鈥淵ou better grow eyes in the back of your head,鈥� she said one person wrote in an email. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e going down,鈥� wrote another.

Toy-Dragoni said the vitriol began to intensify after the pandemic shuttered classes at the Pennsbury School District in Bucks County. What began as anger over school closures and mask mandates quickly turned 鈥� amid national pushback to critical race theory 鈥� to outrage over the district鈥檚 diversity and equity efforts. A barrage of hateful and violent emails left Toy-Dragoni, the school board president, feeling harassed and threatened, including by people who lived in other states.

鈥淚t鈥檚 unnerving because someone is saying they want nothing but harm to come to you and they鈥檙e emailing you 30 times about it,鈥� she told 社区黑料. 鈥淵ou start to think 鈥榃ell, how long are they going to wait for this harm to come to me?鈥欌��

As public education leaders from across the country come forward with stories about receiving death threats amid political strife over the pandemic and classroom lessons on systemic racism, a partisan feud has coalesced around the free-speech rights of infuriated parents. In a recent letter, the National School Boards Association warned of an 鈥渋mmediate threat鈥� against school leaders and called on the Biden administration to clamp down on what it referred to as 鈥渄omestic terrorism.鈥� In a follow-up memo, Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed federal law enforcement to create a plan to combat a 鈥渄isturbing spike鈥� in threats against school board members. Republican lawmakers and conservative advocacy groups, meanwhile, have accused the Biden administration of stifling frustrated parents in violation of the First Amendment. 

The issue has highlighted a tension between ensuring school board members are safe while protecting the free-speech rights of aggrieved citizens.

Because of the Justice Department memo, parents are afraid to speak up at school board meetings due to a 鈥減oisonous chilling effect,鈥� Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said during a Senate hearing Wednesday. And while the national school boards group has since used in its letter, Garland didn鈥檛 back down on efforts to investigate what he called an increase in violent threats against educators and other public servants. 

As the Senate hearing was underway, activists held a rally outside the national school board group鈥檚 headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

A spokesperson for the national school boards group declined to comment. Several state school boards groups, including the one in Pennsylvania, over the issue.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a rising tide of threats of violence against judges, against prosecutors, against secretaries of state, against election administrators, against doctors, against protesters, against news reporters,鈥� Garland said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the reason we responded as quickly as we did.鈥�

A 鈥榯rue threat?鈥�

The Constitution doesn鈥檛 guarantee 鈥渁 dialectical free-for-all,鈥� and the Supreme Court has long held that true threats of violence are not constitutionally protected speech, said Clay Calvert, the director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida. But the issue at hand, he said, isn鈥檛 鈥渂lack and white.鈥�

鈥淭here鈥檚 a difference between how we colloquially think of a threat versus the legal standards for what really is a threat, which are going to be much higher,鈥� he said. 

Parents have a First Amendment right to criticize government employees through offensive speech, he said, and officials must analyze on a case-by-case basis whether someone鈥檚 speech goes beyond protected dialogue.

鈥淎 true threat is a statement that would place a person in fear of imminent bodily harm or death,鈥� he said, but does not include 鈥減olitical hyperbole.鈥� In a 1969 case, the Supreme Court who was arrested after he said that if he were drafted into the Vietnam War and forced to carry a rifle, 鈥渢he first man I want to get in my sights鈥� is then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. The statement was crude political hyperbole rather than a true threat, the court ruled. The line between true threats and hyperbole, Calvert said, are not always clear and the Supreme Court has yet to offer a concrete definition. He said that police often err on the side of silencing speakers in the interest of public safety and debating the issue in court later.

Meanwhile, police departments are 鈥渁lways walking the tightrope鈥� when investigating whether someone鈥檚 statements go beyond those permitted by the Constitution, said attorney John Driscoll, a former New York City police officer who served 11 years as head of the NYPD Captains Endowment Association. Officers are in charge of preventing immediate threats and most departments employ legal experts who determine whether someone broke the law, he said.

鈥淵ou can voice your opinion, even if you鈥檙e the only one who thinks that way, but you don鈥檛 have the right to physically threaten and intimidate people,鈥� said Driscoll, who taught constitutional law at NYC鈥檚 John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He said the tense political environment has made it more difficult for officers to do their jobs. 鈥淏ecause of social media, the schism in the country has gotten a lot more extreme on both sides. There doesn鈥檛 seem to be too much moderation and police, as usual, are stuck in the middle trying to navigate this and protect people at the same time.”

