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DOJ report says Garland memo put parents under FBI scrutiny
The report says the FBI opened 25 Guardian assessments on parents, while DOJ and Education urge state attorneys general to enforce federal parental-rights laws.
For parents who spoke at school board meetings, the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group released a report on October 5, 2026, concluding that former Attorney General Merrick Garland's October 4, 2021, memo chilled parental rights. The report details how Biden administration officials explored avenues to prosecute parents and protestors who spoke to school boards and school officials. Under that memo, the department says, the FBI opened 25 “Guardian assessments” on parents. The report fulfills a February 2, 2025 directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi1 to review the memo. For the mothers and fathers who spoke up at school board meetings, it is the department's own account of what the memo set in motion against them.
Remedies and training
The department paired its findings with remedies aimed at the families the memo touched. Parents and other school board meeting participants who were subjects of Guardian assessments under the memo will be offered the chance to review them1. The department will also review the files of anyone investigated under the memo and, where it finds a constitutional violation, issue a formal apology and institute internal controls to keep it from happening again.
The department is also moving to put parents' rights in front of the people who run schools. Through its COPS Office, DOJ is awarding $1.5 million to the National Association of School Resource Officers to train school resource officers on parental rights in schools. It is also prioritizing funding to train teachers and staff on parents' First Amendment rights1. The pressure extends to the states: a joint letter signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon asks state attorneys general to help ensure compliance with parental rights under federal law2.
- September 29, 2021The National School Boards Association sent its letter to President Biden
- October 4, 2021Garland issued his memo
- October 5, 2026The Justice Department released the working group's report
Parents come first
Parents, not federal agencies or school officials, hold the responsibility and the right to direct their children's education and upbringing. The family comes before government, not the other way around. A mother or father who stands up at a school board meeting to question what the school is doing is exercising that authority. A Justice Department that answers such parents with task forces and FBI files has the order reversed. The remedies now announced are the right start, and the standard for them is plain: every parent swept up under the Garland memo should see the file, and every parent whose rights were violated should receive the formal apology the department has promised.
How the memo took shape
The memo did not come from nowhere. The report traces the memo to a September 29, 2021, National School Boards Association letter to President Biden. Emails show he did so despite internal pushback, influenced by White House officials, the department says1. The objections came from inside his own building: more than a dozen DOJ and FBI personnel raised concerns, and one called the memo “a partisan exercise aimed at those who do not support the Administration.”