Gene Hamilton, Vice President and General Counsel of America First Legal (AFL), recently praised a lawsuit over the Education Department’s National Parents and Families Engagement Council that led to the council being disbanded.
“This is a significant victory for the American people,” Hamilton said in a post on the AFL website on December 5. “It was just a little over a year ago that the Biden Administration, through Attorney General Merrick Garland, made the decision to target parents for speaking out at school board meetings. Our lawsuit targeted their faux ‘National Parents and Families Engagement Council’ and the Administration’s attempt to use it to paper over their open hostility towards parents and families. While we continue to seek justice and accountability for the issuance of the Attorney General’s absurd October 2021 memorandum that initiated this whole sequence of events, we are tremendously proud to have partnered with other concerned patriots to effectively end the Biden Administration’s faux Council.”
The AFL filed a lawsuit in July along with organizations Parents Defending Education and Fight for Schools and Families, alleging that the Department of Education’s National Parents and Families Engagement Council was created without enough public notice, as well as without ensuring council members represented balanced and unbiased perspectives. This violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the release on the AFL website said.
Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to President Donald Trump, heads the AFL. Hamilton held multiple positions with the Department of Homeland Security. Most recently he was Counselor to the Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice before his role with AFL.
The Department of Education announced the launch of the council on June 14, and in the release on the DOE website it said the council would “facilitate strong and effective relationships between schools and parents, families and caregivers.” The council is made up of parents, families and caregivers from national organizations. It was designed as a channel for parents and families to “constructively participate in their children’s education by helping them understand the rights they have, create a feedback loop with schools to share how American Rescue Plan funds are deployed.” National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) President Anna King said that parents provide “critical perspective,” and always need to be present and involved when decisions are being made about their children.
“Parents are a child’s first teachers, and there’s no one better equipped to work with schools and educators to identify what students need to recover,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement in the release. “The National Parents and Families Engagement Council will serve as an important link between families and caregivers, education advocates and their school communities. The Council will help foster a collaborative environment where we can work together to serve the best interest of students and ensure they have the academic and mental health support they need to recover from the pandemic and thrive in the future.”
According to a Fox News report on December 2, a group of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was concerned over how the council seemed to be loaded with liberal-leaning groups who support critical race theory and gun control.
Cassidy said in a letter to Secretary Cardona, "During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became evident that facilitating the relationship between schools and parents is most successfully chartered at the local level. Therefore, I welcome the stated purpose of this council; however, it is troubling that you seem to have forgotten to include any actual families or local officials on it. Instead, the Department has filled the Council with organizations that have limited, if any engagement on the local level," the letter continued. "Most, if not all, of these organizations are liberal advocacy groups that seek to nationalize our education systems into a one-size-fits-all system while eliminating parental choice and leaving the individual needs of our students behind."
Senators who signed the letter included Richard Burr (R-NC), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Tim Scott (R-SC).
Members of the council reportedly include National Action Network which is headed by Democrat activist Rev. Al Sharpton and has been supported by President Joe Biden. The council also includes the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, which advocates for stricter gun control measures while also suing to keep mask mandates in Virginia Schools.
Another member of the council was the National Parents Union, which stated in a 2021 op-ed for Education Post that the group "believes that education systems must be transformed to eradicate generational institutions of oppression. For this reason, we strongly oppose the political and social movement that seeks to eliminate critical race theory from public education."
The League of United Latin American Citizens has members involved as well, Fox News reported.
