Education Triangle: Parents, teachers, and the best interests of every child

Photo credit: Brad West on Unsplash.com

In the shadow of the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Pastors Network gathered for a conference that brought together speakers David Gibbs, Bob Schaffer, and Wyoming’s own Superintendent of Public Instruction, Brian Schroeder. Its theme: Stand for Parents and Children.

Two members of Wyoming’s legislature were in attendance, and we were honored to have Megan Degenfelder, Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, with us as well. It was a joy to meet so many distinguished educators. Above all, it was extremely encouraging to see a unanimous commitment to Wyoming’s parents, teachers, and children.

David Gibbs III, President and General Counsel of the National Center for Life and Liberty, started the day with an informative survey of the constitutional rights that children, parents, teachers and citizens have at school. He helped the conferees understand how we can all come alongside teachers, administrators, and school boards in a way that is helpful, hopeful, and constructive.

Next, Bob Schaffer, headmaster of Liberty Common School (k-12) in Fort Collins, Colorado, told his story. While he served as a Colorado state senator for nine years, and a United States representative for six, the most inspiring part of his story was how an ordinary father of kindergarten-aged twins became involved in his local school and rose to the head of the most successful k-12 system in Colorado.

Bob Schaffer

By his telling, the key to successful schools is choice. When education becomes a marketplace, rather than a monopoly, every child benefits. At the same time, the rancor and bitterness of debates about public education are diminished. One of Schaffer’s most brilliant insights was the observation that when two parents disagree on how to raise their children, it is never necessary to pit them against one another. Rather, school choice accommodates both.

Take, for instance, the vitriolic opinions exchanged on this page about critical race theory. Why waste so much time and energy on forcing those who support it to submit to those who don’t? Obviously, there are people who want their children to be schooled in CRT. So, let them have a school that will meet their needs. And, let those who do not want their children to be indoctrinated with CRT have a school that meets their needs. Problem solved.

All education is religious education—even if many religions do not consider themselves religions. For instance, both sides agree that progressive Christianity is incompatible with orthodox Christianity. This, in itself, does not poison our public discourse. Rather, the use of government power and money to coerce one side to accept the religion of the other is the problem.

When we focus on the needs of parents and children, rather than the need for conformity, we are being true to American ideals.

Outgoing superintendent, Brian Schroeder, ended the day by sharing his optimistic vision for Wyoming. “According to the vision of our founding fathers,” Schroeder said, “the community schoolhouse was uniquely positioned to be an extension of and a support for the home, as well as an incubator for, and a bridge to, society.” He continued, “Wyoming, I believe, is one of the few places in our nation that still, for the most part, operates that way instinctively.” This, he believes, positions us to lead the nation in education.

Brian Schroeder

Of first priority is the triangular relationship of parents, teachers, and children. “The educational enterprise…only works well when all three work well together.”

Parents are the foundation because they are the ultimate customer of the education system. Education is always about what’s best for the child. And what’s best for one child may not be best for another. “But ultimately the parents know their kids best,” he observed, “so it goes without saying that the decision should rest with them, the parents.”

Teachers form the second side. Those who care about the proper education of children have one of “the most difficult job[s] on earth.” Therefore, we must, “thank them, honor them, care for them, support them, equip them, empower them, and pay them well.”

Children, the third leg, is what education is all about. “If this is really about our kids,” the Superintendent said, “then territorialism has no place in this equation. This is not—and never should be about public schools vs. private schools vs. parochial schools vs. home schools vs. charter schools vs. virtual schools vs. private tutoring. It is all of the above because it’s always about …what’s best for the child.”

Although duty took Megan Degenfelder away before we could invite her to our panel, we greatly appreciated her time with us. To be sure, Wyoming faces many challenges. But by working together we are very hopeful that Wyoming can lead the nation in serving the best interest of every child.

