May 2022 — Ed Reporter Monthly Email Edition

Recently, mention of a little-known conference that took place in Tucson, Arizona nearly a year ago caused a flurry of postings on Twitter. The conference, titled “‘Smart Cities,’ The Transhumanist Game and ‘Lifelong Learning'” was spearheaded by activist, researcher, and blogger Alison McDowell of Philadelphia. McDowell’s central message, supported by a dizzying body of credible information, indicates that a global digital police state is in the offing and that a short-term goal is “to have the masses fight each other and not look upwards to the people who are controlling the system.”

McDowell’s purpose then and now is to change this by blowing the whistle on as many of the architects and their plans as possible through meetings such as the Tucson conference, as well as talks and updates posted since then on her website. “We are not powerless,” she says, “but we must be willing to look at the reality of what is happening.”

McDowell’s conference laid out the various pieces of the global digital puzzle, some of which are familiar but most of which are largely unknown to the average American citizen. At best, even if one is aware, it is difficult to penetrate all the layers and connect the many dots. She contends that human beings will become capital assets, controlled by a cradle-to-grave digital tracking and monitoring system.

Personal data as a new asset class

“The last global crash was based on securitized debt of housing and real estate,” McDowell pointed out. “A couple hundred billionaires needed a place to put their money and so they would create synthetic debt products to make that happen. In the decade plus since then, the wealth has only become more concentrated and the technology more sophisticated.”

As if to illustrate McDowell’s point, Wall Street has recently been in the news as Goldman Sachs-backed investors are using two funds, Growth eREIT VII and Fundrise Interval Fund, to buy up entire tracts of homes for rental property in warmer areas of the country, including the Cypress Bay housing development in Brevard County, Florida, and similar developments in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas. McDowell charges that during the last economic crash the investment giant Blackstone, “bought up the real estate and is now the largest private homeowner, and is being very repressive in its landlord practices.”

She contends that “the only thing bigger than real estate to create a synthetic debt product about is human beings… The means to securitize people as debt products are being developed, based on the consideration that people are a debt burden on society to this or that degree.” She explained that before a baby is even born, data analytics will be used to create an artificial “debt” to society based on genomics, where the child lives, the parents’ educational achievements, their salaries, and/or their health profiles. “People have been pushed out of their jobs, so more people are living in poverty,” she said. To monetize them, [the controllers] need to work on poverty management, which with digital identity and digitized debt, is going to be possible.

“Many people never got out of the gig economy,” she continued, “which is freelance work or short-term contracts as opposed to permanent jobs. Many people lost all of their assets. It cleared the decks for mass dispossession, which opens the doors to smart cities where people are tracked and manipulated on a level that we cannot even imagine. The plan is embedded in managing poverty and economic dispossession.”

Personal data then, is a new asset class, such as the World Economic Forum has been talking about, which is also where the term “the great reset” originated. “Fortunes will be made up of people,” McDowell predicted. “It’s about creating markets and the markets are in data. They have to have a means to track a person as an asset and that’s what the vaccine passports are for. They need interoperable data and they need to track each of us as an asset.”

A Twitter user commenting on McDowell’s presentation earlier this month noted: “The Chinese demonstrate how the ‘vax passport’ is an immensely powerful tool that can unlock or restrict people from accessing anything: bank accounts, transportation, commerce, food… AI (artificial intelligence) can be programmed to lock ‘dissidents’ out of society for ‘bad behavior.’

“What ‘passports’ really do,” the Twitter feed continues, “is create a perpetual surveillance state that tracks all online and offline behavior, leveraging AI, facial and gait recognition, and even other citizens to contribute to your personal ‘compliance’ record…”

The World Economic Forum admits on its website that “the Covid-19 crisis, and the political, economic and social disruptions it has caused, is fundamentally changing the traditional context for decision-making. The inconsistencies, inadequacies, and contradictions of multiple systems — from health and financial to energy and education — are more exposed than ever amidst a global context of concern for lives, livelihoods, and the planet. Leaders find themselves at a historic crossroads, managing short-term pressures against medium-and long-term uncertainties.”

