Biden Department Of Education Forced To Cancel Liberal-Dominated “Parents Council”

The Department of Education announced that it is disbanding its illegal National Parents and Families Engagement Council following a lawsuit filed by America First Legal (AFL), Parents Defending Education, and Fight for Schools and Families.

Only established five months ago, this social justice council was shut down to avoid litigation which would have exposed the Marxist underpinnings of its radical leftist agenda.

The Epoch Times reported:

The Department of Education (DOE) is to “immediately and permanently” disband a five-month-old national parents council after conservative groups sued it for allegedly being unbalanced and politically biased.

According to a Dec. 5 court notice (pdf), the department said it’s “immediately and permanently disbanding the [National Parents and Families Engagement Council] and that the Council will not hold any future meetings.”

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona first revealed the creation of the new parents engagement council on June 14, prompting rights advocacy groups including America First Legal Foundation (AFL), Fight for Schools and Families (FSF), and Parents Defending Education (PDE) to jointly sue the department in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 6, alleging the department had violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act when it established the council.

All three of the plaintiffs released press releases following the DOE’s decision.

America First Legal Vice-President and General Counsel Gene Hamilton:

“This is a significant victory for the American people. 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’

Ian Prior, Executive Director of Fight for Schools and Families:

“The Biden Administration has done everything in its power to silence the voice of parents who are standing up on behalf of their children against the Education Industrial Complex. This faux parents council was nothing more than the administration trying to rig the system once more by stacking the deck with the very special interest groups that awakened parents across America to their long game to politicize public schools with a far-left, anti-parent agenda.”

Nicole Neily, President of Parents Defending Education:

“The fact that the Biden Administration chose to shut down its virtue-signaling parents council – rather than add any intellectual diversity – speaks volumes. Students do best when their families are involved in their education – and it should be a goal at the federal, state, and local level to bring us into the process, not to shut us out when our perspectives and values differ.”