Everyone should stand up for local control

Photo credit: Anna Samoylova on Unsplash

Tuesday will mark a troubling anniversary for Wyoming parents. It was on August 2, 2021, that the Vice Chair of LCSD1, Marguerite Herman, shut down a board meeting leaving the voices of concerned citizens unheard. Rather than ask security to usher out the solitary unruly speaker, she asked security to usher out the peaceful public.

Bewildered parents were left to wonder why the democratic process was halted based on the misbehavior of one individual. Suspicions that the abrupt adjournment was a pretense to throttle the voice of parents, were further stirred when the Biden White House secretly solicited a letter from the National School Board Association (NSBA) and pre-approved its language. The now-infamous letter called parental objections “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

Rather than publicly condemning the letter, Wyoming School Board Association Executive Director, Brian Farmer, distanced his organization from the letter and claimed to have privately expressed his objections to the NSBA. Meanwhile, he doubled down by asserting, without evidence, “We have seen instances of some of these things in Wyoming.” 

The letter has since been scrubbed from the NSBA website, and its board has apologized for the actions of its executives. But it has never asked the Department of Justice to disregard the letter and to rescind the DOJ memo that was released as a preplanned response to the letter. To this day, concerned parents remain in the crosshairs of the DOJ.

What are these parents concerned about? They are concerned about Critical Theory’s influence on Wyoming educators. They are concerned about how mask mandates threaten both the mental and physical health of their children. They are concerned about pornographic literature circulated in school libraries. They are concerned about radical gender ideologies that compromise the safety of sex-segregated spaces, and the fairness of women’s sports.

More than anything, parents are concerned that their parental authority to direct the education of their minor children is being disrespected, discounted, and denied. But parents have an ally in the State Superintendent of Public Schools. In early July, he penned a nine-page memo to the legislators of Wyoming that outlines a way forward for the children and parents of Wyoming.

Brian Schroeder

Fundamental to his vision is that schools must “be irrevocably protected by local control.” Schools should reflect the communities in which they operate. They should not be beholden to outside “stakeholders,” whether private billionaires, like Bill Gates, or public agencies, like the USDA. 

Outside “stakeholders” do not operate through properly elected and properly accountable authority structures. Instead, they leverage money and privilege to advance elitist agendas. A good example of the threat to local control is the way the Biden Administration recently leveraged the federal student lunch program to intimidate school districts into adopting its radical agenda.

The Goshen County School District very nearly fell prey to this strong-arm tactic. At its June 14 meeting, board chairman, Zachary Miller, introduced numerous updates to its discrimination policy. The claim that they were required by the USDA resulted in unanimous approval. When concerned parents learned of the dangerous resolution, they worked with well-meaning board members to expose the USDA overreach and rejected it resoundingly at the July 12 meeting.

More recently another “stakeholder,” the Wyoming Education Association, began offering “no-cost training to Wyoming educators.” Such an offering sounds like a great deal to school districts strapped for cash that, nevertheless, require teacher in-service training. But, upon closer inspection, the “Safe & Just Schools Cadre” is designed to indoctrinate teachers with Critical Theory. The raised and clenched fist in its logo makes that clear.

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” That’s the lesson of the Trojan Horse. It still applies today. Parents across Wyoming should educate themselves on the content of every single teacher in-service that is brought to their school. They should give special scrutiny to those that are offered for free. Just as the USDA reminded us that there is no free school lunch. So, the WEA demonstrates that free indoctrination sessions can be extremely costly.

Brian Schroeder understands this. He is actively looking for ways to resist a thousand behind-the-scenes ways that would strip parents of local control. He needs your help. He needs parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles to run for school boards across the state. Don’t think that you need to be a parent to run. Bill Gates is not a parent to any Wyoming children, but he has an outsized, outsider voice in Wyoming education.

Beginning August 8, you can file to run in your local school board election. Now is the time to identify well-informed citizens who will stand for local control—even when it means declining free money. Encourage them to run. Run yourself. Don’t think someone else will do it. Local control is up to everyone.