Even more telling is what the forum calls “THE OPPORTUNITY.” It reads: As we enter a unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery, this initiative will offer insights to help inform all those determining the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models, and the management of a global commons. Drawing from the vision and vast expertise of the leaders engaged across the Forum’s communities, the Great Reset initiative has a set of dimensions to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being.”

The reader might logically wonder what this “set of dimensions” might be as well as how the Great Reset initiative will honor every human being’s dignity. Will it be by paying to euthanize “people who are ‘too poor to continue living with dignity,'” as the Canadian government is now offering to do for its citizens, according to reports by Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Gateway Pundit.

“In 2021, the tyrannical Canadian government began offering to pay to euthanize anyone who feels as such,” the Pundit wrote. “Like things weren’t dystopian enough with the lockdowns and oppressive public health measures… Killing the poor because they lack enough ‘dignity’ to live? That’s a far cry from the typical social programs that are championed by the radical left.”

McDowell reported last year that Australia is a testbed for a lot of the ideas presented during her conference. “They have piloted the first smart blockchain social impact bond there, and they’ve already developed the first sustainable blockchain. The fortune size depends on the quality of the human capital. Australia piloted the first programmable blockchain money for disability benefits.”

Blockchain is a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are maintained across a number of computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network. A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. According to a Brookings Institute report, a social impact bond is “a form of results-based financing in which an investor provides upfront capital for social services programs, and this investment is repaid—often with interest—based on the program’s achievement of predetermined outcomes.”

Capturing data from infancy

When and how does all this tracking begin? One example from the University of Chicago provides a clue. The program, called Lena, captures the early “talk” of infants through a digital listening device worn in a onesie or in comfortable clothing on a toddler. Lena translates the recordings of parent-child vocal interaction into data which can be delivered to families, educators, and others in understandable feedback reports. As McDowell pointed out: “The program targets poor families to make sure parents talk to their children enough and that they are using the right words. It’s framed as ‘caring about these children;’ as ‘social justice.’ But it’s really about commodifying the parent-child relationship.”

Why would parents agree to such an intrusive and big-brotherly gimmick? While some parents have already done so willingly, believing that the program is the result of an overarching “concern” for “the children,” McDowell observed that down the line, as digital capital plans are developed, if jobs are threatened or the monitoring becomes the carrot for being allowed to obtain food, then the initiative is no longer a benign choice but an ominous mandate. In 2022, we can see the potential for such coercion with baby formula shortages and rumors of future food shortages.

Digitizing universal pre-K

The next step is universal preschool, a familiar concept that has become data driven because, McDowell explained, preschool children are “an impact market.” The goal is to change and mold their behavior while monitoring and tracking their progress. Key players/planners include Dr. James Heckman, creator of The Heckman Equation at the University of Chicago Economics Department. Heckman’s model advocates investment in cradle-to-workforce development, primarily focused on “disadvantaged families” to “nurture early development of cognitive and social skills in children from birth to age five; sustain early development with effective education through to adulthood,” with the goal of gaining “a more capable, productive and valuable workforce that pays dividends to America for generations to come.”

Early childhood programs stress “socio-emotional learning (SEL),” the proponents of which call for focusing on “attitudes, values, and behaviors” rather than on preparing children for academic learning. SEL is ill-defined and puts early childhood teachers in charge of the moral, ethical, and emotional development of their charges. In 2019, the Pioneer Institute stated: “Educational software developers purport to have created products that can determine a number of sensitive personality traits through students’ interaction with digital platforms. Much of this monitoring occurs without the consent of children or their parents. Some software — especially for video gaming — goes beyond assessing traits, and aims to encourage the production of students who are well suited for a workforce development-centered education.”

A company called Ripple Effects markets SEL programs for pre-K through grade 12. The company’s website defines SEL as follows:

• S is for social
  — strengthening the connective tissue between self and others, both interpersonal relationships and the wider social contexts that impact how people experience themselves and others.
• E is for emotion
  — recognizing feelings, naming them in ways that make personal and cultural sense, understanding their changing nature and how they impact perception — managing their intensity and expressing them in ways that empower the feeler while also respecting others.
• L is for learning
  — specifically learning the non-academic things that enable people to develop a strong sense of themselves, get along, and get ahead in an increasingly diverse and fast changing world.