But Toy-Dragoni, the Pennsylvania school board president, said the statements she鈥檚 faced reached the bar of being considered death threats and were clearly designed to incite intimidation. Among the messages, she was warned to 鈥渟leep with one eye open,鈥� and that 鈥渨e will never stop until you are done.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 a level of hate, it sets you on edge,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut did they straight up say 鈥楴ext week I鈥檓 going to kill you?鈥� No. But I鈥檝e never heard of anyone saying that to anyone ever, even when they do get killed by that person.鈥�

Threats reported nationwide

The messages delivered to Toy-Dragoni are part of a national trend. School board members have reported receiving threatening letters, being followed and screamed at in board meetings. 

After Las Vegas school district employees were mandated to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the school board president saying she should be hanged or shot. In New Jersey, two board members in the mail with their photos in the crosshairs of a gun.

Sami Al-Abdrabbuh, chair of the Corvallis Board of Education in Oregon, also highlighted several incidents this year that he perceived as death threats. On the same day his campaign sign was discovered at a local shooting range with bullet holes, he said a man showed up outside his friend鈥檚 house and asked 鈥淲here is Sami? I want to kill him and I鈥檓 going to kill you if you don鈥檛 tell me where he is.鈥�

Local police were notified of the incident but have not arrested a suspect, Al-Abdrabbuh told 社区黑料, and a friend who served in the Navy helped him develop a safety plan.

鈥淢ake sure, before you leave the house, look from the window and make sure you can go to your car,鈥� he said. 鈥淏efore I enter my house I have a way to make sure nothing has been tampered.鈥�

Protests in other communities have grown so raucous that they prevented school boards from conducting official business. That energy and activism is being harnessed by conservatives and Republicans, particularly Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glen Youngkin, who has with Democrat Terry McAuliffe in next week鈥檚 election.

In , Calvert of the University of Florida called public comments at government functions like school board meetings 鈥減erhaps the purest form of citizen political expression鈥� 鈥� the precise speech the First Amendment sought to protect. The Constitution doesn鈥檛 enshrine a public platform before school boards and other public bodies and they can impose certain rules so long as they鈥檙e 鈥渃ontent neutral鈥� and apply to all speakers evenly. For example, 鈥渢ime, place and manner鈥� restrictions can limit how long speakers occupy the podium and can prohibit people from restricting government bodies from carrying out business. 

鈥淚nterrupting does nobody any good,鈥� Calvert said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the heckler鈥檚 veto notion that the audience should not have the ability to heckle or drown out the speaker.鈥�

During Wednesday鈥檚 Senate hearing, Republican lawmakers repeatedly noted a concern that the Justice Department memo could have a chilling effect on parents鈥� free-speech rights and that federal intervention was unnecessary. Those concerns mirrored a letter from 17 state attorneys general earlier this month, accusing the Biden administration of 鈥渟eeking to criminalize lawful dissent and intimidate parents into silence鈥� in violation of the First Amendment.

Garland maintained that his memo only focused on threats and violence and drew a clear distinction between such messages and constitutionally protected speech. 

鈥淚t makes absolutely clear in the first paragraph that spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution,鈥� he told lawmakers. 鈥淭hat includes debate by parents criticizing school boards.鈥� 

Education activist Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, said it鈥檚 important for parents to remain engaged and they must not shy away from making themselves heard at school board meetings. In just the last six weeks, Rodrigues has attended a dozen school board meetings across the country where parents didn鈥檛 focus on mask mandates or critical race theory. Instead, she said they were concerned about unreliable school transportation and food shortages in cafeterias. Yet those voices, she said, are being drowned out by 鈥減eople who are behaving badly and who are exercising their anger in ways that are really unproductive.鈥� 

鈥淧arents have really deep, serious concerns about what is happening right now with our kids that have nothing to do with the culture war,鈥� she said. 鈥淧arents are showing up to have that conversation but it鈥檚 sexier to show white parents that are losing their minds at a microphone. It鈥檚 heartbreaking because we have real, serious and sober work to do to help our kids recover from this pandemic.”

For Toy-Dragoni, parent outrage during the pandemic forced her to reconsider her place in education policy. She said she sought her seat on the school board because she鈥檚 a mother who wanted to create additional afterschool activities in her community but will no longer serve on the board after this year. She decided not to run for reelection after the pandemic prompted parental uproar in her community. But now, after the situation has gotten even worse, she said she regrets the decision to step aside. 

鈥淗aving gone through all of this, I would have run again so that they wouldn鈥檛 feel like they ran me out of town,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is 100 percent part of a national agenda to get decent people out of local office by making it absolutely miserable for them.鈥