It’s time to disarm federal bullies

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released a statement threatening to withhold lunch money from any “state and local agencies, program operators and sponsors that receive funds from FNS [Food and Nutrition Service]” unless they “investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” and “update their non-discrimination policies and signage.” 

Annually, Wyoming schools receive about $90 million from the FNS to provide lunches to Wyoming’s poorest children. Like a bully, the USDA is using Wyoming’s poor as leverage to force the Wyoming Department of Education, every school district in Wyoming, and sundry other public and private operators to adopt globalist policies.

These policies are not new. Wyoming’s legislature has debated and rejected them for more than a decade. Every time they come up, globalist stakeholders like the National Chamber of Commerce, Walmart, Microsoft, and a cabal of multinational corporations typically threaten to disrupt the economy unless they are adopted. Rank-and-file Wyomingites, on the other hand, view them as Orwellian Newspeak that does not combat discrimination, but creates it.

Spirited discussion on "discrimination policy"
Cheyenne, WY, December, 2018

No matter which side you support, you are a free person. Your freedom consists in hearing the arguments, weighing the facts, and supporting the policy that you believe is best. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and coercing your decision.

But the USDA just changed that. It just pointed a loaded $90 million gun at the Wyoming Department of Education, and every local school board. With a finger on the trigger, it now says, “you must accept the very policies that you have rejected in the past, or else.”

How should free people respond to such a threat? What is the best way to respond to a school lunch bully? Wyoming’s superintendent of education, Brian Schroeder, led the way. In a statement released last Friday, he said: “[it is] both disheartening and astounding that our federal government could become so cynical as to tie the school lunches of little kids to its ever-relentless agenda of social engineering.” “In any other world, this would be sized up for exactly what it is: extortion.”

Extortion is the proper word. Every single Wyomingite should be appalled and outraged. 

Even our friends who support the “non-discrimination policies” of the USDA should stand with one voice against the bullying tactics of the federal government aimed at states and school districts. They should recognize that the USDA’s resorting to extortion undermines their own good-faith arguments. For extortion, by its very nature, is an abandonment of reason and moral authority. It replaces right with might.

We should also take this moment to remember how we got into this situation. How did the USDA come into possession of this $90 million gun that is now aimed at Wyoming’s children? The sad answer is that we armed the federal government by accepting its largess. 

Money is power. Every lawmaker, every school board, every state agency that empowers federal agencies to tax Wyoming citizens, so they can give it back with strings attached, gives potential bullies a gun. This gun can be turned on us in an instant. Now, it has been.

Superintendent Schroeder’s statement was bold and clear. But it lacked any indication of how he could protect our kids from this armed assault. Instead, he appealed directly to Wyoming citizens. “I only hope that ‘We the People’ have the stomach to stand up to it, because it won’t stop until the people say ‘enough.’ If we don’t, we will be guilty of enabling an overbearing and oppressive federal government that is completely out of control.” So, what exactly can we do? 

First, we can say, “No.” School board members in every county, vocally supported by the Wyoming School Board Association, should absolutely refuse to vote on any policy whatsoever in response to the bullying of the USDA. They should send a clear message that the federal government cannot coerce their vote—whether they agree with the policy, or not.

Second, Governor Gordon should protect our children against this bullying by instructing the attorney general to coordinate with other states that are planning to sue the USDA. This will not only support schools, it is also good politics. Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, just won her primary challenge after she promised to hold the USDA accountable to US law.

Third, it is time that every Wyoming citizen implement federal “gun control.” Now that we have seen how federal agencies can turn the powerful gun of money against our children, we need to disarm them by electing representatives who will shut off their supply of money and keep us out of the position of dependence on federal handouts. With primaries only 10 weeks away, now is the time to act.

Wendy Schuler, advocate for women in sports

Evanston’s own Wendy Davis Schuler was a member of the 1976 Olympic team. But you won’t find her name in the record books. Invited to the Olympic Trials, she made the cut and was selected to America’s first women’s basketball team only to sustain a broken foot in the closing hours.

