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Attorney General Todd Rokita launched a tool for parents to report "gender ideology" in schools. It didn't go as planned.
On Monday evening, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched a form for reporting schools that teach about LGBTQ+ issues, socio-emotional learning, Black history, or topics deemed to be “political ideology” in schools. In making the announcement on the Tony Kinnett show, livestreamed on YouTube, Rokita stated that investigators would pore over submissions and post any they believed to be credible onto a publicly viewable database. Upon launching, early examples of submissions included items such as pride flags or gender support plans for transgender youth who come out at school. However, within hours of its launch, users began to flood it with memes as local news agencies questioned the effectiveness of the initiative.
During the announcement interview, Kinnett inquired how Rokita planned to verify the information submitted to the site, referencing previously debunked claims of litterboxes in schools within the state. Rokita replied, “This is what we do at the Attorney General's office; we have investigators,” and noted that the site was intended for “self-policing.” However, several initial entries on the website have been discredited as either hearsay or outdated. The Indiana Capital Chronicle highlighted a submission regarding IU School of Medicine Dean Jay Hess, which was based on what a submitter had “heard as possibilities.”
If Rokita encountered issues with the initial batch of submissions, the workload for the Attorney General's office is unlikely to lighten. After the URL was made public, numerous users took to Twitter to share their meme and joke submissions through the portal. Submissions to the Attorney General's website included:
This is notably not the first time that a Republican administration has attempted to release a “snitch line” to report LGBTQ+ issues or books with black history and been met with pranks and joke submissions. In March of 2023, the Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey launched a website for reporting gender affirming care clinics. Within a month, the website was taken down after being flooded with the “Bee Movie” script after young activists spread the URL for the website on TikTok and Twitter. Like the Indiana form, the Missouri form lacked a CAPTCHA at first, though even the addition did not help.
Similarly, in 2022, Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia launched a tip line to report teachers for using “divisive” teaching practices. The tip line ultimately received very few legitimate reports, alongside many prank emails from “GenZ for Change” activists. The website was quietly shut down at the year's end. When journalists filed Freedom of Information Act requests, Youngkin initially refused but relented after a lawsuit, releasing a batch of 350 emails. Among them were accusations such as “sympathy to immigrants” and dissatisfaction with the epic poem “Beowulf.”
As for Rokita’s portal, it is already facing pushback. Indianapolis Representative Ed Delaney stated in an interview with the Indiana Capital Chronicle that the form raises privacy concerns and could create questions around “libel and defamation.” He also stated that the office is “poaching on” the territory of the Secretary of Education. Meanwhile, the ACLU of Indiana called it “an effort to intimidate teachers” from discussing LGBTQ+ topics.
No additions have appeared in the database since the form’s launch on Monday.
This story was originally published on Erin In The Morning.
