As Missouri school boards face threats, Republicans attack effort to fight harassment
Leading Missouri Republicans on Tuesday swiftly attacked a new U.S. Department of Justice initiative to address threats of violence and intimidation directed at school officials as districts across the state contend with harassment.
School boards in Missouri, and nationally, have faced repeated threats and harassment as classrooms become battlegrounds over COVID-19 protocols and how the country’s history of anti-Black racism will be taught. Meetings have descended into shouting and name calling. Board members have been the target of vicious comments that have been reported to police.
But top GOP officials — including U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and state Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden — are casting the DOJ effort as an attempt to chill free speech and silence critics of critical race theory, a way of studying how race and inequality have impacted American institutions. While its is not taught in Missouri schools, the term has been adopted by conservatives to challenge a range of teaching about racism.
The flurry of condemnations marked the latest attempt by Republicans, some of whom are courting hard-right primary voters, to fight the Democratic president.
“There is no place for the federal government to interfere with regular democratic activity. You have provided no evidence of actual, genuine threats of violence,” Hawley wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. In a separate letter, Schmitt warned DOJ not to use the threat of federal prosecution to insulate school officials from criticism.
Garland on Monday released a memo directing the FBI and federal prosecutors to meet with state and local officials over the next month to strategize about how to respond to threats against educators. The memo came after the National School Boards Association, or NSBA, last week asked President Joe Biden for assistance in thwarting threats, likening the vitriol to domestic terrorism.
At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Violence Against Women Act, Hawley called the initiative an attempt to keep parents from showing up at school board meetings. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who was testifying, responded that the memo is “quite clear.”
“It asks the U.S. Attorney community and the FBI special agents in charge to convene state and local law enforcement partners to ensure that there’s an open line of communication to address threats, to address violence and that’s the appropriate role of the Department of Justice to make sure we are addressing criminal conduct and violence,” Monaco said.
The NSBA’s invocation of domestic terrorism — a phrase Garland didn’t use — has especially angered Republicans. Rowden wrote to the Missouri School Boards’ Association demanding to know whether the organization believes parents are domestic terrorists. MSBA executive director Melissa Randol said her group hadn’t received the letter but said it supports the First Amendment rights of individuals to speak at board meetings.
Randol also said MSBA values local control, and that includes local law enforcement. She said the organization wouldn’t have embraced calling for federal assistance unless local law enforcement wanted the help.
“I think it’s disingenuous and quite frankly hurtful to democracy when we try to imply that those comments can’t be shared openly. We want that, we need that,” Randol said of public input at board meetings. “When it crosses over into violence and threats, that’s when democracy breaks down. And unfortunately, we’ve seen that in Missouri, we’ve seen that all across the country and it’s disappointing.”
Several education officials in Missouri welcomed the DOJ effort, saying that it may help teachers and board members feel safer. Lee’s Summit schools spokeswoman Katy Bergen said the district is pleased Garland is prioritizing protection of school employees and elected officials from threats of violence, harassment and intimidation.
Kansas City Public Schools Board Chair Nate Hogan said the district had been largely spared from the harassment others have faced but that it “blows my mind” some people want to target educators. If the DOJ effort intends to make sure the right protections are in place to keep our teachers safe, “then I’m all for it,” Hogan said.
School board meetings, especially in suburban and rural districts, have grown increasingly heated, and at times, hostile. Outside of a Pleasant Hill school board session earlier this school year, a fight broke out after members approved a mask mandate. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office issued citations to three people.
“I am currently in my fourth term and have never received the negative and hateful emails we have gotten,” said Raymore-Peculiar school board president Ruth Johnson. At least twice, Johnson said, she’s asked audience members to leave because of outbursts.
“It doesn’t matter what the issue, whether it be masking, mandating or whatever, people are very passionate about what they believe and have no problem with name calling and such to get their points across,” she said.
Columbia Public Schools board members and administrators have faced threats and harassment for months, with some incidents reported to police. District spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said a “swirl of emotions” surrounds schools and children.
“It’s okay to disagree. It’s okay to have differing opinions. It’s not okay to threaten, harass and intimidate to try to address and resolve those concerns,” Baumstark said in a statement. “We have to remember that our children are watching and listening to all of this.”
Still, Rowden, who represents Columbia, said the NSBA effort amounted to “one of the most blatant attempts to silence opposition I have ever witnessed.” In writing to MSBA, he said he felt compelled to ensure the state group isn’t using its platform and influence to conflate parents with “mass-murdering terrorists.”
Randol said Rowden should follow the example he set in May, when the senator and his family faced threats at the end of the legislative session. At that time, Rowden tweeted that civility and respect must exist alongside passion for a political cause.
“I couldn’t say it better than that,” Randol said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 4:09 PM.