Schuler had earned the right to go to Montreal and, could have joined her team on the silver medal podium. Instead, she voluntarily gave up her spot to an uninjured alternate. Almost five decades later, she told me, “I sometimes regret that. But it was just the right thing to do.” 

Her choice erased her from the history books, but it speaks volumes of her character. It is only one episode in a life dedicated to lifting up women’s athletics. That career, from athlete to coach, and now to state senator, spanned the most significant legislation in the history of women’s sports.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Title IX. On June 23, 1972, President Nixon signed legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in programs receiving federal financial aid. The effect was immediate. Prior to 1972 the NCAA had virtually no female sports. But by the 1972-73 school year NCAA women’s sports were a reality.

It was Schuler’s Junior year at the University of Wyoming, and she reveled in the new opportunities. Throughout her high school years and for her first two years in college, intramural sports and loosely organized athletic associations were the outer limits of women’s athletics. Funding was minuscule, equipment was second-rate, and travel to events was haphazard. 

UW volleyball, 1972-73 (Schuler back right)

Schuler recalls piling into her coach’s private car because access to university transportation was denied. Once, her team qualified for the regional tournament in Provo but, due to a lack of funding, could not compete unless they held a bake sale to raise travel funds.

Title IX changed all that. By carving out a niche for female sports, it took seriously the benefits and the uniqueness of athletics for the female body. Athletics are part of a well-rounded education of body, mind and soul. Since the fall of 1972, Title IX has contributed to the thriving of millions of women worldwide.

As a high school coach, Schuler would often tell her girls how fortunate they were to have opportunities that she never dreamed of. When she arrived in Lyman in 1976, there was no girls’ basketball program. Three years later, they were state champs. Next Evanston High School called her number and, by 1982, their girls were playing for the state title.

Schuler has coached both boys’ and girls’ teams in her long career. She reflected on how they are different. Coaching the boys, “was more challenging than the girls, in some ways. But, in some ways, it was easier.” Physical differences were only part of the equation, temperament and team dynamics also differed from boys to girls.

Since her retirement from teaching and coaching, she has watched with growing concern as biological males have intruded into female sports. Lia Thomas of U. Penn is only the latest headline. After three years of swimming as a male and ranking #462, Will Thomas now competes as Lia, and dominates the pool.

Lia Thomas

The NCAA, as well as the U.S. Olympic Committee, has standards for hormone levels, Schuler admits, “but still, it doesn’t change the physical composition of a person. You can’t change their height, the size of their heart and their lungs, their bone density, the size of their hands and feet. Even if they suppress the hormones, it’s an unfair advantage; it’s a totally unfair advantage!”

The unfairness is not only a distant problem. Wyoming’s High School Activities Association currently allows biological males to participate on female sports teams. Female athletes in Wyoming are sitting on the bench while males take the field.

WHSAA Commissioner Ron Laird says, “We feel that our policy has worked.” Maybe it works for him, but coaches, teammates, opposing teams, parents and fans beg to differ. How does this policy work to keep girls safe from bone-crushing collisions? How does it work in overnight hotel accommodations, locker rooms— and a host of other unforeseen complications?

Local schools that want to be responsive to stakeholders and responsible protectors of girls open themselves to legal harassment. WHSAA policy leaves them high and dry. Schuler has introduced legislation to fill that gap.

SF0051 “Fairness in women’s sports act” would restore safeguards against sex discrimination that were signed into law 50 years ago. By protecting women’s sports from the intrusion of biological males, it restores the level playing field that has helped countless women to thrive.

Schuler, 400m finish,
Regional Intermountain, Provo, Utah

“I’ve got a granddaughter coming up,” Schuler offered, “and I don’t want her to have to deal with these issues. So, I am fighting for her and for all these little gals and young women and college women in Wyoming. I’m their advocate.” It’s just the right thing to do.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, February 11, 2022; and in the Cowboy State Daily.

