Free speech considerations in school board meetings

Unless there is violence or true threats of violence, Senator Lindsey Graham has joined other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee calling for the Justice Department to take a neutral stance when it comes to free speech at school board meetings.  Graham’s office last week released a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland in which the South Carolina senator and other Republican members of the committee said, “We urge you to make very clear to the American public that the Department of Justice will not interfere with the rights of parents to come before school boards and speak with educators about their concerns, whether regarding coronavirus-related measures, the teaching of critical race theory in schools, sexually explicit books in schools, or any other topic.”  The letter to the attorney general referenced an earlier communication from the National School Boards Association to President Biden asking for help from federal law enforcement “to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”  Coronavirus measures and CRT—critical race theory—were topics argued back and forth in front of the Oconee school board by concerned members of the public in board meetings in and around the opening of the current school year.