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Maud Maron is an attorney, mom, former school board member, and now an independent candidate for New York City Council. She knows firsthand how high the temperature can get at school board meetings.

"We're sort of algorithmically set up to run to the far corners of our positions instead of finding the middle ground," she says.

As for calls for federal law enforcement to investigate school board meeting outbursts, Maron says:

"Offering your opinion at a public meeting in a public setting is a quintessentially important American thing to do," she says. "It's a protected right, and it's something that we absolutely need to make sure is not ... stopped or intimidated."

While parents are showing up concerned about what their kids are learningat school, politics are also at play at school board meetings across the country.

Right-wing groups have often returned to public schools as a culture war battleground," Peter Montgomery says. "But it is also clearly an attempt to rile up and mobilize."

This hour, On Point: Inside the school board culture wars.

Peter Montgomery, senior fellow at Right Wing Watch, a progressive advocacy group. (@petemont)

Noah Weinrich, spokesman for Heritage Action for America. (@weinrich_noah)

Laura Vozzella, Virginia politics reporter at the Washington Post. (@LVozzella)

Shirley Brown, chair of the Sarasota County School Board.

Maud Maron, New York City Council candidate. (@MaudMaron)

On the politics at play at school board meetings

Peter Montgomery: It is a continuation of that trend that you talk about, for public schools to become cultural battlegrounds and political battlegrounds. I think one thing that's different right now is that there's a coming together of COVID conspiracies and people who view masks and vaccine requirements as a form of tyranny. And that's coming together with this manufactured right-wing campaign against critical race theory.

"And then preexisting concerns, and concerns that are being inflamed about the teaching of racism in schools, but also the inclusion of LGBTQ students. So there's a number of issues that are being used by right-wing groups to stir up people to show up at school board meetings, to run for school board and to try to take them over.

The National School Board Association wrote a letter on September 29th to the Biden administration, requesting that the Department of Justice look to the Patriot Act and consider some of these acts as domestic terrorism. Is that an overstep?

Peter Montgomery: It's really important to distinguish between what the School Board Association asked for and the Department of Justice has done, and what Republicans and right-wing groups are mischaracterizing. Nobody is trying to treat concerned parents as domestic terrorists just for showing up, something that the Heritage Foundation claimed in an email just this morning.

"The concern that was raised was about the increasing level of harassment and threats of violence directed at school board members and educators. ... The Justice Department made it clear that they support the right for spirited debate, and this is not an effort to silence people who want to show up and yell at their school board members. It's an effort to deal seriously with criminal acts like harassment, and threats of violence and actual acts of violence.

What are some of the organizations that are fomenting controversy?

Peter Montgomery: The Heritage Foundation, one of the large, influential think tanks on the political right in the U.S. ... They're encouraging people to report examples of critical race theory. And they and other organizations put out information, like if you see these words, that's critical race theory sneaking into school. And they're words like diversity, and equity and inclusion. And so they're creating this boogeyman out there that they can then use to stoke controversy.

"The Leadership Institute, a long-time conservative organization, is training people to run for school boards and take over school boards. The Family Research Council is raising money to, for what it says, is to train candidates to take over school boards. And they say that in June, they had a boot camp that trained 1,200 parents to do that.

"And this goes across what we might think of as the right-wing. From people like Heritage Foundation, and the Leadership Institute to newer organizations like Turning Point USA, which is a right-wing youth organizing group. Part of the Koch Brothers network like FreedomWorks, religious right groups like the Family Research Council. They have all jumped on the bandwagon because they see it as an issue that they can exploit to try to make political gains this year, and in 2022 and 2024.

On the fear that drives the school board culture wars

Peter Montgomery: "What we're seeing is really harmful to communities. When I heard you playing that tape of some of the anger coming out at meetings, I thought about some of the Tea Party meetings that we heard where people were fueled to anger with lies about what the Affordable Care Act would do, and how it was going to destroy Medicare. And so all this anger was created really around lies. But it worked for the right, if your only value is winning the next election.

"It helped people turn out to the vote and win. And I think some of that is what we're seeing here. You can often mobilize people if you make them fearful and angry. And you say that their children are being threatened by teachers in public schools who have evil intent. Some of the groups that are involved in this anti-CRT campaign have long records of trying to sow distrust in public education, and that plays into this as well."