National School Choice Week in Wyoming

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

National School Choice Week is a charitable and non-partisan effort to raise awareness of effective K-12 education options. This year, it runs from January 23-29. According to its website, “Every child is unique, and all children learn differently. Some children might succeed at the neighborhood public school, while others might fit in better at a charter, magnet, online, private or home learning environment.”

Education is important to Wyoming. Our constitution requires that the legislature “provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction embracing free elementary schools of every needed kind and grade” (Art. 7, Sec. 1). 

While much attention is focused on Wyoming’s 48 school districts and their 364 schools, we would do well to give greater attention to “schools of every needed kind and grade.” Children would benefit from greater choices. And budgetary difficulties could be eased by the competition that additional options provide.

One way of providing school choice is the “charter school.” These are publicly funded and publicly regulated but, unlike neighborhood schools, they must compete for students. When parental choice, rather than lines on a map, determine the student body, a school is more responsive to parental expectations and input. 

There are only five charter schools in Wyoming, concentrated in Cheyenne, Laramie, and Riverton. While these have proven helpful, many parents—and entire regions of the state are frozen out of this beneficial choice. Magnet schools have more direct oversight from the county school boards, but are otherwise similar. However, there are zero magnet schools in Wyoming.

Online learning is another way of empowering school choice. It provides computer-based learning modules that parents and students can use in the privacy of the home. This allows parents to be much more involved in monitoring curriculum and tutoring for success. It can also serve to mitigate some of the most toxic social dynamics of the school environment.

While the legislature seeks to expand school choice to benefit the public, it should not overlook the important role that private schools can play. Education is more than about reading, writing and arithmetic. Education is about morality. Under the heading of Education, Wyoming’s Constitution specifies that it is the “Duty of [the] legislature to protect and promote health and morality of people.” This is “essential… to the peace and permanence of the state” (Art. 7, Sec. 20).

All education is inherently religious. But the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the state from setting up one religion over another, and the Free Exercise Clause prohibits the state from regulating a religious school. State educators, in the best case, are reluctant to speak of God at all. In the worst cases, they may denigrate God before impressionable students. Either way, the constitutional and essential duty to promote morality is hobbled.

Therefore, Wyoming’s 30 private schools are better situated to serve the public in this capacity than anything that the state can do directly. They can freely speak of God who, according to the Declaration of Independence, creates all men equal. Homeschooling, too, allows open discussion of God in the classroom. Moreover, it boasts the longest history, and the greatest parental involvement of any other sort of school choice. 

Churches unable to establish a private school can still serve parents by enhancing educational choice. They can offer their buildings as a space for homeschoolers to gather and enlist non-parent volunteers for assistance. Such creative initiatives can encourage parents who are otherwise intimidated at the prospect of homeschooling. Cooperative learning environments like these can utilize the expertise of young parents and retirees who have much to offer to the next generation.

Legislative support for private schools and homeschools is tricky but should not be neglected. Money is power. Tax dollars taken from parents and given exclusively to schools that they have not chosen violates the spirit of the First Amendment. Every dollar given to a school that never mentions God is a tacit Establishment of a godless religion. And every dollar taken from parents who want a religious education for their children inhibits the freedom to exercise their religion.

The courts are beginning to see this inequity and to remedy the injustice. In a 2020 landmark case, the Supreme Court (Espinoza v. Montana) effectively struck down “Blaine Amendments.” These laws restrict education funding to religious schools and unconstitutionally discriminate against certain religions. Since Wyoming’s own Constitution contains one of these provisions (Art. 7, Sec. 12), our legislature should rethink funding models accordingly.

National School Choice Week is an opportunity to have a serious conversation about Wyoming’s Constitutional commitments to education. Parents wrote and ratified the Constitution for their children. Expanding educational choices will uphold Wyoming’s constitution and strengthen the state by strengthening the family. 

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, January 21, 2022.

Families are a force of nature.

Photo credit: Jessica Rockowitz on Unsplash

A human family is the most basic unit of human society. Its bonds of love are a force of nature. No human being since Adam and Eve ever came into existence without exactly one father and one mother. At the very moment of conception, the bond of love between a husband and a wife creates two similar—and yet distinct—bonds of love between the father and the child, and between the mother and the child.