This explanation confirms that SEL has nothing to do with teaching academics and everything to do with molding the attitudes and feelings of impressionable children according to the doctrine of the progressive left.

In order to make sure the indoctrination is effective, the tracking aspect is key. After all, how are the “impact bonds” to pay off if Goldman-Sachs, billionaire J.B. Pritzker, and other investors cannot obtain the electronic data that can only come from digitally monitoring the behavioral changes of students as they are manipulated through universal pre-K? And yes, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, before he became governor, was a key figure in a $7 million preschool program for at-risk children in the Granite School District in Salt Lake County, Utah. Perhaps as Alison McDowell asserted at her conference: “They are all in on it.”

McDowell mentioned Pritzker’s involvement in the Utah preschool pilot and noted that he had also “traveled up and down California pushing universal pre-K so [he] could run [his] data bonds. He said, ‘what we can actually change is character.'” She added that many child-focused digital apps, such as Sesame Street workshop apps and PBS Kids apps are all about changing behavior.

One producer of digital behavior modification tools is Hatch Education, which developed “an interactive play table called WePlaySmart. McDowell described it as “a TV-like flat screen that’s parallel to the floor and has two fish-eye lens cameras on either side, and the children are supposed to play together. The cameras record the play and then score the children’s social behavior on a rubric. It has facial recognition and [the data] goes to a permanent record.”

McDowell’s prediction in 2021 that people would increasingly need affordable childcare and be more likely to enroll their kids in corporate-like childcare settings where they will be monitored and recorded, could not have been more prophetic as the economy tanks in 2022. She noted that others are working on universal pre-K initiatives across the country, including for example Tom Luce, who founded Texas 2036 and “is working with the federal government on universal pre-K and has said he’d like his [childcare] companies to have the kids ‘from the age of two to college age.'”

Rethinking education

At a Future Education Conference that took place last December, Pavel Luksha, Ph.D., director and founder of Global Education Futures and Professor of Practice at Moscow School of Management — discussed a regenerative economy and digital paradigm shift that requires “rethinking every aspect of our civilization.” Pavel said “education must be part of this; we must think of education in terms of creating less hierarchical, more inclusive, more opportunity-based and truly lifelong learning models that encourage everyone to self-actualize but also to be part of larger communities that create that possible future.

“So this is all about the transition that we call in our research the ecosystemic paradigm which of course mirrors the idea of regenerative society on the level of education. It is about personalization, lifelong learning, the use of digital delivery and so on. But it also invites us to think about every facet of our society as a learning opportunity and this is what I think we need to start focusing on, that the delivery bottleneck disappears if we start rethinking the way that our society works, if we truly see that every working opportunity, every social activist opportunity, is a learning opportunity.”

Pavel believes in creating “networks and connections between multiple learning institutions to support lifelong learning, both in physical learning spaces and online learning spaces directly engaged with learners, but also communities that influence learners from multiple perspectives.” He believes brick and mortar universities should forget about building more campuses and offering more courses or degree programs, and instead see themselves at “the nexus point,” at the connection point with every other aspect of society.

“We want to look at the breakup of the existing model [of education] as an invitation to create something totally new, and if we replicate in online space and [traditional] delivery space, the model of the past, this is not viable, and this is not what the future society and future generations” … he trails off here without completing the thought. What he is not stating is that the existing educational system is not viable for the central planners who want a global digital tracking system for every human being from cradle to grave, to be manipulated as the planners see fit. He then continued: “We need to start thinking about how we learn and what we learn as essentially the same, so the learning delivery models necessarily should embrace the idea of learning spaces that cultivate the future,” whatever that means.

