent with a steadfast devotion to
free expression?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, PEN America consistently works to defend
the rights of journalists, including their ability to do their
job. That's all I will say about that.
Mr. Jordan. The next day two of those four journalists
mentioned in the FTC's letter to Twitter testified in front of
this Committee, and Democrat Members of Congress asked those
two journalists who their sources were. Is that consistent with
a steadfast devotion to free expression?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, PEN America consistently works to ensure
that journalists can do their job and that means allowing for
anonymous sources as appropriate.
Mr. Jordan. Good for you. How about this? Two days into the
Biden Administration, literally two days, January 23, 2021,
Clark Humphrey, Executive Office of the Presidency, White House
office, sends an email to Twitter where he says this: ``Wanted
to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving
on the process for having it removed ASAP.''
Would that be consistent with a steadfast devotion to free
expression?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, I don't know the content of the tweets. I
can't speak to that.
Mr. Jordan. I'll give you the content. They cited a tweet
from Robert F. Kennedy, that conservative Republican Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr., where he was raising some concerns about vaccines
and the White House two days into this administration said they
wanted that tweet taken down. Would that be consistent with
free expression?
Ms. Johnson. I will say two things about that. One is that
not having seen this--and I appreciate your reading it to me--
one is that we would like to err on the side of permitting
content, because I think it's important to have content--
Mr. Jordan. I'm with you. I'm with you. That's why--
Ms. Johnson. OK. I think the other, sir, is that we would
also want to ensure that if there is misinformation or
disinformation being promulgated that we're able to address it
and so--
Mr. Jordan. Well, that's when it gets scary. That's when it
gets really scary. I'm surprised you said that after mentioning
free expression 16 times in your written statement that
suddenly now unless it's misinformation as defined by you. That
is entirely contrary to what the First Amendment is about.
How about this? The National School Boards Association
letter that was the catalyst for most of this, frankly, all
this was sent on September 29, 2021. I just want to read the
first sentence. ``America's public schools and education
leaders are under immediate threat.'' The letter then goes on
to say, ``the NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the
Department of Justice. Such review should examine the use of
the PATRIOT Acts in regard to domestic terrorism.''
Do you agree with the NSBA letter sent on September 29,
2021?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, we are not--PEN America has not
[inaudible] on that letter. I will just say I understand--
Mr. Jordan. No, I'm just asking do you--well, how about
those two sentences I just read? Do you agree with the tone of
that in that letter? Do you agree with that?
Ms. Johnson. I'll say this that--sorry.
It is really important that any member of a community is
able to stand up before a school board and voice their opinion.
It is equally important that a school board member is able to
carry out this critical important public service, sir, in a way
that keeps their safety. That's really what I'll--
Mr. Jordan. Well, you know who disagrees with it?
Ms. Johnson. Who disagrees with me, sir?
Mr. Jordan. All kinds of people. The most important entity
who disagrees with it is the School Boards Association
themselves because 23 days later they rescinded it. Twenty-
three days later they said this, ``we regret and apologize for
the letter.''
There was no justification for the language included in the
letter. So, the idea that the Attorney General still continues
to defend his memorandum based solely on this, as Ms. Neily
pointed out in her opening statement, I find alarming.
To our three witnesses, Ms. Justice, Mr. Langhofer, Ms.
Neily, thank you so much again, to your point earlier, Ms.
Neily, we are going to talk to these people. We talked to Ms.
Garcia today. We had a transcribed interview with her.
Mr. Slaven is coming in next week. We're trying to talk
with Ms. Wall and a host of other folks who concocted this
whole thing as our report that we released two days ago points
out--concocted this whole thing and the key line in that
report, not from Republicans, not from Mr. Johnson, not from
Republicans on the Committee, but from a U.S. Attorney--
Democrat U.S. Attorney in the Biden Administration when he said
this appeared to be a manufacturing crisis. It was all put
together for politics and that's what we all know.
With that I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson
Lee, for five minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. When I think of education--I thank the
gentleman for yielding--I think of children, and I just left
the floor in the midst of the discussion of legislation, H.R.
5, that is labeled Parental Bill of Rights.
Even in that debate I refuse to engage in who was more for
parents than who was not for parents, who had the upper hand,
friends on the other side of the aisle or Democrats?
