A new joint letter from the DOJ and the DOE is signaling a massive shift in how the federal government views parental rights. The letter reminds attorney generals that under federal laws, parents have the right to any information regarding their children, even that considered sensitive and personal.
The directive comes right on the heels of a federal report exposing how the previous administration’s 2021 "Garland Memo" targeted parents who spoke out at school board meetings.
As AFN reported previously, Garland, the former U.S. attorney general during the Biden administration — prompted by the National School Boards Association, who likened protesting parents to domestic terrorists — claimed without evidence that there was a “spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence.”
Trump’s DOJ claimed these actions as a “weaponization of government power,” an abuse of power Trump’s admin is trying to eradicate in federal agencies.
Together, the DOJ and DOE are standing to undo the harm the Biden administration did to parental rights.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana told the “Washington Watch” program that state leaders are wasting no time using this new federal backing to lock in protections locally.
“Our state legislature meets here in just a couple of months,” Knudsen says. “I'm going to take this to our state legislature, and I’m going to make sure all of our legislators on the education committees, on the judiciary committees, understand what was going on.”
Knudsen warned that even conservative, rural school districts are vulnerable to progressive agendas that try to sideline parents. He emphasized that defending these God-given rights requires constant vigilance.
“It really is one of those situations where you can’t just assume it’s not happening in your backyard and think this is only a big-city problem. This does happen. It leaks out,” Knudsen says.
Parental involvement, he added, is the ultimate antidote to government overreach. He assured families that their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children is fully supported by the law.
