New York Attorney General Letitia James is threatening to remove elected school board members who allow dissent at public meetings. In doing so, she has stopped enforcing the law and started enforcing obedience. This move has nothing to do with protecting children. It is about power. Who holds it, who may challenge it, and who must be silenced.
The New York Post called Letitia James and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa a “deadly duo.” The label matters less than the method. The state does not ban dissent on paper, but it punishes it in practice at school board meetings.
A group of parents and school-board members are standing up to state Attorney General Letitia James and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa’s bullying of New Yorkers who won’t toe the line on gender insanity.
Yes: The deadly duo have ordered a de facto ban on dissent on trans issues from school board meetings.
On Tuesday, The Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Long Islanders (two school board officials, two parents) over that state “guidance.”
In May, James and Rosa sent out a letter threatening to remove local officials who misgender a student or even allow public comments suggesting that trans students’ “identities and experiences are illegitimate” or that their “presence in school spaces and participation in school activities is harmful to other students.”
No matter that most adults oppose, for example, forcing born-males into girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms, and into female sports leagues. – New York Post
What is striking is how openly this is being done. There is no attempt to disguise the intent or soften the message. The threat is explicit. Allow dissent and face consequences. That level of confidence suggests officials no longer feel the need to pretend they are balancing competing rights.
Let’s stop pretending this is just another policy dispute. That is not governance. It is authoritarian behavior presented as guidance.
Public Meetings Exist for Accountability, Not Compliance
Public school board meetings exist for accountability and information. They are where parents learn what is being done in their children’s schools and where officials are required to explain their decisions in public. Disagreement naturally follows. Parents raise concerns, voice objections, and sometimes make administrators uncomfortable. These meetings were never meant to be polite or affirming spaces. They were meant to be democratic ones.
James’ directive treats that process as a threat.
When New York AG, Letitia James isn’t busy committing mortgage fraud, she’s hunting down NY School Board Members who don’t use correct pronouns and silencing female students who complain when males wearing lipstick harass them in their locker rooms. pic.twitter.com/uAXWQKfrEs
— Scarlett Johnson (@scarlett4kids) December 9, 2025
Under this framework, allowing comments that question gender ideology can be construed as harm. Misgendering becomes misconduct. Objection becomes offense. Speech itself becomes evidence. Once dissent is redefined as harm, punishment becomes easy to justify.
Parents Are Being Silenced by Proxy
The threat does not stop with elected officials. Parents themselves are the target, even if enforcement runs through school boards. James’ guidance warns that allowing certain viewpoints to be voiced is itself grounds for punishment. In practice, that means parents are not merely discouraged from speaking. Their speech is treated as a liability. Officials are warned to silence it or face removal themselves.
That is how speech is suppressed without ever banning it outright.
This is how authoritarian systems operate. They don’t prohibit dissent openly. They want to narrow the space until silence feels safer than participation. And when officials stop hiding the process, it signals they believe resistance no longer matters.
A Pattern of Power, Not an Isolated Incident
The most revealing detail is not the guidance itself, but the certainty behind it. James appears to believe she has the authority to decide which opinions may be expressed in public forums. That should concern anyone who still takes constitutional limits seriously.
This is not an isolated episode. Letitia James has a well-documented history of treating her office as a political weapon rather than a neutral legal authority. She campaigned on pursuing political enemies and has repeatedly used the power of the state to advance ideological aims. Seen in that context, her move to police speech at school board meetings looks less like a misunderstanding of authority and more like a continuation of a governing style that favors intimidation over restraint.
Why Parents Are the Problem
Schools control curriculum, staff, and students during the school day. Parents fall outside that authority, and that is the real problem.
When parents show up to ask questions, they become the problem. The administrators don’t want to answer. So parents must be managed.
This guidance targets parental resistance rather than student safety. By classifying disagreement as harmful, it provides justification for silencing speech and removing dissenters. The language is sanitized, but the outcome remains the same: diminished accountability and increased control.
Why This Continues Despite Executive Orders
Many Americans assumed this pressure would ease after President Trump signed executive orders pushing back on gender ideology. It has not. In many places, it has intensified.
The reason is straightforward. The activist class has no exit strategy.
A lot of people have built their jobs around these policies, and backing away now would mean admitting they got it wrong. Whole institutions have gone along with the story, even when it no longer holds up. When public support starts to slip, they do not stop and rethink. They clamp down and stop pretending they want a debate.
That is why disagreement no longer leads to discussion. It leads to punishment.
The Lesson Being Taught
Letitia James is not protecting students. She is asserting power. When authority decides which views may be spoken, truth becomes whatever the state permits. Disagreement is treated as misconduct, and public forums exist only for those who comply. They are revealing exactly who they think they are.
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