‘Learning’ through gaming technology

Arizona State University President Michael Crow touts technology-based “education through exploration through game-based learning,” called the Fourth Realm. “Just imagine this at the end of the game — and we’re building this game — you don’t take a single test, you don’t take a single course, you don’t have a single lecturer, and at the end of the game that you play you’ll be able to pass any college entrance exam, or what we call Cambridge A-level exams. Anyone that completes the game; doesn’t make any difference if it’s a boy or girl, will be able to pass an A level exam in math, chemistry, physics, or biology, period.” How this will work in practice is anyone’s guess since the actual product and processes are likely proprietary, but one wonders if Crow realized that in his politically correct, digital world he only acknowledged the existence of two genders.

Nonetheless, such visions transcend politics, education as most people understand it, and everything else with which the average American citizen is familiar. They represent a global shift to digital life, with gamification the theme of the day.

As McDowell’s 2021 conference made clear, we are looking at a new financial structure of human capital, manipulated by those in power who want to financialize all of natural life, including the environment, which is where Agenda 2030 and the environmental movement come in. As McDowell put it: “They want to manage us in relation to the world’s resources, tied to sustainable development goals, and so one piece is largely about managing people and one is about managing nature.”

The development of technology has come a long way since Phyllis Schlafly warned repeatedly of the dangers of collecting data on schoolchildren before her passing in 2016. She wrote in 2010, for example: “The building of databases that track students from pre-school through entry into the workforce began with the emphasis in the 1990s on testing and standards, and was expanded under ‘No Child Left Behind’ mandates. This data collection has been proceeding at what observers call a ‘breakneck pace’ under the Obama Administration because of the offer of federal grants awarded through the Race to the Top competition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and $250 million in Stimulus funds.”

As far back as 1998, she lamented the collection of healthcare information on Americans in her popular Phyllis Schlafly Report: “The hottest issue in America today is our discovery that the Federal Government is trying to tag, track, and monitor our health care records through national databases and personal identification numbers… Americans are accustomed to enjoying the freedom to go about our daily lives without telling government what we are doing. The idea of having Big Brother monitor our life and activities, as forecast in George Orwell’s great book 1984, is not acceptable in America.”

How right she was that most Americans find such intrusions unacceptable, but our leaders have allowed these efforts to continue anyway. Mrs. Schlafly would be appalled but hardly surprised.

While not widely known, the term “Internet of Bodies” (or internet of humans) has been around at least since 2019. It means the connection of a human system to the internet through a variety of devices that are ingested, implanted, or otherwise used to transmit an individual’s data to a cloud or internet domain where it can be used, shared, or stored.

Nearly everyone is aware of “body external” devices, such as Fitbits or Apple watches that monitor heart rate and other functions during exercise workouts. Internal devices like pacemakers, cochlear implants, and other third-generation technologies are embedded, and these devices now have the potential to meld “technology and the human body with a real-time connection to a remote machine.”

In 2020, the Rand Corporation studied what it called this “phenomenon” of the Internet of Bodies, or IoB, and warned that we are entering “uncharted territory”:

• The IoB is actually an ecosystem. It’s a bunch of devices that are connected to the internet that contain software and either collect personal health data about you or can alter the body’s function. We think of the Internet of Bodies as this collection of all these devices, as well as all the data that the devices are gathering about you. And in healthcare, Internet of Bodies has been around for quite a while… It makes a lot of sense to connect your pacemaker to the internet so that your doctor can be automatically notified if something weird happens, if there’s an anomaly. It’s natural in a lot of ways to want to understand more about your body, how it functions, how well it’s doing.

But Rand warned about the lack of regulation and thus the lack of protection of highly personal data. “The rise of devices that connect the human body to the web is accelerating rapidly” they wrote. “This Internet of Bodies could revolutionize health care and improve our quality of life. But without appropriate guardrails, it could also jeopardize our most intimate personal information and introduce ethical concerns.”

Perhaps one of the most troubling IoB devices is known as the “smart pill.” These are pills that contain edible electronic sensors and computer chips. As Forbes Magazine stated in a December 2019 article: “Once swallowed, these digital pills can collect data from our organs and then send it to a remote device connected to the internet.” The pills’ sensors essentially rat patients out to their physicians as to whether or not they have taken their medication. This might make sense for an Alzheimer’s patient assuming there is no caregiver, but what if a patient doesn’t want to take a pill that is making him or her sick or for some other reason? Before he or she can even contact the healthcare provider, the “smart pill” has transmitted an alert.

