Department of Justice

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, earlier this month, Attorney General Garland released a memo instructing Department of Justice employees to respond to increasingly passionate school board meetings across the country. That memo talks about working to stop the violence and the threats of violence. That part of it is very fine, but unfortunately the memo makes it sound like the Department of Justice might want to go after much more than just violence.

Over the last year, school board meetings have turned from relatively calm, local affairs to often boisterous meetings that are seen across the country. This began with parents who were upset after schools were being closed last year well after we learned that they could safely reopen in spite of COVID-19. Then these meetings grew to include pushback against mask mandates for students and against school districts adopting a curriculum known as critical race theory.

There are many parents across the country who are upset about these things, and that is their right, to be upset about them and to talk about them all they want to--after all, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.

So here is the issue. The Attorney General's memo spoke of violence and threats of violence. Make no mistake about it--violence should never be used to get what you want in politics. It is illegal for a good reason, and making real, true threats is illegal as well. They scare people, and that is not right. No one should ever threaten someone with violence just because they are angry about some school policy.

Unfortunately, however, the Department of Justice memo goes further than that. A person reading it might think that a parent can't speak-- really speak his or her mind at a school board meeting; that spirited debate is not welcome; that very pointed and direct questions from educators to school board members aren't welcome; that deep disagreements are not welcome. Parents coming and speaking to their local school boards is what our democracy is all about--the essence of our representative system of government. Whether it is Congress, State legislatures, city hall, or school boards, we ought to be able to have civil discussion, and nobody ought to question that civil discussion.

Of course, democracy also includes very passionate disagreements. If an elected official can't handle a passionate disagreement, then he or she shouldn't go into politics in the first place. That goes for the President; that goes for this Senator; and that goes for every member on every school board in the country.

Elected officials don't go crying to the FBI when constituents tell them something--how they are really feeling on an issue--regardless of how strong that feeling might be.

If a parent is passionately advocating for her child at a school board meeting and school officials tell her she is out of line, the parent should not have to worry that the FBI is going to pay her a visit in her home after that meeting.

She should not have to wonder whether the PATRIOT Act is going to be used to investigate her. It should never even cross that person's mind. If it does, then she might just stop talking altogether at a meeting, and there would be a chilling effect on democracy.

That chilling effect is a very bad thing for democracies. In other words, it should never happen in the first place. So it is critically important for the Attorney General to make very clear to everybody that, short of violence and making true threats of violence, the Federal Government will have nothing to do with the crowds and the comments that people make at a school board meeting.

All of my Republican colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee and I sent a letter to the Attorney General telling him just that. He should make clear to all Americans that, unless there is physical violence or a threat of physical violence, Federal law enforcement has nothing to do with local school board meetings; and he ought to take into consideration the capability of local law enforcement to take care of it in the first place.

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