Mississippi and Illinois have become the latest state school board groups to discontinue their membership in the National School Board Association (NSBA), citing disagreement over a letter calling for federal intervention in parental protests. In the widely criticized Sept. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, the NSBA characterized disruptions at school board meetings as “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crime.” It also urged the federal government to invoke counter-terrorism laws to handle “angry mobs” of parents seeking to hold school officials accountable for teaching the Marxism-rooted critical race theory and for imposing COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates on their children. Just five days later, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing federal law enforcement to help address an alleged “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against teachers and school leaders. Despite the NSBA’s apology for “some of the language” used in the letter, …