We have just learned that there was an orchestrated conspiracy launched in 2021 at the highest levels of our government. Its purpose was to silence the parental-rights movement that had spontaneously erupted around the country in 2020. The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute (JDFI) was among the leading organizations encouraging parents to get involved in this movement.
This conspiracy has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt thanks to a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by America First Legal. This shocking development is not just a “gotcha” moment. It is a major national scandal, and it is not getting the attention it deserves. Here’s what we know.
In 2020, more and more parents around the country were discovering that their children were being subjected to LGBTQ indoctrination. They also came to realize that in the name of fighting racism, many schools were actually promoting racist theories. Minority children were being taught that no matter how hard they worked, they could never succeed because they were the “oppressed” victims of systemic white racism. Nonminority children were being taught they were inherently bigoted and were “oppressors” of minorities.
Parents of all races were furious as they learned more about the leftist indoctrination of their children. Their reaction was exactly what we would hope for in America. Parents went to the levels of government most responsible for the administration of public schools—local and state government. They showed up at school board meetings in large numbers and expressed their outrage over what was going on in taxpayer-funded classrooms. They were met with a mixture of disdain and hostility from many elected school board members.
Ground zero for this parental revolt was Virginia, where there was a high-profile election for governor taking place in 2021. The Biden Administration was worried that their candidate could lose the race over this issue. They were right to be concerned. The Democratic candidate did lose after saying parents should have no role in their child’s public school education.
As the parental-rights revolt grew nationwide, the National School Boards Association (NSBA), under the control of the cultural and political Left, sent a letter to the White House alleging that some parents were engaging in violence and threatening school board members. They requested that the federal government intervene. The NSBA wanted the federal government to investigate parents under the Patriot Act as potential “domestic terrorists” as well as under federal hate-crime laws.
Shortly after receiving that letter, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI to assist local law enforcement to stop the “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school officials.”1 This instruction allowed the federal government to interfere in the interaction of parents with local officials about the education of their children. The FBI even set up a special 800 number that people could use to report parents who were confronting local school boards. JDFI and other pro-family organizations expressed outrage at the attorney general’s cooperation with the NSBA to attempt to portray parents as possible “domestic terrorists.”
The Biden White House claimed it had nothing to do with this federal assault on parental rights. They insisted that the Justice Department and the FBI were just doing their jobs.
It has now been revealed that the Biden White House actually solicited the letter from the NSBA.
Further, America First Legal’s FOIA requests uncovered evidence that career lawyers in the Justice Department had been deeply concerned by and disagreed with Attorney General Garland’s directive. On October 3, 2021, one Justice Department attorney wrote an email stating, “The vast, vast majority of the behavior [by parents] cited cannot be reached by federal law. . . . So, it seems we are ramping up an awful lot of federal manpower for what is currently non-federal conduct.”2 In other words, there was no evidence of violence or intimidation by parents. The Biden Administration was just looking for a “federal hook” to intimidate parents and silence dissent.
Parents have the first and preeminent right in the education of their children. When parents think that right has been violated, they do have a “federal hook” called the Constitution of the United States. It guarantees the right to speak to any public official at any level of government.
In an outrageous effort that stunned career Justice Department lawyers, the Biden Administration tried to spin federal law on the side of the radical teachers indoctrinating our children.
JDFI is grateful for the recent six-to-three Supreme Court victory that ordered the Montgomery County, Maryland school district to allow parents to opt their children out of offensive LGBTQ curriculum. But the court’s decision was not sufficiently broad enough to stop the threat to parental rights. Already, the National Education Association and other left-wing education groups are actively engaged in a nationwide effort to get around the Supreme Court’s decision.
Their most common tactic is to avoid creating separate courses with LGBTQ propaganda and instead to hide the propaganda in every subject and every class. The result is that parents do not know that their children are being subjected to this indoctrination.
An additional issue is that the case before the Supreme Court was about whether parents had the right to opt out of offensive classes for their children. At JDFI, we believe that is backwards. Controversial sexual information and courses that promote racism should never be in schools. No student should be forced to learn those things.
There is a silver lining in all of this. The Trump Administration is dismantling the Department of Education bureaucracy, where a lot of this ideological garbage originated. Educational programs and financial assistance are not being shut down. What is being shut down is the federal bureaucracy that has been pushing local school districts to do things they would not necessarily choose to do on their own.
JDFI applauds President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon for putting our children first.
- Randy DeSoto, “Biden DOJ Sought ‘Federal Hook’ to Justify Targeting Parents at School Board Meetings,” The Western Journal, July 19, 2025, https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-doj-sought-federal-hook-justify-targeting-parents-school-board-meetings-report/
- Seijah Drake, “Leaked Documents Show Biden DOJ Targeted Parents Protesting School Policies,” American Liberty News, July 20, 2025, https://americanliberty.news/government/leaked-documents-show-biden-doj-targeted-parents-protesting-school-policies/sdrake/2025/07/