These velvet chains of love make individuals responsible to care for one another. When they prevail, all three people thrive in tangible ways. The husband and wife receive economic, social, and health benefits. The child receives an entire set of specific and unique benefits from his or her father. And that same child receives another set of specific and unique benefits from his or her mother. Thus, a family is the most effective welfare program in the universe.

Bonds of love are not interchangeable. Human families are not Tinkertoys that can be disassembled and rearranged without harming the persons in them. Bonds of love, once formed, cannot be broken without damaging people. That is why husbands and wives make life-long promises before governments and God. That is why every child has the right to the love of both natural parents.

These bonds make the family pre-political. Families exist before the city (polis) exists; and, cities are built by families. A city is neither a mere collection of buildings nor a commune of individuals. It is a community of families. That is the most basic of all political truths. It is the one thing that Democrats, Republicans, and every other party can agree on.

Just governments recognize and protect family rights. They treat marriage contracts at least as seriously as they treat business contracts. Just governments protect the natural rights that every child has to the love of both parents. Governments cannot create families. But they are obligated to support them.

Totalitarians of every stripe deny that governments are for families. Evil governments always set about to dissolve the bonds of family and control individuals directly. They intentionally interfere in families and set themselves up as a better big brother. Universally, totalitarians fail to recognize that the dissolution of family bonds is destructive to the state.

When family structure is broken, not only are the individual persons harmed, but neighborhoods devolve into ghettos and nations fail. Governments that protect family rights simultaneously help individuals to thrive and preserve the state. 

That is why it is the direct responsibility of governments to encourage family bonds, protect them from destructive forces, and shield them from outside interference. And that is why citizens have an absolute right to this kind of government. 

We should insist that our government takes marriage vows seriously. We should insist that our elected officials enact policies designed to keep parents with their own children. We should be outraged when politicians run roughshod over parental rights and insert themselves between children and their parents.

Instinctively families across America are pushing back. They are showing up at school board meetings to object to the teaching of junk science and divisive social theories. They are showing up at libraries to assert their first amendment rights to protect children from inappropriate sexualization. They are taking schools and employers to court against meddling in family medical decisions.

While families are acting on instinct, totalitarians know what is at stake. Former governor, Terry McAuliffe, spoke for them all, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” He could not have drawn the battle lines more clearly.

Every school board, every library, every government official from the governor to the local health nurse should stand with families. Those who don’t are standing against a force of nature and the very foundation of society.

Wyoming families also know something else about forces of nature: They should be respected. It is unwise and extremely dangerous to get between a she-bear and her cubs. She does not care if the interloper has good intentions or bad. She only knows that he should not be there. Her reaction is instinctive and furious.

Politicians from every party should take note. Parents don’t care whether you have good intentions, or bad. They don’t care whether you are a Republican, a Democrat—or a Whig. Those who insert themselves between parents and children, are messing with a force of nature.

It took years for America’s parents to notice people and institutions encroaching upon the relationship between parents and their children. But now that the threat has been spotted, it can never be un-seen. A force of nature has been unleashed. Disrespect it at your peril.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, November 19, 2021. 

School boards should listen to concerned parents, not attack them

Photo by Nick Quan on Unsplash

Exactly one month ago, the National School Board Association sent a formal letter to the White House claiming that “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under immediate threat.” It claims to speak for “state associations and 90,000 school board members.”

The letter asked the “U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center” to “investigate, intercept, and prevent the current threats and acts of violence against our public school officials through existing statutes, executive authority, interagency and intergovernmental task forces, and other extraordinary measures.” 

In addition, it wanted “the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to intervene against threatening letters and cyberbullying attacks.” This calls not only for tracking personal letters, but also using the secretive “Internet Covert Operations Program” (iCOP) to monitor the social media posts of parents! This is the stuff of dystopian nightmares. 

