Caroline Downey of National Review Online reports on a new revelation in a recent controversy involving angry parents at school board meetings.
Chip Slaven, formerly the interim executive director and chief executive officer of the National School Association, was allegedly aware of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum calling for federal intervention into parental “threats” against local school board members prior to its publication.
In an email exchange between NSBA board members Pam Doyle and Beverly Slough on October 5, 2021, Doyle writes that Slaven “knew about the U.S. AG directives before they were published. … So much for communicating with the BOD,” according to nonprofit Parents Defending Education.
Garland had testified before Congress that he issued the memo in direct response to a letter from the NSBA requesting the Biden administration probe and potentially prosecute parents for engaging in protest activity, which it characterized as potential “domestic terrorism.”
The memo directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use its resources to investigate parents deemed to be engaging in “threatening” behavior against school administrators. The documents produced by Parents Defending Education indicate that the coordination between the national school board group and the Biden administration to target parents was greater than previously determined.
In November, a whistleblower revealed the FBI created a “threat tag” to apply to situations of alleged threats against education officials.
“The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level, and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement partners at all levels,” an October 20 internal email from the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions, obtained by House Republicans, read.
Last month, it was discovered that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona solicited the NSBA letter that prompted Garland’s memo, according to emails obtained by PDE. The Department of Education denied the allegation.