KANSAS, March 4 - TOPEKA – (March 4, 2022) – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has filed a lawsuit seeking to force President Joe Biden to turn over records related to the administration’s schemes to prevent parents from speaking out against indoctrination in public schools.

Schmidt today joined 13 other states in filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to force the Biden administration to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests filed last fall on behalf of Kansas and the other states. The FOIA requests seek federal officials’ communications, including those with the Nation School Boards Association (NSBA), preceding an October 4 Department of Justice memo that called for Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance of parents expressing opinions at school board meetings and forums across the country.

“We are calling for transparency and accountability for the misconduct by the administration that sought to quash the free speech rights of parents who are entitled to speak out regarding their children’s education,” Schmidt said.

In the memo, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland parroted language from a September 29 letter to the Biden administration from NSBA. That letter lamented the rise of parents pushing back against divisive ideologies, including critical race theory. It further suggested protests by parents across the nation were rising to the level of "domestic terrorism.”

Facts then came to light suggesting the NSBA and White House worked together all along to concoct a false premise for targeting parents.

On Oct. 18, Schmidt was part of a 17-state coalition that demanded the Biden administration rescind its threat to focus the FBI on peacefully protesting parents of schoolchildren. The NSBA eventually apologized for its language comparing parents to domestic terrorists, but the Biden administration has never rescinded its threatening memo.

Besides the White House and U.S. Department of Justice, the lawsuit also names as defendants the U.S. Department of Education and its leader, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. 

A copy of the lawsuit filed today can be found at https://bit.ly/3MnUFyN.