On how to create civil school board meetings

Peter Montgomery: [Make] it clear that people do have the right to speak. They're not trying to silence people. Neither was the federal government trying to silence people. They are concerned about criminal acts. They're concerned about some of this hostility leading to violence. And I think that parents, and parents groups and people that are organizing parents should also be concerned about the level of anger and fear that they're ramping up. And maybe get their activists to engage civilly.

Right Wing Watch: "Turning Point USA Targets School Boards Over Evil Mask Requirements and Radical Training on Bias and Inequality | Right Wing Watch" "Turning Point USA, an organization that trains and mobilizes right-wing college students, launched a project targeting public school boards on August 15, the Documented newsletter reported."

Right Wing Watch: "The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race Theory" "The right-wing campaign to stifle teaching and discussion about racism in U.S. history and institutions is fearmongering about critical race theory to mobilize right-wing activists and conservative voters to take over local school boards."

Right Wing Watch: "Family Research Council Raises Money for Right-Wing School Board Takeover Campaign" "Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is raising money to promote right-wing takeovers of local school boards."

Spectrum News 1: "Conservative groups are training activists to swarm school board meetings" "Blanca Martinez stepped up to the podium at a recent meeting of the Fort Worth School Board."

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Why school boards are a nexus of America's culture wars - WBUR

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell, University of Kansas

American diversity is in the spotlight as racial discrimination in the United States reemerges as a major topic of public discussion, touching everything from education to housing to policing.

The context of the quality of American diversity is inescapable as multiple debates around race relations continue to rage.

We tend to think of diversity in demographic terms, but thats an incomplete take. It has a qualitative element to it it exists as a reality with which we all interact.

The debate around voting rights, for example, applies to an American electorate that overwhelmingly lives in racially segregated communities.

Even the bans on critical race theory the academic movement that examines how racism has shaped public policy will be implemented in currently racially segregated schools.

But the quality of diversity is rarely discussed in popular culture.

The meaning of words like equity and inclusion used often in discussions of diversity is difficult to grasp until Americans address what they think diversity looks like. Thats because the quality of diversity comprises both a political and moral stance from which equity and inclusion derive meaning.

The quality of diversity is how Americans exist among each other. It can be described in two ways: segregated coexistence and living in community.

These two terms reflect a fundamental battle in American culture between segregation and integration. As a curriculum theorist who studies how race impacts education and society, I believe it is necessary to acknowledge this distinction.

Segregated coexistence is a standard of diversity that relies on a surface-level demography that you could call diverse because different races all live in one geographic region, such as cities like Detroit or my native Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Beneath this demography, the reality is a ubiquitous state of de facto racial segregation where enclaves are so numerous in American cities that people easily associate races and ethnicities with certain neighborhoods, schools and ZIP codes.

An August 2021 map compiled by CNN based on 2020 census data vividly lays bare the endemic residential segregation in the U.S.

In June 2021, the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research group, released a report on residential segregation. Out of every metropolitan region in the United States with more than 200,000 residents, 81% (169 out of 209) were more segregated as of 2019 than they were in 1990, the report noted.

It also asserted that 83% of neighborhoods that were given poor ratings (or redlined) in the 1930s by a federal mortgage policy that denied Blacks mortgages were as of 2010 highly segregated communities of color.

Segregated coexistence is the racist seed from which many contemporary conflicts about race have their roots.

Thats because segregating where people live is physical confirmation of their forced inferiority. Denying them equitable treatment in other areas becomes easy once they have been denied the freedom of movement.

Living in community is a different reality. Its not easily achieved because integration is hard for many reasons.

Before different races can live in community there must first be interracial justice that leads to racial reconciliation. Noted scholar Eric Yamamoto describes this process as the recognition of the historical and contemporary harm different racial groups have caused one another, affirmative efforts to address justice grievances and the restructuring of present-day race relations in such a way that broken relationships are healed.

The success or failure of integration depends on whether Americans want to racially reconcile or if they are so accustomed to the conflict that they cannot come together.

This means remaking how governments allocate resources , including providing equitable funding for schools and, in the private sector, diversifying executive leadership.

Doing that work means answering the political and moral question that has been with us since this countrys founding: How should we treat those whom we see as different from us?

