Embarrassing Receipts. Tim Sandefur Talks to A&G

"Tim the Lawyer' Sandefur talks to Armstrong & Getty about his firms latest case involving a pair of moms and the Fairfax County Virginia school board..

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Armstrong and Jetty Show. Does the administration greeted parents
upset about their kids curriculums could be considered domestic terrorists? Well,
let me unravel this a little bit, because the National
school Board Association is not a part of the U. S. Government.
Regardless of the reasoning, threats and violence against public servants

(00:21):
is illegal. When I was at the Justice Department, it
was focused on going after MS thirteen. Now apparently it's
going after parents of thirteen year old. Well, attacking school
board members has always been illegal. But anyway, the the
battle between parents and school boards and teachers and kids
and everything, it just keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter.

(00:41):
It seems. Rhetoric certainly gets hotter. Indeed. Yeah, and the
Goldwater Institute has entered the fray. Tim Sanderford, Tim the
lawyer vice president for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, joins this.
Tim is the author of many fine tombs, including The
Right Turn of Living, The Permission Society, and many other
fine things. Tim, how are you, sir? I'm great, Thanks
for having me back. Oh, it's always a pleasure. So

(01:03):
heard you. I heard George will mention you on the
podcast the other day, So congratulations on that. That was
very cool. Thanks. He's always been very kind about my work.
He called himself a student of yours. I mean, come on,
it was that that blew me away. I admit I
had to text my mom when I heard how would
you not George, Well, wouldn't mention me unless I rear
ended his car? Wild texting I'm not going to happen.

(01:27):
So Tim, tell us about this case. How do you
come to be involved in the whole of Fairfax School
District versus mom's situation? Well, it happened with here was
these two mothers in Fairfax County, Virginia filed a Freedom
of Information Act request to get information about how the
school board was spending money on lawyers. They think that
the school boards spent too much money on legal representation,

(01:49):
so they just asked for to see the receipts, and
the government turned over the receipts, and then it realized
that they were a little embarrassing. And by that time,
these two mothers, Callie and Ebra Kelly, had published this
information on her website, so the school board sued her,
demanding that she deleted from her website and not disseminate

(02:11):
the information contained in the documents that they lawfully acquired,
which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. So
they called us, and we filed a motion just yesterday
asking the court to throw their lawsuit out and to
allow them to publish information that the First Amendment allows
them to publish. Now, clarify a couple of things, as
I understand that there were no kids names involved, was

(02:33):
was there a sensitive personnel information of all the names
and addresses or anything. Well, some of the documents that
the school board turned over, yeah, they had failed to
redact some of this information. Calling then went and redacted
it and posted it on her website. And the school
board does not claim otherwise their lawsuits. They do not
actually say that she published any kind of sensitive confidential

(02:54):
information or anything like that. They've put that in their
press releases because they're trying to smear her, But in fact,
she did not do that, and they don't claim that
she did. Instead, what they say is this information is
our information, and we want you to return it. They
say return, which I think is so bizarre because there
are no physical documents. These are just computer file. I
don't know how you return a computer file, but anyway,

(03:14):
So the court has ordered them not to disclose the
information in these receipts that shows how much the school
board is spending on its legal representation, which again is
totally unconstitutional. The Supreme Court in the in the Pentagon
Papers case said that the nation's leading newspapers had a
First Amendment right to publish stolen military documents in the

(03:35):
time of war. Well, certainly, my clients have the right
to published information that they legally obtained from the school
district that are just government documents. Well, I find myself wondering,
and I know, you know, badmounting judges isn't really cool
if you're you know, having a case before them. But
what the hell was that judge thinking? Well, a lot
of the time, judges want to hold things still until

(03:56):
they get a chance to hear the arguments of both
sides and things like that. So they and that's really
unfortunate because it is unconstitutional to forbid Kelly from publishing
this information. So we've asked the court to reverse that,
and we're gonna have some briefing on that going forward.
But this is just another example what you said at
the beginning of the segment that this is a trend