The Rand Corporation cautioned of the risks to the “uniquely sensitive data these devices collect” and the ominous potential not yet realized. “There are a lot of unknowns that we need to be careful about,” they wrote in an obvious understatement.

One thing is certain, the potential exists not only for the monitoring of individuals’ health, including mental health — there are apps for that as well — but also for tracking their everyday movements from birth until death. Forbes described how a bioengineering company called Biohax “embedded chips in more than 4,000 people primarily for convenience.” In another instance, they reported on how 50 employees agreed to have an RFID microchip implanted, which would allow them to gain access to their company’s building without a key, and “pay for items with a wave of their hand at the vending machine” by deducting the amounts owed from their bank accounts.

Given the unlimited potential for abuse such intrusions pose, it’s easy to see why researchers like Alison McDowell are sounding the alarm. The technologies for turning the human body into the latest data platform already exist, thereby at least theoretically allowing for the monitoring, tracking, and controlling of the vast majority of human beings.

With the digital genie out of the bottle, how long will it be before governments, in step with non-governmental organizations, technology-development companies, foundations, and advanced university technology departments, take total control of our lives?

On June 13 and 14, former child star and Hollywood actor, Kirk Cameron, will debut his documentary film, “The Homeschool Awakening,” (view the promo on YouTube here) in theaters across the country. A devout evangelical Christian, Cameron is calling for Americans to switch to homeschooling because of “the immoral things that the public-school system has been teaching our children.”

Blaze Media reported on Cameron’s movie in late April, following the actor/producer’s official announcement of the release date. Cameron said he has been working on the project “for the last two and a half years” and that the effort “was not a sacrifice but a total gift. No one will love your children more than you do.”

In a promo trailer for the film, Cameron revealed that, in his opinion, “the public-school system has become public enemy number one.” He added: “The public-school system, unfortunately, has not been working with us, but actively working against us. We need to take back the education of our children, because whoever controls the textbooks controls the future. Whoever is shaping the hearts and minds and souls of our children will determine whether or not we live in a free country and have freedom of speech, economic freedom, educational and political freedom, and religious freedom.”

The actor explained that his documentary will counter stereotypes about homeschooling; that it is a “cult” and that homeschooled children “are weird.”

Homeschooling has risen to more than 11 percent of school-age households in the U.S. within the past 18 months. ABC News reported in April that the number of homeschooling students increased by 63 percent in the 2020-2021 school year in the 18 states reporting, then fell by only 17 percent in the 2021-2022 school year.”

Cameron’s film should only serve to increase these numbers.

Ohio parents elect conservative school board

In Ohio, the Forest Hills School District has a new school board, elected last November, that is moving to rid the schools of what many parents consider “political indoctrination.” For example, the board voted on May 1 to ban Turpin High School’s “Diversity Day” in 2022, even though the district has held the event each May for five years.

According to The Western Journal, the board’s vote was in response to parental pushback. During the May 1 meeting, “School Board President Linda Hausfeld read from parent emails that indicated opposition to the event,” including some parents who objected to their children being taught critical race theory, elements of which Diversity Day includes.

“Voters made it very clear in the November election that we do not want to fund social justice and political programming that is inherently divisive,” Hausfeld read from one email. A letter from a black parent conveyed respect that “maybe [the promoters’] hearts are in the right place, but that the implementation is completely off-base, biased, and offensive.”

The Cincinnati Inquirer reported that one of Diversity Day’s planned activities entitled “Step to the Line,” included asking students such questions as:

• Have you ever been embarrassed or ashamed of your clothes, your house, or your family when growing up?
• Was your grade school made up of people you felt were like yourself?
• When you go to the doctor, is the doctor the same race as you?
• Have you ever felt uncomfortable or angry about a remark or joke because of your race, ethnicity, age, or class?

