The Daily Signal - How One Man Leads the Charge Against Woke School Boards

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

When it comes to fighting back against woke indoctrination and critical race theory in schools, Ian Prior is perhaps the happiest of warriors. Prior is executive director of Fight for Schools, an organization dedicated to exposing bad actors in the public school system in Loudoun County, Virginia and mobilizing parents to improve education for their children. “We want to have a school system where our teachers are shaping future leaders, mentally tough leaders, hardworking leaders, people that will do the best that they can to get where they need to be. And we don’t need to be dividing along these identity group lines,” Prior says. Prior joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss his fight against a woke school board and offer advice to others addressing these and similar issues in their school districts. We also cover these stories: Former President Donald Trump announces a class action lawsuit against tech giants Twitter, Facebook, and Google. President Joe Biden condemns the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and the wounding of his wife as a “heinous act.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets virtually with Uyghur Muslims detained in Chinese reeducation camps. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, July 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. Loudoun County, Virginia has received national attention for the woke policies coming from its school board. Executive Director of Parent Advocacy Group Fight for Schools Ian Pryor has been on the front line of the fight against woke school officials in Loudoun County. He joins the Daily Signal podcast today to discuss Fight for School successes in the battle against woke school boards and to offer advice to others who see these radical leftist values cropping up in their school district. And don't forget, if you enjoy listening to The Daily Signal podcast, please be sure to take just a moment to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

Former President Donald Trump announced a class action lawsuit against tech giants, Twitter, Facebook, and Google on Wednesday. The lawsuits come after Twitter permanently banned Trump from the platform and Facebook suspended him for at least two years. following the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump announced the suit from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, per the sun. Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I'm filing as the lead class representative a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sunder Pochet, and Jack Dorsey.

Three real nice guys. Trump explained that the lawsuit aims to put an end to the canceling, blacklisting, and shadow banning of so many by social media companies. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful. It's unconstitutional, and it's completely un-American. We all know that. We know all know that very, very well. Our filing also seeks injunctive relief to allow prompt restitution and really restoration, and you can name about 20 other things that it has to be prompt because it's destroying our country.

Of my accounts, in addition, we are asking the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants. We're going to hold big tech very accountable. This is the first of numerous other lawsuits, I assume, that would follow. But this is the lead, and I think it's going to be a very, very important game changer for our country. It will be a pivotal battle in the defense of the First Amendment, and in the end, I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom, and at the same time, freedom of speech. The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden condemned the assassination of Haitian President Jovenin Mouise, along with the attack on First Lady Martine Mouinz, as a heinous act.

Mouise was shot and killed in his house early Wednesday morning, while his wife was sent to the hospital with injuries sustained during the attack. Biden issued his condolences and pledged American support to Haiti during the transition period. In a statement issued Wednesday, Biden said, We are shocked and saddened to hear of the horrific assassination of President Jovenan-Muiz and the attack on First Lady Martine Mouise of Haiti. We condemn this heinous act, and I am sending my sincere wishes for First Lady Mouise's recovery. The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti,

and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti. While information on the assassination is currently scarce, Haitian interim leader Claude Joseph confirmed, Ruiz's death and said that the police and military had control of the situation on the island. Mouise's killing comes on the heels of increased political violence in the country, along with a sharp rise of gang violence in the Haitian capital, Porta Prince. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met virtually Tuesday with Uyghur Muslims who were detained in Chinese re-education camps.

The secretary wanted to hear directly from the group of seven Uyghurs to learn their stories and understand what they are facing as a people. Group. Department of State spokesman Ned Price said it's an opportunity for these participants to offer any recommendations they may have. The Chinese government has detained more than one million Uyghurs for the purpose of re-educating them. Both Trump and the Biden administration did and have put sanctions on China for the human rights abuses against the weaker people. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Fight for Schools Executive Director Ian Pryor as we discuss what's happening in Loudoun County and how his group is fighting back.

Never has it been more important for us to fight for America. Each day we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation. Our elections are under assault. Our economic freedom is on the decline and our culture is turning its back on the founding principles that have made us the freest, most prosperous nation in history. That's why the Heritage Foundation developed the plan to take on the left and take back our country. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of heritage recommended action items delivered on a regular basis to your inbox. Make an impact in your community and in our country.