(04:17):
of school boards bullying parents and trying to intimidate them
when they stand up to either challenge what's going on
in the classrooms that their tax dollars pay for, or
in this case, just ask questions that they're legally allowed
to ask. Now, that's what I was gonna ask you about.
And I didn't know if you know, since you're actually
involved in the case, if you're willing to go kind
of mackerel on this, but you just did on what

(04:39):
is going on nationwide? Is it because it's the first
time in so long that parents have mobilized and challenged
these people and they're not liking it. I think that's
exactly what it is, and we are. We're doing another case,
similar case in Rhode Island where a parent asked for
information and the teacher union sued her for simply filing

(04:59):
the re west and that case is still going on.
So yeah, I think what's happening is that, especially the unions,
especially the teachers unions, they see government schools as their fiefdom,
as their domain. And how dare we mere citizens, mere taxpayers,
try to control how our tax dollars are being spent

(05:19):
and what is being propagandized in the government classroom. Well,
what's that that Canadas? It's likely to win governor over
there in Virginia who said in one of the debates
here to Night, we can't have a system where the
parents are deciding what we teach in schools. Terry Terry mccauliffe. Yeah, yeah,
the whole vision. You know, the public school system as

(05:41):
we know it today is largely the creation of the
progressive movement of the early twentieth century that designed the
current public school system as a means of instilling in
children what the government thinks children ought to think and believe.
As Woodrow Wilson once said, the schools exist to make
the children as unlike the parents as possible. And and
I think a lot of public school teachers and the

(06:03):
teachers unions really take that seriously, and they really don't
like the idea that parents might be interfering with the
education of their own children. It's it's really a shocking
way of of abusing power. But that's what's going on.
And it's worth pointing out that the teachers unions are
extremely effective at getting sympathetic school board members elected. So
many many school boards are are leaning way that way

(06:26):
you sent toward progressive causes and philosophies. You you saying that,
tim makes me want to ask you what is your
feeling about the public school system in general? I mean,
I know you're adamantly not going to have kids, but
if you had kids, would you put them in public
school or not? Oh? Absolutely not, absolutely not and and
uh and in a lot of the school districts in
this country, I think the best thing you could possibly
do for your family is to withdraw your children from

(06:47):
the government school district. The government schools exist largely to
propagandize to children what the government thinks they ought to know.
And although there was at one time a standard of
quality be that you could find in some government schools,
I think that standard has just totally collapsed, no matter
how much money we throw at it. And that's always
the argument, and they said, oh, we don't get enough money.

(07:08):
When you actually look at the amount of money it's
in the public school system, yeah, oh yeah, And it's
multiples what private schools UH spend to achieve better educational outcomes.
And we're able to stay open during the pandemic with
much less money, right, I think it's absolutely tragic and
heartbreaking New York City schools which have systematically lowered standards

(07:30):
and past kids head, particularly poor kids, kids of color
who can't read and write. They've now eliminated their programs
for gifted and talented education. Now we have completely well,
New York is completely eliminated the idea of some kids
who are very bright need to be challenged more. I
think it's disgusting. I've said I've said before on the

(07:53):
show that government people think government is our parent, and
it's not. Government is our child. We pay its bill,
it's our job to discipline it. And yet we think
somehow it's okay to turn over to the government our
youngest citizens, that our future citizens and future generations to
be taught by the state about what to desire and

(08:14):
not desire, what to think and not think about our past,
about economics, about you know that, all the big questions.
Is it any wonder that so many of them graduate
thinking that the government is right and and the the
only solution to our problems as a government. I think
it's a terrible idea in any democracy to turn over
the minds of our young would be citizens to the

(08:35):
hands of the state. Yeah, I don't want to get
too far off track, and we can get back to
your specific case if you want to in a second.
But the podcast as referring to the other day where
George will of the Washington Post was being interviewed about
his book when he invoked you, was when he was
talking about this new move towards equity as opposed to equality,
and he said, this is the most radical thing that

(08:56):
has happened in two hundred and forty years of this
country's history, that we're moving toward wanting equal outcomes for everybody.
And uh, you know, and that's the sort of thing
you're obviously teaching in schools, and so forty years ago,
the big debate among philosophers was what is justice? Does
justice mean equal outcomes or does it mean the ability
to pursue your unhappiness and attain it? And nowadays we

(09:19):
just skipped over that argument entirely. And it says if
we just assumed that justice means equal outcomes, and so
we're just going to pursue equity, which means taking away
from those who have more in giving to those who
do not, and judging people on the basis of color
because their ancestors are discriminated against and so forth and
so on in order to equalize outcomes, because we just
assume that ask justice. Well, that's not justice, it's injustice.

