Although it was expected that Scottsdale Unified School District President Jann-Michael Greenburg would resign from the Board at a closed meeting, he refused to do so. Greenburg did resign his position as President, but he refused to resign his Board seat altogether, even in the face of enormous pressure from parents.
As initially reported by the Scottsdale Independent, Greenburg was responsible for keeping an extensive opposition-research-style dossier of parents who spoke up at school board meetings criticizing Board support of several issues related to curriculum and to the health and safety of the district’s children in the schools. Fox News reported that the dossier includes the complaining parents’ Social Security numbers, background checks, a divorce paper, mortgage documents, trade certifications, and screenshots of Facebook posts.
Fox News also reported that, “The dossier includes 18 folders marked CAN-Network, a reference to the Community Advocacy Network, a group of parents that formed last year advocating for in-person learning and against mask mandates. It refers to parents as ‘wackos.’”
Prior to the Scottsdale School Board meeting, sources active in the Scottsdale community had reported to Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN) State of Arizona Director Michael Goldstein, who is also PJTN’s General Counsel, that Greenburg would resign or otherwise be removed from office in a closed Board meeting last night. These same sources also believed that the other members of the Board were, and continue to be, complicit in the creation and/or continuation of the dossier. Because of this, they determined that Greenburg’s removal from the Board would be totally insufficient, and that all current Board members must resign or be removed from office. Otherwise, the objectionable Board policies would continue, and parents will still be at risk for retaliation.
PJTN State of Arizona Director Goldstein remarked:
In the face of a federal administration which treats parents who exercise their First Amendment rights and speak up against local school board policies as subjects for chilling federal, state, and local investigation and possible prosecution, the creation and maintenance of the “Greenburg dossier” is seen as a totalitarian overreach by the Scottsdale USD Board of Education. To “take back America’s children,” which is a core tenet of PJTN’s educational mission, the citizens of Scottsdale must step up and remove each and every one of these school board members and replace them with new members who will uphold their constituents’ Constitutional G-d-given rights, including their right to freedom of speech.
As an appointed member of the State of Tennessee’s Textbook & Instructional Materials Quality Commission, PJTN Founder and President, Dr. Laurie Cardoza-Moore, responded very strongly last month to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s directive to treat such complaining parents as potential criminals merely for presenting their grievances to their local government representatives.
She noted in her open letter to the Attorney General:
What we are seeing is an attempt to enlist an unprecedented government suppression of the First Amendment constitutional rights of free speech. In essence, the proposed actions to be taken would be a weaponization of the United States government and state and local governments against their own citizens. Where is the outrage? This is an overreach of federal power of a proportion never before witnessed in America, and all in an attempt to intimidate and silence the exercise of the voice of free discourse that is our right. Every American should be concerned.
Read the complete response from Dr. Laurie Cardoza-Moore to Attorney General Merrick Garland by CLICKING HERE.
Share your thoughts on this story and other news stories on Christian News Journal’s Facebook page here.
For more news and stories of the day from Christian News Journal, click here.
—By CNJ Staff