Board member Sara Jonas told the Inquirer that she didn’t understand “how this is the business of students, staff, or leaders in this exercise. How is this not political and indoctrination to the students?”

According to Fox News, Jonas also explained that critical race theory was “sprinkled all into the program. What the teachers are taught in professional development is then practiced on our students.” At least for this year, however, Diversity Day will not take place. The people have spoken and the new board is likely to be on the lookout for more instances of leftist indoctrination and woke ideology.

Parents file suit in Baltimore

At the end of January 2022, fed-up parents Jovani and Shawnda Patterson filed a lawsuit against the city of Baltimore and the Baltimore Public Schools for failing to teach their children, and the consequent waste of their tax dollars. The couple said they took such action in desperation to have their voices heard. “There’s really no other recourse a citizen in Baltimore could take,” the Pattersons told The Daily Signal on March 22.

Since the school board is not elected, but appointed, and there was a slim chance that one or both of them could be appointed, they felt there was nothing they could do aside from a lawsuit “to effect change or request access into the inner workings of what’s going on in Baltimore.”

One glaring failure of the city’s schools was reported in February by Fox News Baltimore, that “77 percent of students tested at Baltimore High School read at an elementary school level, and some at kindergarten level.” A documentary labeling the district “a failure factory,” reported that of 628 Patterson High School students who took the test, 484 tested at elementary school level, including 71 who were reading at kindergarten level and 88 who were reading at first-grade level. Only 12 students were able to read at a high school level, or just 1.9 percent.

Shortly after the Pattersons filed their lawsuit, charging that city residents receive “no benefit” from a school system that “completely fails to perform its most basic function of educating children,” The Baltimore Sun reported on the couple’s “Republican ties” and described them as “filing a sweeping lawsuit against the Baltimore school system.”

The Pattersons’ complaint further alleges that the school district “made false entries in public records,” and charges it with “racketeering, mail fraud, theft, and embezzlement.” A spokesman claimed that the mayor and the city “care deeply about education” and that they “have made it a priority to ensure that all students can succeed both inside the classroom and beyond.” They vowed to “review and respond to the lawsuit, in court, properly.”

The Pattersons aren’t sure how far their litigation will go, but say they had to do something, because “that vortex of [government] incompetence” has affected Baltimore’s children for generations. “We’ve heard for decades about some of the failures to educate and things like social promotion, lack of resources,” Jovani said, adding: “And year after year, time after time, all we hear is, ‘Well, this is the way it’s always been. This is the way it’s always going to be.'”

As a teacher herself, Shawnda says the blame for the schools’ poor performance belongs with bureaucrats and administrators. “Most of the time, my class size was pushing 40 kids with no assistant. To effectively teach 40 children, that is a challenging task,” she told the Daily Wire.

But the Pattersons refuse to accept that Baltimore’s schools must be consigned to failure, and hope their lawsuit will serve as a wake-up call to the city and school system. They want officials to know this kind of catastrophic incompetence no longer will be tolerated.

Given these examples, it’s clear that parents are not backing down from defending their children despite attacks from the left and threats from the Biden Administration’s Justice Department.

Another day, another erotic drag show performed for high school students; this time in Pennsylvania. In late April, the Hempfield High School in Lancaster County held an after-school event advertised as a drag show, sponsored by the Gay Sexuality Alliance Club and hosted by a teacher. The online news source Harrisburg100 reportedly broke the story, calling the event “an erotic drag show featuring professional dancers” that was announced to the entire school. Unconfirmed reports maintain that parents were not notified and no permission slips were provided or required. The Libs of TikTok posted a video of the event on Twitter, which shows performers in tight, scanty costumes writhing and gyrating in erotic dances. The teacher who hosted the show has been placed on leave and the school has apologized, which typically happens with these types of events. Somehow, school administrators are always in the dark and yet the events appear to be well-orchestrated and typically held without parental awareness or consent. “We are appalled at what took place and in no way condone this type of activity in our schools,” the Hempfield administration team claimed in a statement. “We commit to completing a thorough investigation and holding those involved accountable, up to and including disciplinary action that is commensurate with any findings.” The parent who originally called attention to the event on Facebook said she had no issue with the LGBT community but that the performance itself was inappropriate in a school setting. LancasterOnline.com, 4-29-22, The Western Journal, 5-3-22

