Caught in the ‘Noose’ Cycle: Threatening Emails and Voicemails Sent to Anchorage School Board Over Book Not Available to Students
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The past few years have seen an alarming rise in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community by far-right individuals and groups who propagate baseless and dangerous claims, such as the false accusation that LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies are pedophiles who aim to groom children for abuse. It's a tactic also being used to target school officials and educators to pressure them into removing school material they feel is inappropriate for children. Such efforts have caused a multitude of problems for school districts across the country, leaving behind a wake of damage, threats, and political instability.
But at its core, the nationwide war on school districts, which includes rhetoric reminiscent of a QAnon conspiracy theory known as "pizzagate," is nothing more than a sustained campaign against marginalized groups.
According to a report by PEN America, a global organization that protects the rights of literature and free expression, 2,532 individual book bans were made between July 2021 and March 2022, covering 1,648 unique books. The report found that among the banned books, 41% explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes, and 40% contain protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color.
The report also estimates that at least 40% of book bans are connected to either proposed or enacted legislation or to political pressure exerted by state officials or elected lawmakers to restrict the teaching or presence of certain books or concepts.
The Anchorage School District has become ground zero in Alaska for pro-censorship advocates seeking to ban library books, save the children, and defund public education—while targeting and defaming Board members, teachers, librarians, and principals by linking them to some of the vilest words in the English language—some threatening them with their lives.
Emails and voicemails obtained via a public information request, including publicly available information, document the extent and intensity of harassment of ASD Board members, shedding light on the concerning impact that misleading media coverage and propaganda can have on individuals, elected officials, and school staff.
Before the Storm
In place at the Anchorage School District is a process that allows community members to bring concerns about ASD policy, including library books and educational material, to the District's attention. But Anchorage activist Jay McDonald didn't utilize that process before reading excerpts from the controversial book 'Let's Talk About It' during the public testimony portion of a February 7 meeting of the Anchorage School Board. McDonald had obtained the book from the Anchorage Public Library and falsely claimed it was available and accessible to students in an ASD high school library.
The teen book addresses sexuality, relationships, and gender making it a juicy target for censorship by so-called concerned parents and failed political candidates looking for airtime.
Partway through his reading of select passages from the book, Board member Carl Jacobs, who presided over that evening's meeting, stopped him.
"I'm going to interrupt you at this point. It sounds like you have a concern about a book. I'd be glad to get you connected to the superintendent or team to go through the appropriate processes," said Jacobs.
Conservative Board member Dave Donley appealed Jacob's ruling, which brought about a 5-2 vote of the Board—a majority agreeing to end McDonald's reading of the book.
Following the Board's action, McDonald retreated to the cramped confines of his car, where he lamented their decision in a sixteen-minute Facebook live video. He also made the inflammatory claim that children were covertly reading the book behind closed doors (they weren't) and named Board President Margo Bellamy as the individual responsible for interrupting his testimony (she wasn't), making her a key recipient of what would come little more than a week later.
Then, McDonald's video, laced with its inflammatory inaccuracies, went viral. And the next day, right-wing blogs eager to distract from the scandal-ridden Bronson administration leaped at the opportunity for web clicks, headlining in blog posts that the Board censored him for reading a "porn manual" and an "anal sex book" which was described as being in school libraries.
Six days later, McDonald joined the ranks of the far-right Facebook group 'Save Anchorage,' whose track record of outrageous claims, including labeling elected officials as pedophiles, making derogatory comments about the LGBTQ+ community, and attempting to intimidate the Anchorage Public Library into hiding a gender-inclusive book is well-established. That trend continued after McDonald's Facebook video was shared with the group. In response, some referred to Board members as groomers, and others called for state and city prosecutors to investigate and arrest "ASD staff criminals," further fueling outrage about the book and School Board.
Then, under a cloak of darkness at midnight on February 16, Fox News published a poorly written account about the events of the peaceful February 7 meeting, dubbing it a "brawl." Within a mere twenty-four hours, it was picked up and regurgitated by various news and media outlets, including the Daily Mail, the Lion, and Forbes Breaking News, as well as right-wing blogs and Sinclair-owned news stations across the country.
Left out of much of the initial reporting was that little of what McDonald claimed about the book panned true.