(09:42):
Tim Sanderford is on the line, vice president for Litigation
at the Goldwater Institute. Tim, I want to turn back
to the topic of schools, at least for a minute.
The infamous Merrick Garland memo of the other day, in
which he made it clear that the Justice Department would
be looking into and it was it was a very
wishy wash a Lee worded the memo, but in essence,

(10:03):
any sort of freakas at school board meetings nationwide. What
do you think of my My test case yesterday was
I get a little out of hat. I'm piste off.
I'm at a school board meeting. I get mad and
I say to somebody who tried to shut me down,
one of the school board members, somebody ought to kick
your ass. Do you think the FBI ought to be
involved in that? You know, the vagueness of the memo

(10:25):
is the goal, because it is true that there have
been a few incidents of parents going too far and
actually you know, threatening or or even harassing or intimidating
school board members. And of course that's illegal and wrong.
But the way this memo is written is to allow
people in the government to smear those who simply, you know,
get angry or are really passionate about something, to smear
them as if they're engaged in some kind of violence.

(10:48):
And we know this has been the rhetorical trick in
the past couple of years to use words like violence
or or safety in ways that don't make any sense.
If you disagree with somebody, now all of a sudden,
that's an act of violence, and you're you're harming their
safety and so forth and so on, And that's what
this meant. That's why the memo is written vaguely in
order to use it as a club against people who
simply get angry at the way their school boards are

(11:10):
misspending their money and mishandling their responsibility. You know, Tim,
you for me, are one of the mad ones, the
ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad
to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawned or say a commonplace thing.
I thought I'd hit you with a little caro wack
poem basically tweet what's going on here? What the hell?

(11:31):
Are you two up to Yes, I can, I can.
I can do without the Beat Generation. You know, there's
a Quilette article out saying the Beat Generations about to
be canceled, and Tim retweeted that and said, I don't
think that necessarily be a bad thing. As a fan
of Jack Caro Wack poetry and Tim being a published poet,
I thought they'd be a good thing to throw in there.

(11:52):
I have a book of poetry coming out next spring,
and guarantee we will love to have you on to
talk about that. Fantastic all right, And I didn't see
that coming. Tim the lawyer, Tim Tim Santa for Vice
President for Litigation of the Goldwater Institute. We will, Uh,
you know, we need to post a list of Tim's books,
although if you know how Google works you can find
them because they're terrific. Tim. We appreciate the time. Thanks

(12:16):
a million, thanks. All right. You got Tim, as a
real high falutint poet is not a fan of Beat
Generation poetry. I got to admit that the Ginsburg Howl
I've read a hundred times and I don't get at all.
I don't understand why it's a masterpiece. That doesn't mean
it's not, but I don't get it at all. If
the proverbial infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of
typewriters cranked out something and I read one of them

(12:36):
at random, it would make as much sense to me
as that thing did. Or William Burrow's Naked Lunch, which
I've attempted to read many times and can't get more
than four pages in. But some of the Jack Carouac
poetry about walking the streets of San Francisco in the
middle of the night, going from dive bar dive bar,
as a guy who's done that a thousand times, I

(12:56):
thought was absolutely just brilliant stuff. The legend Verry Third
and Howard And if I get drunk, I get. I mean,
there's some good stuff in there, I think. And if
you've never checked out Carouac reading those poems with Steve
Allen playing the piano on the Tonight Show, it's really
sounds like verbal pornography for drunkards to me. I don't
approve it. It might be I won't have it. It
might be actually, um, that was good stuff right there

(13:18):
from Tim And if you just caught the tail end
of it on the podcast, you can catch it. Just
go to Armstrong and Getty dot com art