I did speak for myself and what I believe is the view of
Democrats who happen to be parents as well that the rights of
parents are paramount with the rights of children and teachers,
and even support staff, all who contribute to the education of
our number-one priority, our precious priority, and that is our
children.
So, I think as I look at this particular hearing, back of
my mind I'm wondering what cause are we here for? Are we trying
to enhance a greater opportunity for our children to be
educated, to be safe and secure?
When I think of where we are in this hearing, I would
wonder whether or not the vast majority of everyday Americans
would think that they could not be heard. Their parents cannot
be heard before school boards, and we know that they have the
right to debate vigorously all aspects of any disagreement that
they may have with a school board.
I'm not sure why the letter that was sent was then
withdrawn. May have been some form of intimidation. Who knows?
It is hypocritical to complain about the Federal government
chilling parents' free speech while cheering on book bans.
If the majority is truly concerned with protecting free
expression, then it should focus on the efforts of some
Republican State legislators to ban books. I was just on the
floor with a book about Professor deGrasse. That book--he is an
astrologist, banned book. Looks like a lovely book to me with
pictures.
A story about Nelson Mandela that brought together South
Africa peacefully after a tumultuous civil war--banned book.
Diversity, equity, and the inclusivity banned by the Governor
of the State of Texas.
We should all be free to speak with free expression, but at
the same time as we do so, I think we have to recognize, again,
the importance of being fair and balanced. Banned books,
intimidating language, which I think is important to note.
The Supreme Court, for example, though we do have a
question. What is obscenity, obscenity as it relates to a
Supreme Court justice, but obscenity, defamation, fraud,
incitement, truthers, speech integral to criminal conduct and
child pornography?
So, White supremacy bias may result in someone's death.
Should that not be questioned? Not eliminated. If it results in
someone's death or assault, it is destructive.
Ms. Johnson, in acknowledging the other witnesses, and I
appreciate your presence here today, I do want to hear your
answer that you have probably repeated before.
This is in the backdrop of board members being viciously
attacked by words by very angry parents in the midst of the
pandemic. Most of that was there. How do you frame the value of
free speech juxtaposed against the safety of individuals who
are in responsible positions who likewise have rights?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you for the question.
I think it's important to have both. I think that we can
achieve a safe environment, a safe public forum in which public
servants such as school board members and others can receive
commentary, feedback, information, and share it as well, and
have a situation in which community members from parents,
teachers, and other others in the community can also engage.
I want to be really clear here that parents are free.
Community members, broadly, are free under the First Amendment
to criticize their schools, their administrators, and
governments. That's part of what makes America ``America,'' and
they can do so even in offensive and vitriolic ways.
There is a limit, as we know, and that is when we are
talking about incitement or a true threat. So, I do believe
that we can have both and we should have both. I think it's
critically important that we do.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. The gentlelady's time has
expired. The Chair--
Ms. Jackson Lee. I yield back.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Johnson, I'm
interested in pursuing that little bit. The Chair titled this
hearing ``Free Speech: The Biden Administration's Chilling of
Parents' Fundamental Rights,'' and, of course, they're talking
about the Attorney General's memo.
Folks on the other side of the aisle have been interested
in talking about what you've described as book bans and
educational gag orders.
I just wondered and, of course, you're free to put anything
you want to in your testimony. Did you consider that the
subject the Attorney General's memo--well, let me ask it this
way. Did PEN America condemn the Attorney General's memo?
Ms. Johnson. We did not put a statement during the time
that I know, sir.
Mr. Bishop. So, and you have said you were very carefully--
and you are a lawyer, a First Amendment lawyer and you know
this stuff. You laid out earlier what the First Amendment
doesn't protect if there is actual incitement of imminent
violence.
Ms. Johnson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. So, does it matter of concern to you whether
the Attorney General of the United States, the highest law
enforcement officer, issued a memorandum for action in every
judicial district in the concerning activism relating to school
boards? It matters a great deal, doesn't it, whether there was
a sufficient factual predicate of actual threats or incitement
of violence as opposed to that even rambunctious advocacy that
you made reference to?
Ms. Johnson. I think it's critically important that people
have a right to speak out and I do believe that. We would
oppose efforts to restrict protected speech, absolutely.
Mr. Bishop. So, why do you deem that subject unworthy of
comment?
Ms. Johnson. I can't speak to what--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Bishop. Did you engage in a wide gamut of free
expression issues, is what your testimony says.
Ms. Johnson. That's true. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. That is what you do.
