Representative Hank Johnson (D., Ga.) on Wednesday compared the January 6 rioters to the parents who “descend[ed]” on school board meetings to protest radical curricula changes and Covid shutdowns, claiming that both were fueled by the “same dark-moneyed interests.”
“January 6, 2021, will never be forgotten. An infamous day in American history. MAGA Republicans descended upon the capitol, engaged in an insurrection, they occupied the capitol. People at the local level at affected school board meetings, they won’t forget the MAGA Republicans descending on their school board meetings after January 6,” Johnson said Wednesday at House Committee on the Judiciary meeting.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA):
“People at school board meetings will never forget MAGA Republicans descending on their school board meetings just like they did on January 6. It was a coordinated attack happening across the country.” pic.twitter.com/8iZnSwRn94
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2022
Parents protested and engaged in heated verbal confrontations at school board meetings across the country during the 2020-21 school year, objecting to overzealous Covid-mitigation measures and school shutdowns, as well as the introduction of radical gender and racial ideologies in their children’s classrooms.
When parents showed up to school board meetings, school employees were “subjected to violence, threats of violence, harassment, intimidation,” Johnson claimed, saying the the “National School Boards Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration seeking federal help” in response.
The vast majority of the incidents between parents and school board members cited in the NSBA’s letter were not violent, and merely consisted of tense verbal exchanges, protesting, and parents exceeding their allotted speaking times and refusing to wear masks.
Days after the NSBA sent the letter to the Biden administration, which likened the threats from parents to “domestic terrorism,” Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in October of 2021 ordering the FBI to work with local law enforcement to address the threats to school board members.
Republican lawmakers have scrutinized the Biden administration for criminalizing parents, saying the parents were within their First Amendment rights and are not “domestic terrorists.” In December of 2021, every Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for Garland to withdraw his memo.
Johnson’s comments likening school board disruptions to January 6 come as the House Judiciary Committee reviews bills that would compel the White House and Department of Justice to provide their communications with the NSBA to the committee.
Internal documents obtained in November of 2021 by Parents Defending Education, revealed that the NSBA was “actively engaged” with the White House and DOJ before they sent their letter to Biden.
Johnson claimed that “there is not one scintilla of evidence, either direct or indirect, that there was any coordination between the Biden administration and the National School Boards Association that caused that letter to be sent.”
Earlier in the meeting, Johnson called some MAGA republicans “extremists” that go and disrupt school board meetings “based on false and deceptive information imparted to them by the former president and his MAGA extremist followers.”
“These MAGA Republicans are hellbent on destroying our democracy,” Johnson said.