This question permeates everything from civil rights cases before the Supreme Court to whom we welcome as neighbors or ostracize as outsiders and trespassers.

All these debates have momentous implications for Americas domestic stability. But they are often discussed as a matter of theory and political talking points, with no grounding in the real world.

If we are going to debate diversity in any situation, perhaps we should ask ourselves if we want to live in segregated enclaves or in community, with the full knowledge of what that means and what our answer says about us as individuals and as a nation.

[Understand whats going on in Washington. Sign up for The Conversations Politics Weekly.]

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies, University of Kansas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The first battle in the culture wars: The quality of diversity | Opinion - pennlive.com

During the Donald Trump era, AT&T endured repeated shots from the president for its acquisition and ownership of CNN the cable news network he and his supporters regularly labeled as fake news.

Not even a year after a White House changing of the guard, the Dallas-based telecommunications giant is in the political culture wars crosshairs again. This time, its Democratic and moderate Republican activists taking aim at its financial support for burgeoning right-wing extremism in the U.S.

The ire stems from newly surfaced court testimony and records suggesting right-wing broadcast network One America News Network wouldnt exist without AT&Ts backing.

A week into the festering controversy, AT&Ts only public comment is a prepared statement to The Dallas Morning News.

AT&T has never had a financial interest in OANs success and does not fund OAN, the statement said in part. CNN is the only news network we fund because its a part of AT&T.

For a company that traces its history to Alexander Graham Bells invention of the telephone in 1876, its an uncomfortable spotlight thats only widened since the OAN revelation.

In the week following the Reuters report, the hashtag #BoycottATT harnessed mostly by democratic political organizations has reached 2.5 million users via hundreds of posts on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, according to social media research firm Brandmentions.

OAN, the cable network owned by Robert Herring Sr., garnered frequent praise from Trump for its adoring coverage of his presidency. Its also been accused of spreading conspiracy theories, debunked lies about the outcome of the 2020 election and about the COVID-19 pandemic thats taken the lives of 722,000 Americans. In June, OAN anchor Pearson Sharp falsely claimed Democrats stole the election from Trump and suggested executing those responsible.

The OAN controversy is rooted in AT&Ts strategic shift into the world of media.

It embarked on a series of deals in the mid-2010s aimed at morphing its business from one that simply controls wired and wireless infrastructure into a modern media company that brings consumers entertainment and news content.

That played out during Randall Stephensons tenure as CEO. Now, his successor John Stankey is tasked with unraveling the multibillion-dollar deals that brought satellite cable provider DirecTV and Time Warner under its corporate umbrella and returning the company to its telecom roots.

The Reuters report, titled How AT&T helped build far-right One America News, cites 2019 testimony from OAN owner Herring in a court case unrelated to AT&T. He said AT&T executives were the inspiration for creating the network in 2013.

They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [left wing] side, Herring said in a court deposition, according to the report.

OAN was being carried on AT&Ts U-Verse TV service when the company, ready to enter the world of media in a larger way, announced its intent to acquire DirecTV. Herring sued over concerns AT&T would migrate its U-Verse customers over to DirecTV, which didnt carry OAN.

AT&T eventually settled with OAN. According to Herring, the deal provided OAN with tens of millions of dollars over a five-year period, and a considerable platform on DirecTV for the nascent network to reach U.S. households.

The fees earned from OANs contract with AT&T-owned television platforms provide the network with 90% of its revenue, according to Reuters, citing statements made under oath by OANs accountant.

At one point shortly after the network launched, AT&T even attempted to buy a 5% stake in Herrings company, Reuters found.

Basically AT&T, at the time, came to them and dangled a real serious business partnership, Angelo Carusone, CEO of progressive media watchdog group Media Matters, said on MSNBC.

One was possibly investing and buying a chunk of the company, but the more tantalizing thing was to say, Well guarantee you enough revenue that even if you dont get commercials, even if you have almost no viewers, you will still be a profitable company as long as you exist and take this deal.

In its statement, AT&T downplayed its role in boosting the network.

When we acquired DirecTV, Herring pressured us for months to carry OAN. We rejected their offer and in response, Herring Networks sued us, claiming we deliberately intended to injure Herring. Only as part of the settlement of that lawsuit did DirecTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN four years ago.

