March 18 – An intense, serious battle seems to be breaking out with Critical Race Theory, particularly in Loudoun County, Va., where a parent started a group that is actually gathering information on their opponents, hacking websites and humiliating people publicly.
A quick recap:
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an academic movement that seeks to examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and examines social and cultural issues as they related to race, law and social and political power.
In college and universities, those studying education are often taught Critical Race Theory as fact, when indeed, it is often anything but.
In Virginia, members of a Facebook group called the “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County” have gone so far as to gather information on opponents, create mailing lists of people in charge of the anti-CRT movement, and infiltrate online groups using fake profiles to get information to humiliate people publicly.
Some of the members of this group include current and retired teachers.
Is this kind of intimidation legal?
Attorney Clint Barkdoll, Pat Ryan and Michele Jansen dicussed the issue.
“I think there’s possible criminal conduct here,” Barkdoll said. “Remember Loudoun County has long been at the forefront of this progressive activism. What you’re describing seems to be in line with how things have been there for quite a while. If the evidence is these teachers created this blacklist of parents who they felt disagreed with the school’s teaching of CRT and if they doxed these parents social media accounts, that would be criminal conduct.”
A quick caveat: Doxing is to search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the internet, typically with malicious intent.
The next question in this discussion is: will the county prosecutor or commonwealth attorney actually bring charges?
“We know in a lot of these counties there’s a lot of influence,” Barkdoll said.
Ryan added, “Wouldn’t it be great if we finally start holding these boards and these teachers and these retirees accountable on this level?”
Jansen said, “The fact that they have a DA that seems to be an activist there in that county. And I’m sick of this idea that George Soros is going around giving hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to control elections of our DAs to put in activists. We need objective people at this level of our legal system. We don’t need activists in there who will or will not prosecute people depending upon their ideology.”
If the DA won’t take it on, could people turn to civil charges?
“If they’re an affected parent, you could have grounds for a civil lawsuit,” Barkdoll said. “You could sue them for damages based on the fact that your accounts were hacked and that you were publicly shamed or embarrassed.”
Still, this seems to be an alarming trend.
Jansen said, “Also very disturbing, they worked with the NAACP to strategize about how to manipulate board members. This is disturbing on so many levels. This is real scary authoritarian control. To threaten people’s careers and reputations. Don’t trust an ideology that can only win by threatening, manipulating and silencing people. They don’t want to debate. None of them will debate any of their critics. Educate yourself. Figure this out.”
We are nowhere near the end of the Critical Race Theory debacle and the battle could be for the future of our society as we know it.
