AG Merrick Garland Sics FBI on Complaining Parents While Son-in-Law Sells Data Mining to School Boards

Left-wing teachers unions and the National School Boards Association say parents have threatened or harassed school officials over mask mandates, or for peddling critical race theory or transgender ideology. In response, Attorney General Merrick Garland says the Justice Department will investigate them.

Days after a national organization representing school board officials lamented to the Biden administration about “hate groups” intimidating education officials, Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed the FBI to combat “threats of violence” against administrators. (Breitbart)

Without citing specific cases, in a memorandum issued on Monday (pasted below), Merrick Garland expressed concern about a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools”.

This is where it gets interesting – and conflicted. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s daughter is Rebecca Garland.  In 2018 Rebecca Garland married Xan Tanner, the current co-founder of a controversial education service company called Panorama Education. Panorama Education is the “social learning” resource material provider to school districts and teachers that teach Critical Race Theory.

He also runs a database of millions of children’s responses to emotional questions. One of its backers is Mark Zuckerberg which immediately suggests that the company is data mining the responses. The company depends on school boards to approve its multimillion dollars of contracts so the helpful push from the AG to stifle parental dissent should be viewed with suspicion. Since its founding by two Yale students a few years ago, Panorama Education has built a booming business with school boards, gaining rich contracts collecting data on students with surveys asking questions like: “During the past week, how often did you feel sad?” and “do you identify as gay, lesbian, pansexual or gender fluid, asexual or questioning?”

Over the past two weeks, in Fairfax County, Virginia, parents have been challenging a $2.4 million contract with Boston-based Panorama Education who will soon begin submitting all county students to a “social and emotional learning screener” unless parents fill out an “opt-out” form (the deadline is this Friday, October 8).

Erika Sanzi of Parents Defending Education (PDE) notes above. that “parents are concerned over intrusive surveys and ‘screeners’ that ask 12-year-olds if they are pansexual or gender fluid. The surveys are often created/administered by Panorama Education. “Merrick Garland’s daughter is married to the president and founder.”

As PDE’s Asra Nomani observes, “in its survey, [Panorama Education] asks students if they are ‘pansexual’ or ‘gender fluid.'” She argues that by investigating parents, “U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is freezing parents protesting fraud and protecting his son-in-law’s business interest.”

Partnership Among Federal State Local Tribal and Territorial Law Enforcement to Address Threats Against Sch… by OWNEditor on Scribd