Ms. Johnson. That's what we do.
Mr. Bishop. Here the highest law enforcement officer in the
country did something that can only be described as chilling.
What it appeared to me when I went through every footnote in
that NSAB letter that the Attorney General relied on. I
couldn't find--there is maybe two across the country acts
involving busting a door in one case. I didn't find--and a lot
of these responses coming back from the United States attorneys
and all these meetings that they summoned said there weren't
any--then local officers, when they got in touch with them,
said you guys are doing something you have no business doing.
Is that not a matter of concern to you as an advocate for free
expression?
Ms. Johnson. I appreciate that question, sir, and I'm happy
to go back and look at it. I cannot tell you at this moment
why--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Bishop. So, for whatever reason it didn't arise to a
level of significance for you?
Ms. Johnson. I wouldn't--
Mr. Bishop. Not enough to talk about in your testimony
anyway, right?
Ms. Johnson. No, sir, I wouldn't put it that way. I would
put in the way that we are really focused on ensuring that
people do have the right to access. We have been focused, as
you know and my testimony reflects, about this wave of
censorship that's happening at the State and local level.
Mr. Bishop. OK.
Ms. Johnson. That does not mean we don't care, sir--
Mr. Bishop. All right.
Ms. Johnson. --but, I appreciate the question.
Mr. Bishop. How about this? Have you read the Twitter
files?
Ms. Johnson. I'm sorry?
Mr. Bishop. Have you read the Twitter files? Not familiar
with that? You know about Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger,
and the others?
Ms. Johnson. Oh, yes. Yes. OK. I'm sorry.
Mr. Bishop. They have issued 19--they describe the use of
the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Cyber
Infrastructure and Security Agency, the Global Engagement
Center of the State Department, the ODNI, the CIA to act
directly with social media platforms and through private so-
called disinformation researchers. I noticed on PEN America's
website you guys talk a lot about reacting to disinformation.
On the pretext of reacting to disinformation they got with
social media companies. They took down millions of social media
posts and they really--and then they used things like Hamilton
68 that purported to tie them to Russia. It was all BS. Is that
not a matter of concern to you?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, I can go back and take a look at what
we've actually--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Bishop. I mean that is extraordinary. That is what I am
saying. I think what is interesting where we are in this--the
weapon--the Subcommittee on Weaponization, which is not this
Subcommittee, is that you took pains to say that your
organization--it doesn't care about which side of the aisle it
is on, that free expression ought to be of concern to
everybody. We are talking about, as one witness called it, the
largest censorship exercise in the history of the U.S.
Government. That wasn't a subject that you chose to talk about
either. Are you a partisan or are you just interested in free
expression across the political spectrum?
Ms. Johnson. Sir, we are a nonpartisan organization and we
have engaged in a lot of defenses of people from both sides of
the aisle from our Campus Free Speech to looking at protest
rights. We are definitely engaged on this from a nonpartisan
perspective. I do appreciate the question. I am more than happy
to take a look and respond for the record, but at this point I
just don't have the response on those particular Twitter files
right now.
Mr. Bishop. I hope we can all get together because I think
they are really important issues, and they don't matter what
your party is. I hope we will cover a lot of ground on those
subjects.
Mr. Chair, my time is expired.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
McClintock for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. I agree with Mr. Bishop. I think we are
arguing past each other on a lot of the points that have been
made today. This hearing specifically calls into question the
use of government authority to intimate parents who petition
their elected school boards.
Now, surely the Democrats are not arguing in favor of this
practice. I think what they are questioning is whether this is
actually happening, and yet, we are hearing not only from
parents who are in the receiving end of this practice, but also
whistleblowers within the FBI who are telling us this is
exactly what is happening.
The Ranking Member assures us, well, it is no problem;
nobody has actually been prosecuted let alone convicted. Well,
wait a second. If no one has been prosecuted, that tells me
that the allegations of inciting violence are completely false.
Not a single allegation is true. The insidious thing about the
Ranking Member's comment is that intimidation doesn't require
prosecution; only the threat of it.
How terrifying to come to your local school board meeting,
strongly express your opinions over matters that fundamentally
affect the upbringing of your kids, only to get a call from the
FBI the next day asking about everything you said, your
political and religious views, and whether you own a gun. These
facts speak for themselves. Every person regardless of their
political viewpoint can understand how intimidating and
terrifying and chilling such an experience could be.
