RALEIGH, N.C. — A legal strategy promoted by a QAnon supporter is being used by some parents across North Carolina and the United States to try to force school districts to end face mask mandates and to remove books the parents say are obscene.
The Bonds For the Win website tells parents they can threaten to file “surety bond claims” against school board members and superintendents accusing them of violating multiple laws unless they make changes such as drop mask requirements. This approach has been used in multiple states, including in North Carolina in several counties.
“We have people all over the world obtaining these bonds, all over the world,” Miki Klann, who helped create Bonds For the Win, said in a January YouTube video highlighting efforts in North Carolina. “These school districts need to be put on notice, and I really do want them to be listening to us right now.”
Kelly Shaw, a political science professor at Iowa State University, called this a “largely unproven” approach to try to change public policy.
Some parents have used the approach in Iowa.
“This kind of smacks to me of a desperate attempt to get one’s way through intimidation, and this typically doesn’t work in our political system,” Shaw said in an interview.
Bonds For the Win tells people to warn school boards that they may file claims against the surety bonds that board members may have that hold them accountable for their actions. In states such as North Carolina, where school board members don’t have surety bonds, the group advises parents to threaten to file claims against their district’s liability insurance coverage.
Bonds For the Win provides sample intent letters for parents that charge that requiring masks violates multiple state, federal and international laws. For instance, the group contends that requiring face masks violates The Nuremberg Code that came out of the prosecution of Nazis after World War II.
Katie Long, the mother of two Wake County students, received advice from Bonds For The Win before she served papers at the Jan. 18 Wake County school board meeting. She crossed under a security barrier to deliver the papers after the law enforcement officer at the meeting declined to serve them.
“If you cause wrong or harm, we the people have a recourse and can hold you accountable,” Long told the board. “You have violated your oath of office.”
There’s no statewide mask mandate in North Carolina, but most school districts still require them. N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore announced Friday that legislation will be filed to let parents opt of school mask requirements, The News & Observer reported.
Long gave Wake 72 hours to make changes such as ending the face mask mandate, stopping COVID-19 testing at schools, ending vaccine clinics on school grounds and removing obscene materials from school premises.
Long later appeared in a video talking with Klann about her efforts. Long did not return a voice mail message and two email messages from The News & Observer.
After the school board didn’t meet the group’s demands, at least seven people filed claims with Liberty Mutual, Wake’s insurance carrier. Each claim seeks $1 million against the district’s liability insurance policy.
Liberty Mutual told the claimants that they had improperly submitted a bond demand notice against the district’s commercial general liability package, according to Jonathan Blumberg, the school board’s attorney.
Wake also sent a letter to the claimants denying that it violated any laws with its mask requirement or that it’s distributing obscenity to students. The district told the claimants it “stands ready to vigorously defend” against their allegations.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has presented our community with significant and unprecedented challenges, and throughout this time, the Board has acted in good faith and in accordance with state and local guidelines in making difficult policy decisions to protect the health and safety of students and employees,” according to the letter written by Tim Simmons, Wake’s chief communications officer.
This week, parents served papers on the Johnston County and Iredell-Statesville school boards.
Even though the Johnston County school board voted to make face masks optional beginning Feb. 21, that wasn’t enough for the parents who filed notice with the district. They complained that the district says masks may be required at some schools if too many students and teachers test positive for the virus or are quarantined.
Parents served the Iredell-Statesville school board, located 150 miles west of Raleigh, at the end of their meeting.
Dozens of people refused to leave the board room, with one protester racing up to the podium to take over the microphone in a coordinated effort, The Iredell Free News reported. The newspaper also reported that police turned off the lights to try to get people to leave and that the demonstration ended with some people yelling “You’ve been served.”
“The attempt to threaten school boards with legal action is part of a larger effort by conservative groups to attack school boards for their positions on teaching racial issues and COVID mitigation strategies, like mask mandates,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College in Raleigh.
McLennan said the legal threats are part of efforts to make school boards the battleground in the contemporary culture wars in politics.
Bonds For the Win links its videos to a YouTube channel for Our Great Awakening, a website that Klann helps run. Both the YouTube channel and the website include QAnon slogans such as “Where we go one we go all.”
QAnon is an online, often pro-Donald Trump, conspiracy theory based on the fringe belief that the government is run by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles including top Democratic lawmakers and a number of celebrities.
The website has articles promoting QAnon theories that John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive and about mass arrests and indictments of child traffickers.
Bonds For The Win is being promoted by several QAnon influencers and leaders, according to an article in VICE News.
The efforts to serve the legal notices on school boards has been highlighted on conservative social media apps such as GETTR, which was launched by Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump.
In the video about North Carolina’s efforts, Klann claims that the plus in LGBTQ+ “stands for pedophilia.” Klann also says in the video that “children are being forced into slavery right now wearing these masks.”
Shaw, the Iowa State professor, says what’s being done nationally with the bond legal complaints is just one more tactic to grab attention.
“This has been a strategy used by some QAnon folks,” said Shaw, who describes himself politically as conservative. “It’s sad that it’s come to that.”
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