Buck to Garland: School boards don’t need guards

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado accused U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland of using “a lack of reasoned, sound judgment” in allowing federal agents to handle unruly protesters at local school board meetings across the country.

Buck, the Republican from Windsor and former Weld County district attorney, sent a 670-word missive to the nation’s top law enforcement official Tuesday.

Garland sent a memorandum to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and federal prosecutors on Monday instructing them to hold strategy sessions in the next 30 days to come up with a plan to address what the attorney general deemed a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence” against educators and school board members over politicized issues such as mask and vaccine mandates, as well as interpretations of critical race theory.

Garland said rowdy, intimidating audiences represented a “rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” in public schools across the country.

Buck’s letter suggests the outrage is often warranted.

“Across the country, parents are exercising their First Amendment right to petition their government and voice their frustrations with their local elected leaders,” the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Garland. “There are innumerable examples from the past 18 months of school board members imposing their personal beliefs at the expense of children and families.”

Garland’s Monday instructions followed a plea from the National School Boards Association to President Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop the threats against educators. The NSBA likened the response to vaccines and face coverings to domestic terrorism.

“Local school board members want to hear from their communities on important issues and that must be at the forefront of good school board governance and promotion of free speech,” the national organization stated in its letter to the president last Thursday. “However, there also must be safeguards in place to protect public schools and dedicated education leaders as they do their jobs.”

The NSBA cited examples from across the country, though none from Colorado.

The state has not been immune, by a long shot.

On Aug. 30, for example, tempers flared at a Cheyenne Mountain School District 12’s Board of Education in Colorado Springs over objections to a mask mandate issued by the district Aug. 18. Protesters chanted “USA,” “No more masks,” “We are free” and “Hear our voice.”

The board countered that it was following state health department guidelines.

As the school year started in August, the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release to say it was stepping up security at schools because of “tensions” over mask rules.

Buck on Tuesday took exception to the broad characterization of parents as dangerous scofflaws.

“By drawing a moral equivalence between concerned parents and domestic terrorists, whose ranks include Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski, you are making a mockery of the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Buck wrote.