Sign up for the Citizens Guide at heritage.org slash citizens guide and join in the fight for America today. My guest today is Ian Pryor, an outspoken advocate against critical race theory in loud County Schools. Ian is the executive director of Fight for Schools, senior counsel for unsilenced majority, as well as the co-founder of the Daily Malarkey Daily Newsletter. Welcome to the show, Ian. Thanks for having me. Great. So, as I mentioned at the top, you are the executive director of Fight for Schools, which is a group that is sort of at the forefront of the war on the left in our schools. So can you tell our listeners a bit about what Fight for Schools does and why you decided to start it?

Yeah, sure. So I'll back up to kind of the beginning of this story. You know, really it was about last September, October, that I started doing a little investigation into what was happening in Loudoun County Public Schools. I'd seen a Washington Free Beacon article talking about how they were using teaching tolerance materials, which is an arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. And I said, you know, that's pretty political. Why are schools getting involved in that? And, you know, ultimately, I did some research into this high-price consultant. that they had hired to really start what they call their equity committee, their equity office, run focus groups throughout the schools and do teacher trainings. Found out they spent about $500,000 on that. Then there was a couple of other things I looked into, a proposed teacher code of conduct, which would have disciplined teachers for speaking out against, you know, what they thought was the wrong direction of the school system, even on their own private time. So I ended up writing an op-ed, kind of combining those two things.

and I spoke at a school board meeting really on the First Amendment rights of teachers and students. Fast forward to March, I think you had this private Facebook group called the anti-racist parents of Loudoun County. In that group, you had the Commonwealth Attorney for Loudoun County. You had a member of the board of supervisors and you had six school board members, which is important because six school board members makes a quorum and turns this into what should be a public meeting. In that private Facebook group, one of the school board members really kind of lit up. fire saying we need to speak out against these people that are opposing critical race theory in schools. And that ultimately led to a call to action from somebody in there that they needed to infiltrate

these groups that were opposed to critical race theory, publicly expose them, and hack their websites, either to shut them down or to direct them to pro-critical race theory websites. And then ultimately, what happened is dozens of parents were listed. You know, not just those that were opposed to critical race theory, but those that had gone to school board meetings, the previous year and into that spring speaking up for opening schools, people that were speaking on behalf of teacher and student First Amendment rights and those that were opposed to critical race theory. And it really created an uproar in the community. Certainly there was a lot of press on that.

I was more than happy to engage in that because I think that kind of cancel culture behavior needs to be exposed and you can't play defense with that. But ultimately we had about eight parents, a bipartisan group of parents that met on a back deck in our neighborhood and really talked about, well, what can we do? This school board has not been listening to parents throughout the entire opening schools, you know, controversy. Now they're engaged in private Facebook groups discussing school-related material. They've just lost their way.

They have no trust in the community. And so we decided that we would form a political action committee, nonpartisan, call it fight for schools. So fight for our schools is a larger organization where parents can come together to fight the left, As you've mentioned, it's more of a thing where parents come together to do this. I'm curious if you see a role for individual activists on this issue. Is there something that they can do? And if so, what is that role? You know, I think every individual really needs to kind of look in the mirror when it comes to these local elections.

And that's the first step. And I've said it before. I mean, you know, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We have sort of let this happen to our local school boards, our state. education department where we've just assumed that, you know, they're going to be non-political and they're going to focus on excellence in education, meritocracy, making sure that everybody has an equal opportunity to succeed and learn, you know, all the necessities to succeed in life. What I've found now and what all of us have found is that's not the case. Politics has bled

into the local level right under our very noses. So for people that, you know, that want to get involved, I would say, first, speak at your school board meetings. Find out what's going on. Talk to your neighbors, talk to your children, most importantly, talk to their teachers, use Freedom of Information Act requests to find out exactly what materials your students are learning. I think the pandemic provided an excellent opportunity and really gave rise to this parents movement where people started seeing this is what my kids are being taught on their Chromebooks at five, six, seven years old and realizing that, you know, something is not, something's rotten in the state of education. And, you know, it's important to follow up on those, you know, writing letters to the

editor when you have that information, communicating things to the media, doing all the things that really we've been doing. You know, it started as me because I've, you know, I've been working in this media relations business for a while now. But I think what you've seen out here is other parents have been speaking up and now they have those contacts as well. So, you know, when you look at Loudoun and people talk about Loudoun as Ground Zero, I also call it the Loudoun Awakening. This is where, you know, everything is really, you know, kind of lighting a spark throughout the nation. It's right outside of Washington, D.C. A lot of policymakers live here, a lot of people that, you know, know how to get things done. They're doers. And that's why I think

this movement here is taken off so quickly. That's fantastic. And I actually find it so fascinating that Loudoun County is this hotbed and sort of a ground zero for these kinds of activities. My next question was about that. Why does Loudoun County in particular seem to be such a hotbed for this activity? We had the Tanner Cross saga where a PE teacher was suspended from school for basically saying, hey, I'm a Christian, I'm not going to refer to a transgender student by a different pronoun because it goes against my faith. He gets suspended for that.