Six days later, the Department of Justice pounced. It directed “the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, 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.” The stunning swiftness of this response is alarming.

America First Legal Foundation, wrote a formal letter asking DOJ Inspector General Horowitz to investigate. It forwarded evidence of behind-the-scenes collusion among the White House, the DOJ, and the NSBA. Already, FOIA requests have unearthed internal NSBA emails that admit to “talks over the last several weeks [prior to September 29] with White House staff.” 

Meanwhile, it was revealed that only two days after NSBA President, Viola M. Garcia and CEO, Chip Slaven sent the letter, the Biden administration awarded Garcia a plum appointment to the National Assessment Governing Board. 

Merrick Garland

By October 22, the NSBA Board of Directors apologized for the letter but the President and CEO did not retract it. They seem to want it both ways. Thus the characterization of some parental dissent as “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism” still stands, and Attorney General, Merrick Garland, refuses to rescind his threatening memo.

The letter specifically names Wyoming as a state in which “school boards have been confronted by angry mobs and forced to end meetings abruptly.” The letter footnotes an article by Margaret Austin in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle which reports on an August 2, 2021 meeting of the Laramie County School District #1 (LCSD1).

The article, however, tells of one man, acting alone, who objected to the three-minute limitation on comments and refused to stop speaking after his allotted time. Vice Chair, Marguerite Herman, responded by recessing the entire meeting. Thus, she silenced everyone who was patiently waiting to speak. Was it fair to silence dozens of concerned parents rather than simply call security to usher out the rulebreaker? 

Marguerite Herman

Further, is it right to characterize the speech of a single man as “an angry mob”? When Wyoming is used as a reason to unleash federal law enforcement on parents, it is the duty of the LCSD1 board to answer these questions. Their monthlong silence sounds like agreement.

The Wyoming School Board Association added more fuel to the fire when Parents Defending Education asked whether it approved of the NSBA letter. Executive Director, Brian Farmer, replied, that the WSBA “had no role in drafting or disseminating the letter from the National School Boards Association to President Biden.” Like 21 other states, they were not consulted. 

Farmer went on to say: “Any criminal behavior, including but not limited to violence, threats, harassment, or intimidation, should not be tolerated.” So far, so good. But he immediately followed this with a troubling claim: “We have seen instances of some of these things in Wyoming." Really? What, exactly, is he talking about? 

Brian Farmer

Does the WSBA believe the actions in Cheyenne were “criminal . . . violence, threats, harassment, or intimidation”? Does it know of other Wyoming school board meetings where criminal actions took place? Where? When? Wyoming parents and students deserve answers. When asked for clarification more than two weeks ago, Mr. Farmer gave no reply.

Contrary to Terry McAuliffe's assertion of state power, parents are the primary educators of their own children. When they become upset enough to address a school board, educators should drop everything and listen. They should be eager to hear from parents who can provide direct input about the effects of the policies that they adopt. 

School boards and their associations that sic the overwhelming force of the federal government on upset parents have become a large part of the problem. By ongoing silence in the face of national allegations, the LCSD1 board, and the Wyoming School Board Association are sending the wrong message to the DOJ and to Wyoming parents. These, together with every educator, should defend parents loudly and unequivocally.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, October 29, 2021, and the Cowboy State Daily, November 4, 2021,

Post Script: 

On October 26, 2021, after a meeting of its Board of Directors, the Wyoming School Board Association issued a letter to its members. This reasserted the same substantial claims about criminality in Wyoming school board meetings as addressed above. It also restated its non-involvement with the NSBA letter. What it added was the apology from the NSBA school board as well as the WSBA's decision not to leave the NSBA immediately. The WSBA paid $27,382 in member dues so far in 2021. It stated that it will make a decision about continued membership in the NSBA at a future date.

The Federalist: What To Do About Your Local Library Putting Porn On Kids’ Shelves

Requests to move sexually inappropriate content from children’s sections of libraries are being stonewalled and misleadingly called ‘censorship,’ leaving kids at risk at your local library.