Taxpayers in Oregon are now footing the bill for a new law authorizing thousands of tampon dispensers to be installed in schools in boys’ bathrooms. The law is called the “Menstrual Dignity Act,” and it impacts every public school and college in the state. It was originally intended to provide free sanitary products in girls’ bathrooms, but was expanded to “affirm the right to menstrual dignity for transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and two-spirit students” by trying to “minimize negative attention that could put them at risk of harm… during menstruation.” The state has developed a 25-page toolkit that directs school officials to use the terms “menstruating students” and “someone with a uterus and ovaries” instead of “girls” when referring to reproductive processes. According to the toolkit, “all education providers must “be affirming of transgender, non-binary, two spirit, and intersex students,” and use the term “menstrual products” instead of “feminine hygiene products.” They must also use gender-inclusive terms like “students,” “folks,” “everyone,” “learners,” or “they/them” instead of “boys and girls” or “he or she” when referring to students. The onerously progressive state of Oregon, with its singularly unpopular Governor Kate Brown, was beaten to the punch by the progressive state of Illinois, which has already installed tampon dispensers in boys’ bathrooms in some schools. The result has been clogged plumbing, damaged machines, and sanitary products pasted all over mirrors and walls. Guess boys will be boys after all. Family Research Council, 5-2-22

Reports by a whistleblower show that the Biden administration’s FBI and Department of Justice actively began investigating parents who complained about school curricula and district policies at school board meetings. The Washington Examiner reported on May 12 that the whistleblower’s revelations are “the latest chapter in a saga that began in September 2021 when the National School Boards Association, reportedly at the behest of the Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, asked the Biden administration and the Justice Department to investigate parents protesting at school board meetings as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act.” When a public outcry ensued after the contents of the letter became known, the NSBA apologized and Attorney General Merrick Garland insisted that parents would not be targeted. He said DOJ investigators would only be looking into actual threats of violence. This now appears to be yet another untruth. According to the Examiner, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the DOJ confronting them about the FBI’s use of “counterterrorism resources” to investigate parents for exercising their constitutional right to speak out. Nicole Neily, president of the grassroots group Parents Defending Education, issued the following statement about the lawmakers’ letter: “For months, the Biden Administration has mocked parents’ concerns about their children’s education, gaslighting them over what was truly taking place in America’s schools. Now we know that the FBI has, indeed, been investigating citizens for exercising their constitutional right to petition their government for a redress of grievances. It is past time for the government to be transparent about how — and why — federal law enforcement was weaponized against America’s families, and for those bureaucrats to be held accountable.”

Parents in St. Charles County, Missouri, were victorious when a federal judge ordered the Francis Howell School District board to stop censoring speakers at school board meetings. The board was forbidding parents and concerned citizens to mention the name of their group, Francis Howell Families (FHF) or its website during public comment periods, and had cut off the microphone to at least one member for daring to mention the offending website. FHF is a political action committee that “recruits, supports, and educates candidates for the school board who support academic excellence, transparent accountability, and fiscal responsibility while encouraging in students a strong work ethic, good character, and respect for our nation’s founding principles.” FHF’s website states: “We reject attempts to divide people by race, gender, or other immutable characteristics or to teach that those characteristics determine their destiny. Instead, we work to create a district that provides a high-quality, knowledge-based education for all students so they can be fully prepared to participate in civil society.” Last month, Judge Stephen Clark of the Eastern Missouri District Court agreed with the plaintiffs, and entered a preliminary injunction against the school district for limiting such speech. The order reads in part: “…The Court enjoins Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this injunction from enforcing Francis Howell School District Policies 1455 and 1471 to prohibit Plaintiffs’ reference to “Francis Howell Families” or the Francis Howell Families website, www.francishowellfamilies.org, while addressing the school board during the patron-comment period at school board meetings. This preliminary injunction takes effect immediately and remains in effect pending trial in this action or further order of the Court.”