Now, I know Tea Party activists who were singled out for
intimidation by the IRS under the Obama Administration years
ago who still won't go near politics out of fear. If the
Democrats are actually defending such a practice, then they
have completely removed themselves from the fundamental
principles of a free society that define Americans as a people.
I can't believe that is true of anyone but a lunatic fringe in
their party.
Now, the Democrats shift to a question's more complex
elements, and that is who has the right to direct the education
of their children? Well, I think that should be pretty clear.
Parents have that right and responsibility to determine how
their children are raised and what ideas they are exposed to
and what ideas they are not exposed to.
The conflict arises when parents in a school system have
different views on that subject. A Marxist family may want
their children schooled in their viewpoints. A conservative
family may want something very different. Full school choice,
of course, would resolve that conflict completely. When parents
don't have that choice their wishes have to be expressed
through and elected school board.
A liberal enclave may have different views on curriculum
than a conservative one. That is why we have local school
boards and why we ought to hold sacred the right of parents to
petition those school boards.
I thought Ms. Johnson put it beautifully in response to Mr.
Kiley. She says, quote, ``As a parent there are some books I
would not want my children to read.'' Well, parent to parent I
will defend your right to make that decision for your children
and hope that you would defend to make it for mine. That is not
book banning. That is just raising our kids according to our
own best lights.
Now, once those children reach the age of majority, well,
then that is a whole different matter. Then the right of
parents to control their child's upbringing passes to their
offspring. Institutions of higher education have the right to
choose what to include, what not to include in their curricula
and college students can choose among them.
Let me just pause right there. Is there any disagreement
across the spectrum on these principles?
Well, good. Then I think we have reached agreement on
everything except maybe a few Members in the minority.
I think censorship over any idea that grownups choose to
pursue and express are antithetical to a free society. At that
point Jefferson's maxim takes hold that I've sworn eternal
hostility to every from of tyranny over the mind of man, and I
think that all the panelists here would agree with that.
I have got two grown children. They are very independent,
very different in their viewpoints, and I am very proud of both
of them. I want them to live in a country where they feel
entirely free to express their views without censorship or fear
of official retribution or a knock on the door from the FBI
because they expressed a viewpoint that upset some elected
potentate and without anyone telling them what they can or
cannot read or think or speak.
So, if we are all in agreement on that, Mr. Chair, I think
this has been a successful hearing.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you to the gentleman for
yielding back.
The Chair recognizes myself for five minutes.
I am playing cleanup here. Let me address a couple of
things. First, in response to the question and answer provided
earlier, the NSBA letter, the National School Boards
Association letter dated September 29, 2021, does indeed
specifically equate the actions of concerned parents at school
board meetings with domestic terrorism. Here is the quote from
page 2 of that letter:
These actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic
terrorism and hate crimes.
I am going to read you one other excerpt, and this is also from
page 2 of another document. This has been entered into the
record. This is the Interim Staff Report,
Committee on the Judiciary on a manufactured issue and
misapplied priorities subpoenaed documents show no legitimate
basis for the Attorney General's anti-parent memo.
The excerpt I am about to read you explains the why, because a
lot of people have wondered why. Why would the Biden
Administration and the Department of Justice act when it did on
that infamous now school board memo? Quote, page 2,
The documents received pursuant to this Committee's subpoena
show the absence of a legitimate nationwide basis for the
Attorney General's directive to insert Federal law enforcement
into local school board matters.
The documents also shed light onto how the administration
worked with education special interests to generate the
predicate for the Attorney General's directive.
It appears from these documents and the information received
that the administration's actions were a political offensive
meant to quell swelling discord over controversial education
curricula and unpopular school board decisions. The Attorney
General's directive . . .
Here it is,
. . . came just weeks before a pivotal gubernatorial election
in Virginia in which education policies were hotly debated and
a local school board's actions were under intense scrutiny. The
inference from the initial tranche of subpoenaed documents is
that the Justice Department's actions were a reaction to these
political circumstances rather than a legitimate law
enforcement response to any serious nationwide threat.
The administration's goal seems to have been silencing the
critics of its radical education policies and neutralizing an
issue that was threatening Democrat Party prospects in the
close gubernatorial race in Virginia. This weaponization of law
enforcement powers against American parents exercising their
First Amendment rights is dangerous.