You mentioned that there was this anti-CRT secret, you know, Facebook group. This seems to be something that happens quite a bit in Loudoun County. Why is it Loudoun County that has all these problems? That's a great question. And, you know, I obviously point the fingers at the school board and the superintendent. You know, it's every time I think that, all right, things are going to die down a little bit. We can focus on collecting signatures, you know, something else happens that feeds right into what our message is, and that is you have a school system and a school board that is fully committed to

their own ideology, and anybody else that speaks out against it, they do not want to hear from, whether it's a teacher coming on his own personal time to speak at an open comment period where they invited comments, or it's parents clapping for somebody that gave a speech and then them shutting down public comments, or it's, you know, a school committee in March said right after this list-making occurrence, you know, we have the numbers. We can and will silence the opposition. So, you know, I think there's a lot of hostility to the First Amendment rights of students, parents, and teachers. And I think there's a lot of disrespect to the parents that are going out there and really just simply trying to make their voices heard. You know, it's unfortunate that

you have these individuals out there in all levels of government that look at parents as their political enemies. It doesn't have to be that way. You know, you don't have to attack parents. that are trying to speak up for what they believe is right. But the fact is that, you know, you see it on social media, and that's kind of really the devil, is how these politicians and these elected officials act on social media to their constituents. And, you know, it's really just gotten out of control. And I think that, you know, we've exposed a lot of how that works, and we're going to continue to do that.

So we've discussed some of these various things that the Loudoun County School Board and the Loudoun County School system have put. forth in terms of radical leftist policies. In your opinion, what is the most egregious example of that? What can you sort of point to as like, yep, this is the biggest issue? You know, I think the biggest issue comes with how they train their teachers. You know, they always say, well, we don't teach critical race theory. Well, no one's saying that you teach critical race theory 101. Okay. We understand that. But what we've seen, especially through the documents that they use to train teachers, I mean, there's one in particular that I think is, is probably the most

grievous of all of them, you know, it's a chart. You're, you're either an oppressor and you're in this column or you're the oppressed and you're in this column. So obviously if you're, you know, you're white, you're an oppressor, but if you're thin, you're an oppressor. How about this one? This one's the craziest of all. If you're a light-skinned individual of a minority race, you are an oppressor vis-a-vis a dark-skinned person of the same race. And that's really what it's about. It's all about dividing along these lines. And it's, you know, it's absolute insanity. I mean, yeah, that seems just absolutely crazy. I'm actually reading an article right now.

Referencing back to the Tanner Cross transgender issue, Virginia has basically said that local schools should probably start moving towards eliminating, quote, gender-based practices, which would say things like, oh, a father-daughter dance. That's not okay anymore because it's a gender-based practice. It offends somebody. I mean, what do we do with this information? Like, how do we deal with this? Yeah, I mean, it's really insane that you have school systems that are focusing on this after a year when kids were not getting their proper training and education, right? And so you have massive learning loss. You have special ed students that are fallen even further behind. You have mental health issues. And they're focusing on these kind of controversies that really don't have a majority support.

What they should be doing is instead focusing on excellence in education, focusing on, look, we need competitive students. Compassionate, yes, but competitive. We want to have a school system where, you know, our teachers are shaping future leaders, mentally tough leaders, hardworking leaders, people that will do the best that they can to get where they need to be. And we don't need to be dividing along these, you know, identity group lines. We should be focusing on building strong individuals that are compassionate to their classmates, but are also want to get ahead. They want to do better in school. They want to take AP calculus, advanced math, get advanced diplomas, go to good colleges. Instead, we're focusing on these issues that, you know, it seems like the majority of their time are on these social,