Read on at The Federalist, October 26, 2021.

Also published at Cowboy State Daily, October 17, 2021.

Catch-22, the true censorship at your local library

Photo credit: Johnny McClung on unsplash

It was a book that introduced the term “catch-22” into America’s modern vocabulary. The 1961 novel by Joseph Heller satirized a bureaucratic loop that prevented a military man from requesting a psychological evaluation because, according to the “catch-22” rule, the very act of asking proved he didn’t need one. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem.”

Heller’s novel is touted by the American Library Association (ALA) among famous “banned books.” However, the ALA admits that it was only temporarily banned in one Strongsville, Ohio library from 1971-1974. There are 116,866 U.S. libraries where it was never banned. The real irony is that a “catch-22” is precisely what prevents an open and honest discussion of civic responsibility in both county and school district libraries. 

Banned Books Week gives a platform for libraries to treat parental concerns with contempt. Here’s how it works. 

Step 1: Woke school administrators—not parents—remove classics like John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” from a high school English curriculum. This enables the ALA to call the books “censored.” 

Step 2: The ALA uses the dubious claim to include them on their “Top 10 #BannedBooksList.” 

Step 3: The same ALA then puts eight other books on the list that truly are objectionable but made to look on a par with American classics. 

Despite its official-sounding name, the ALA’s list has zero science behind it. Rather, it is a fake ranking ginned up by activists who solicit complaints from “librarians and teachers” while ignoring the concerns of parents. To make matters worse, the most pornographic books that libraries regularly display in the children’s section are omitted from the list altogether.

Anyone unable to see why parents should object to the open display of “Doing It,” “The V-Word,” and “This Book is Gay,” in the children’s section of a library has no business being around our children. Despite what progressive ideologues will tell you, this has nothing to do with “sexual identity” and everything to do with exposing children of both sexes to inappropriate sexual content. 

Lincoln County Public Library
children's display, April 10, 2019

Unless you read the above-named titles for yourself, you will likely not believe what unsuspecting children can encounter in your local library. These titles would be perfectly at home in the seediest “Adult Shop.” But they are foisted on children.

That brings us to the real catch-22: The pornographic language and pictures found in the children’s section of Wyoming’s libraries is so over-the-top that examples cannot be printed in any respectable newspaper. This is the very definition of catch-22. The public needs to know the extent of the problem. But a full disclosure is “denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem.”

Thus, parental concerns are censored from the public by sheer decorum and decency. But that same decency is not restraining librarians from exposing even the youngest children to abusive content. They regularly encourage children to read what your local newspaper editor is ashamed to print. 

So, what’s a citizen to do? First, educate yourself. Under the radar, virtually every county and school district library in Wyoming indecently exposes children to explicit content. Concerned citizens should search the card catalogue for books of a sexual or otherwise objectionable nature. Work with other people in the community to share the workload.

Second, go to administrators and discuss your findings. Seek a solution that protects the community’s children above all. Sexually objectionable books should, at the very least, not be exhibited on the direct eye-level of kids wandering past book displays. Better yet, move them into the adult part of the library. Parents that actually want their children to read them can find them there.

Third, learn the library’s policies and whether they are being followed. If not, file a complaint. If the policy itself is inadequate, bring up the matter before the appropriate oversight board—either the school board or the library board. Schools and counties are not answerable to the American Library Association. They are answerable to the voters. Sadly, the ALA has abused the public trust and squandered the credibility it once enjoyed.

Finally, remember that not only parents have a duty to make public libraries safe for children. The entire community shares the duty to create safe spaces. Parents, grandparents and those with no other connection to the community’s children than a desire to see them thrive—all have a legitimate concern. Don’t be censored because you don’t have a child in the school system or spend time in the library. Children need and deserve the protection of every member of the public. That’s why libraries exist in the first place. 

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, October 15, 2021, the Cowboy State Daily, October 17, 2021, Digital Business Books, and Wintermann Library.