But the fees committed to OAN in the carriage deal would have been about 18 times the market value at the time, Carusone said, referring to it as outrageously high. Reuters characterizes the relationship with AT&T as lucrative for OAN.

AT&T wasnt alone in wanting a piece of the network.

Roughly 10 months prior to the 2020 election, OANs growing importance in far-right political circles garnered the interest of conservatives across the country.

Led by a Dallas-based private equity arm of Hicks Holdings the Dallas family office of Tom Hicks, father of Republican National Committee co-chair Tommy Hicks Jr. Hicks Equity Partners was interested in making a bid for the network. That deal never materialized.

Marc Ambinder, a senior fellow at the University of Southern Californias Annenberg Center for Communication Leadership and Policy, described AT&Ts agreement to carry the network as a reflection of AT&Ts realization that right-wing eyeballs mean big money.

On Friday, Herring spoke out for the first time, describing the Reuters investigation as a biased hit piece and disputing the testimony from OANs own accountant about AT&Ts carriage fees making up 90% of the companys funding.

I wish it was [true], he said in an interview with his network. AT&T pays us a very small amount compared to what they pay other channels. We do get enough that we can survive on.

Herring said AT&T has never told the network what to broadcast.

All the people that are on the other side theyre all trying to get rid of us, Herring said. Were making some changes in America, and were going to keep doing that.

In August, AT&T completed a deal to spin off its TV and streaming business, including DirecTV, into a separate company it will co-manage with private equity group TPG Capital. AT&T said the new company is overseen by its own board of directors, where AT&T has non-controlling and equal representation with TPG.

The decision of whether to renew the OAN carriage agreement upon its expiration will be up to DirecTV, which is now a separate, independent company outside of AT&T, the company said in its statement. AT&T retained a 70% ownership stake in DirecTV.

But with a controversial Texas legislature continuing to push new laws, like those that limit the rights of LGBTQ Texans, the pressure on AT&T could stick around.

On Texas restrictive new abortion legislation, AT&T responded to its critics by saying it has never taken a position on the issue of abortion.

AT&T did not endorse nor support passage of Senate Bill 8 in the Texas legislature. AT&Ts employee political action committees have never based contribution decisions on a legislators positions on the issue of abortion, and employee PAC contributions to Texas legislators went to both opponents and supporters of Senate Bill 8, the company said in the statement.

But activists think one of Texas biggest corporate citizens should take a stand on abortion and other issues. Nonpartisan watchdog group Accountable.US called on AT&T to stand by its stated public values and condemn partisan redistricting by Texas Republicans.

Silence is complicity at this point. Especially in a state that theyve made their headquarters, American Bridges vice president of strategic communications Julie McClain-Downey said.

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Caught in the crosshairs: AT&T political donations, deal with OAN draw it into culture wars - The Dallas Morning News

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LETTER: Gruden the victim of our one-sided culture wars - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Julian Coman carefully outlines the current tensions in the Tory party between orthodox Thatcherites and a more interventionist right (Labour, take note: Boris Johnson is redefining modern Conservatism, 12 October). As the Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie puts it, for the Tories post-Brexit, the magnetism of national sovereignty has finally overtaken the magnetism of freemarkets.

Coman argues that this shift heralds a return to the one-nation Conservatism of the Harold Macmillan era, reinvigorating neglected traditions in the Tory party. Yet the version of the 2020s is very different. The political significance of the shift from neoliberal economics to national populism is that it enables Conservatives to appeal to workers with an apparent anti-capitalist message, challenging the iniquities of foreign capital and calling for bosses to pay higher wages.

This is combined with a powerful dose of nationalism and social conservatism, shown most persistently in the frequency with which Conservatives attack anti-racism campaigns.

Culture wars are at the heart of Boris Johnsons project. He sees them as the glue to keep his electoral coalition together. Thus, while Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell from his shadow cabinet for the infamous rivers of blood speech, Johnson backs Priti Patel as she demonises refugees and condemns the England football team for taking the knee. The progressive response to the changes that Coman charts should be more economic intervention, combined with a renewed commitment to social liberalism.Jon Bloomfield Birmingham

Have an opinion on anything youve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

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Culture wars are the key to Boris Johnsons success - The Guardian