partisan issues that have really divided a community. Definitely. Let's maybe shift gears from the more negative aspects of this to some of the more positive things. What would you view as a success. If you could point back to fight for schools and say, you know what, mission accomplished, we did it. I think long term, it's a bigger picture thing. It's, you know, lighting this spark that gets parents to pay attention to what is going on in their public schools and being more, you know, outspoken in what it is we need, whether it's policy changes, whether that's school choice, whether that's parents groups, having a seat at the table on how these policies are decided at the local level, or even if it's just getting people to go out there and really research who it is

that's running for school board and engage in those elections. You know, everybody is so focused on what happens at the national level. But really, what happens at the school level is, quite frankly, far more important for two reasons. First, that's going to impact how your children are able to learn and ultimately succeed or not succeed in life. And secondly, you know, the people that you elect to your school boards, you know, those are going to, those could be future leaders nationally as well. And so you can't ignore these, these posts and these elected spots because this is really the, I think, the breeding ground for, you know, potentially a lot of problems, but potentially also a lot of successes. In terms of, which is great to acknowledge that these

are sort of the successes that we're looking for, can you point to any of those particular successes that we can, you know, look back as as evidence that fight for our schools is working? We've been talking to everybody in the community. I mean, when you're going out there, going door to door, having events, you get to talk to people. And you learn about all the different concerns and priorities that folks have. And, you know, it really gives you a sense of what's going on. Whereas, you know, if you're elected to the school board, you get elected in 2019, you know, are you really going door to door?

Are you really talking outside of your echo chamber? Probably not. We are. You know, we're going out. You know, I went door to door. I talked to somebody who was not for what we were doing, and you know what, that's fine. There are going to be people out there, and you're going to learn what they think. And it's been a really interesting sort of experiment in democracy that we have been able to

unify different groups. And I would also say, after the Tanner Cross situation, I think it started bringing more people to see what we were doing. And, you know, it's really unified a bunch of different kinds of different. coalitions. I think the other important thing that's a positive is you start realizing that when you get down to this local level, the R versus D doesn't really matter anymore. The people that are, you know, I may, I have people on my board of fight for schools that, I don't know, maybe I don't agree with them on immigration policy or, you know, other hot button issues in the world. But on

this issue, we are aligned. And I think that there's an opportunity for parents to, at the local level to really sort of departisanize and focus themselves on this one issue and come to, you know, an agreement that what we want is excellency, meritocracy, mentally tough students and hardworking students that are provided the opportunity to succeed. So I think, you know, if we're talking about long-term goals, is having people at the local level being able to put aside their partisanship on some of the hotter button issues and really focus on the core mission of of a public education system. That's such a great point to

de-partisanize it, right? To make it that we're not fighting about R&D, we're not fighting about left and right, we're not fighting about red versus blue. It's what is best for the kids? You know, it's the kids that are very much the focus here. I wanted to give you the last word here. We are running a little low on time,

but if you had one thing you wanted our listeners to take away from this interview, what would it be? And then more specifically, could you give our listeners some recommendations on how to get involved in these anti-CRT, anti-leftist policy rhetoric in the schools? Sure.

Well, again, I think getting involved is crucially important. And it really comes back to having conversations, you know. Get off social media where you can talk to your neighbors, talk to other parents, you know, have those day-to-day conversations that you can have more nuance and you can discuss more things without it seeming like you're attacking somebody. You know, always try and get the other side's perspective. And look, it's, you know, you may not always agree with who you're talking to, but if you can kind of convince them 1% your way and they can convince you 1% their way, then you're moving forward to, you know, a kind of cohesion of minds where we can ultimately unify people in a way that they can focus on schools. As far as, you know, tactical things, you know, I say it like this, you've got to investigate first, right? You got to investigate. That means, like I said, talking to people, sending FOIA requests, talking to your teachers, asking for

for the materials, look on your kids' Chromebooks, you'll find all sorts of things there. Then you have to communicate, communicate it, to communicate it to the rest of your community, communicate it through the media, communicate it through letters to the editor, and then finally activate. If there is something wrong,

then you need to activate a network of like-minded people that are willing to go out there and do the hard work. You know, it's not easy going door to door, it's not easy putting yourself out there as a parent and getting attacked by, you know, your local school board member, but you have to do it. If you want to make change,

really have to investigate, communicate, and activate. Great advice. That was Ian Pryor, an outspoken advocate against critical race theory in Loudoun County Schools. Ian is the executive director of Fight for Schools, co-founder of the Daily Malarkey newsletter, and Senior Council for Unsilenced Majority. Ian, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. And that'll do it for today's episode.

Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.