'Do You See Parents As A Threat?': Marsha Blackburn Grills Kristen Clarke Over School Board Memo

much senator blackburn thank you mr chairman ms clark you're in charge of policing the civil rights division at the federal level does it raise civil rights concerns when the government attempts to intimidate citizens who are exercising their first amendment freedom of speech thank you senator we do not want intimidation in our society so it would concern you if there was an exercise against an individual's free speech correct the first amendment is important and we also do not want a society with intimidation did president biden promise to keep the doj apolitical he has an attorney general garland has made clear his commitment to ensuring that partisanship will not impact our enforcement work okay yes or no did the teachers union write a letter to doj asking you to use the patriot act to target concerned parents who voice their opposition to the indoctrination of their children yes or no this is not a matter that the civil rights division handled i'm aware of the memorandum issued by the attorney general which speaks to threats and intimidation that some school officials have experienced in our country and that's not activity protected by the the first amendment so you're saying a parent going to a school board and expressing their dismay with crt or with the masked mandate is not protected speech is that what you're saying i believe the attorney general's uh memorandum deals with with threats and uh intimidation and harassment let me ask you this then did doj issue the directive to the fbi to target parents in direct response to this letter from the teachers union yes or no again this is not a matter that the division handled but what i can tell you is that the attorney general said that quote threats against public servants are not only illegal they run counter to our nation's core values do you believe it's appropriate to treat parents as domestic terrorists for daring to ask elected school board members questions about what is being taught to their children senator while this is not a matter that the civil rights division handled this is a memorandum issued by the attorney general uh i know that the department is committed to ensuring robust civil discipline do you see any difference in somebody being a concerned parent and going to a school board meeting and asking questions and then that individual being labeled a domestic terrorist and this being carried out by the fbi and the doj is that not a problem or a concern to you the um attorney general's memorandum is focused on on threats on intel parents as a threat all right you see parents asking questions as a threat does doj see parents asking questions as a threat because we've seen reports from teachers parents and other members of a private facebook group in loudoun county virginia that have been accused of compiling a list of names of district parents who oppose critical race theory in order to track back and dox track hack and dox them or even intimidate them into self-censorship should these teachers and other members of this private facebook group be pursued by the fbi as domestic terrorists as well um senator free speech is a hallmark though so it's free speech for teachers that want to track parents but it's not free speech for parents that want to show up at a school board meeting and make their displeasure known and engage in public discourse because those parents taxpayers are paying the bill for for that let me ask you this uh attorney general garland i've seen reports of his family connection to panorama education over data harvesting and holding data on students and having contracts with school boards and we've had quite a bit of discussion about facebook and the way they market and data mine children as young as eight years old are you aware of that um uh this is not an issue that the civil rights division um is what you're telling me and that you have no knowledge or information about what is being done to parents and how they are being labeled and this directive for the fbi to go and investigate parents who are standing up for what their children are being subjected to in some public school systems thank you mr chairman thank you senator blackburn i

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

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Keywords: Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Kristen Clarke, school board

Id: yjP2-jHOew0

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021