"As noted in the publicly available ASD library catalog, the book referenced in last week's School Board meeting is in a professional collection, meaning the book is not available to, nor has been accessed by ASD students," said an ASD spokesperson.
Sans that salient detail, more than ten-thousand comments were left in response to the Fox News piece alone—some stating that the School District was full of perverts who needed to be "eliminated." Many more said Board members brought sick and woke agendas to Anchorage schools and accused them of being child molesters and pedophiles.
Somewhat incredibly, but not unexpectedly, Board member Dave Donley, a registered Republican up for re-election this year, shared the Fox News article on his Facebook School Board campaign page and website, lending legitimacy to an inaccurate political smear and accusing librarians of stocking school libraries with pornography.
Here Comes the Recognition
Just hours after Fox News published its piece, the Anchorage Police Department began investigating false reports of bomb threats at multiple ASD schools. Board members could only sit and watch as a relentless barrage of harassing and threatening messages flooded their email inboxes, phone lines, and social media accounts from people driven by faux news—causing a surge of activity that could only be described as a siege.
Board member Kelly Lessens deactivated her school board Facebook page.
School Board President Margo Bellamy, who has dedicated a lifetime of service to education, families, and children, deactivated a campaign Facebook page and found herself accused on social media of enticing children to contact her through her website.
Another comment warned Bellamy, "Here comes the recognition you so well deserve, along with the lawsuit." Others called her a groomer and warned that her actions of "promoting porn to young children" would return to her "tenfold."
Emails sent to the Board were equally alarming—with calls for them to be hung and criminally prosecuted for performing lewd acts and molesting children. One person threatened to find Board members' homes and children, promising to hold them accountable for their decisions. "You will pay dearly," they wrote.
Bellamy received a disturbing, profanity-laced voicemail from a man who accused her of being a sick, evil, demented hypocrite and a lousy mother responsible for raising the next generation of serial killers. The caller even went as far as to say, "I hope you go to jail."
Bellamy also received a voicemail from a Save Anchorage member and Anchorage realtor who threatened to send child pornography to every member of her family. The woman accused Bellamy of being a communist and pedophile. The voicemail concluded with the caller telling Bellamy, "Good day, you sick fucking bitch."
Board member Carl Jacobs, who, with his wife, has dedicated the past decade to serving as licensed therapeutic foster parents, caring for over 50 adolescents from diverse backgrounds, found himself a target of sleazy attacks accusing him of sickening crimes such as priming children for pedophilia.
"You better watch your back. I know for a fact people are coming for you," wrote one on Facebook. Others left his telephone number in the comment section of Facebook posts, exposing him to even more unwarranted abuse.
Emails sent to Jacobs called for his teeth to be kicked in and compared him to Adolph Hitler and "immoral child abusers."
A voicemail left for Jacobs warned he would be "Leo-Franked," a reference to Jewish-American Leo Frank, who was kidnapped and lynched in 1915.
Another caller said that Jacobs should be struck down for allowing certain types of books in schools.
Another left Jacobs a message complimenting him for his "child sexual grooming activities" and disgustingly suggested he was a pervert.
The dangerous actions of the far-right have extended beyond the Anchorage School Board to include even the librarians and educators who have been doing their job with integrity and professionalism. In a shocking display of irresponsibility, the Alaska Watchman found it prudent to post the names and faces of school employees such as librarians, essentially putting a target on their backs for simply supporting educational materials that were deemed controversial by some.
The documents Alaska Watchman used for its hit piece against educators were provided to them by...wait for it...Jay McDonald.
An individual at ASD who didn't wish to be identified, citing the recent right-wing insanity, said of the ASD employees named and shamed by the Alaska Watchman, "It's clear they are going through it right now."
Board member Carl Jacobs declined to comment for this piece deferring to School Board President Margo Bellamy, who responded via email with the following statement:
"The Anchorage School Board is accountable and focused on our board goals and guardrails that include reading and literacy, math, and ensuring our students are college, career, and life ready. We just finished a lengthy budget process and are working toward long-term, sustainable education funding. Those are our priorities. As elected board members, we just have to keep moving forward in service to our students and the community. That is what we are doing and will continue to do."