The Justice Department subjected moms and dads to the opening
of an FBI investigation about them, the establishment of an FBI
case file that includes their political views and the American
people of a threat tag to their names as a direct result of
their exercise of their fundamental constitutional right to
speak and advocate for their children.
I have got 2\1/2\ minutes left. I want to ask each of our
gracious witnesses: Mrs. Neily, Mr. Langhofer, Ms. Justice--I
would ask each of you to answer quickly one or both these
questions:
(1) What would you like to say to those who don't see
parental rights as something that needs to be fought for?
(2) What do you think are the next big challenges your
groups and all of us may face in the battle to protect parental
rights?
Ms. Neily, I start with you.
Ms. Neily. The chilling of parental rights is absolutely
clear. Mr. Langhofer and I used to sue over campus free speech
issues and what we found through biased response teams that it
wasn't just the prosecution of one student; it was telling one
student--getting one student in trouble for something that they
may have said, often constitutionally protected speech. That
then sent a message to every single other student on campus, or
in this case K-12 schools, who holds the same people you say
that thing out loud, we'll come for you, too.
There is a reason there are not as many protests on college
campuses these days, because students are not inviting
controversial speakers whatsoever. We saw what happened to
Judge Duncan two weeks ago at Stanford Law. I doubt that there
will be very many Fifth Circuit judges invited to speak at law
schools in the future, and that will be to the detriment of
America's children.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I interviewed Judge Duncan, my
former colleague, on my podcast and he has a lot to say about
that.
Mr. Langhofer?
Mr. Langhofer. I think the most important threat to
parental rights is the belief that government officials think
that they know better about raising these children than their
parents. I've had hearings where school officials indicate that
they think they have the right and the knowledge to make
important decisions about the transition of these young
children without telling the parents, without having any kind
of medical diagnosis, without having any kind of medical
intervention, and then indicating that they're doing this
across the board. There's no threat of any kind of parental
problems here.
So, this notion that government officials know better than
parents are the biggest threat to the parental rights and it's
something that every citizen, no matter your political beliefs,
should absolutely be concerned about.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Well said.
Ms. Justice?
Ms. Justice. I want to be clear that there are private
conversations happening between teachers and counselors and
children behind the backs of parents without their consent or
knowledge. I think that's one of the most dangerous things
that's happening right now.
The Department of Justice and the FBI made a fatal mistake
when they decided to go against parents and to try to divide
parents and their children. There is no power that supersedes
the love of a parent for their child, and we will not be pushed
out of the way in decisions about your children's education or
their future.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Very well said.
OK. I have got a couple unanimous consent requests.
Ms. Scanlon. Yes. Thank you. Since we are discussing the
memo, the Attorney General's October 4, 2021, memo, which does
not mention parents, domestic terrorists, or the PATRIOT Act, I
thought it was important that we put that in the record
particularly the part that says it is focused not on protected
speech, but threats.
I also wanted to have unanimous consent to introduce a
Politifact article entitled, ``FBI DOJ Tagged Threats Against
School Officials, Not Parents for Attending School Board
Meetings.''
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Without objection.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I have got a couple of them
myself.
I see, Ms. Justice, you have some letters that I wanted to
enter into the record. Can you just say briefly for the record
what that is in your file there?
Ms. Justice. Yes, sir. Representative Jackson Lee said at
an Education Committee meeting recently that we couldn't bring
100 parents here to say they were dissatisfied with the
education their children are receiving in public schools. This
is a couple 100 letters that have been handwritten by members
that I've brought. We will make very good use of the impact
statement from that the Ed. Committee has set up for us to give
input.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you for doing that. Without
objection we enter that into the record.
Also, enter into the record for Mr. Langhofer and my own
benefit--this is an article from Bloomberg dated September 7,
2017, entitled, ``Southern Poverty Law Center Gets Creative to
Label, `Hate Groups,' '' subtitled, ``Principled Conservatives
are Lumped Together With Bigots.'' Here is an excerpt:
Unfortunately, it also has an incentive to apply their term
broadly when people see that the PLC lists over 900 hate
groups. Nine hundred. This seems like good reason to panic and
maybe write a check to the SBLC.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. This concludes today's hearing.
We want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the
Committee today.
I also want to thank the Ranking Member Ms. Scanlon and
congratulate her formally for her appointment to this position
and for making history as the first woman in Congress to serve
in this important post.
So, congratulations to you.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government can be
found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.
aspx?EventID=115531.
[all]