Indiana Attorney General Sets Up Website for Snitching on ‘Socialist’ Teachers
Imagine “Libs of TikTok,” but created by a state government to pillory public school teachers.
That’s the gist of a new project launched by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, who has created a portal called “Eyes on Education” that encourages members of the public to tattle on teachers they believe are pushing so-called “woke” content on kids.
Eyes on Education enables self-styled whistleblowers to submit evidence to the state of “objectionable curricula, policies, or programs.” And the site presents a selection of such content, organized by school district.
The new state website asserts it is non-partisan, claiming to be interested in rooting out “political ideology — either left or right.” But when he announced the launch of the portal earlier this month, Rokita made the bias of the project clear, insisting Eyes on Education exists to expose “examples of socialist indoctrination” in the classroom — and seeks to highlight “destructive” teaching practices that “divide kids from their parents” and from what Rokita deems “normal society.”
The vetting standards for the information posted to the site are not transparent. A disclosure reads simply, “submissions to the portal will be reviewed and published regularly.” So what examples of abnormal socialism are Rokita and his team publishing? They include a snapshot of a combination Black Lives Matter and Pride flag allegedly hung in a classroom in the rural community of Kokomo; a slide deck about implementing a “gender support plan” for trans students in Hamilton, an Indianapolis suburb; and an Indianapolis schools reading list for parents, suggesting books about “white privilege” and “anti-racism.”
Filed under Franklin Community Schools, Eyes on Education presents a panicky, 164-page PDF file composed of page after page of no-context screen grabs on which liberal buzzwords have been highlighted in yellow and/or circled in red. This includes screen grabs from YouTube transcripts where a superintendent mentions the words “black lives matter” or references “diversity and inclusion.” The supposedly objectionable material includes a screenshot of a social media post by Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter Bernice, in which she writes: “There is no form of protest against racism or method of teaching about racism that will be palatable to racists.” (The word “racists” has been highlighted.)
Yet Eyes on Education goes further than that — raising questions whether the true aim isn’t to target individual state educators. One document posted to the site and reviewed by Rolling Stone contains personally identifying details of instructors, including email address and phone numbers, effectively doxing these professionals, and opening them up to public harassment.
Concerned community members are outed, too. A grandmother from Mooresville complains about trans students being able to select the bathroom of their choice. The unredacted letter carries the complainant’s name, address, email, and home telephone number. (Adding to the oddity: This complaint was sent to the AG’s office a year ago, and there’s no indication the sender intended for it to be posted publicly.)
Rokita did not respond to an interview request. Despite the overt political messaging by the attorney general, a spokesperson tells Rolling Stone: “We can’t stress enough that the portal is not intended to push a particular political agenda or ideology.” The spokesperson adds: “If our office receives some real right-wing material, and we validate it as actually a lesson plan or policy from a school — we’ll put that on the website too.” Asked what the project is costing Hoosier taxpayers, the spokesperson insisted, implausibly: “The portal cost $0 to put together.”
Rokita, a far-right Republican, previously served in the U.S. House, but failed in a 2018 bid to rise to the Senate. Instead he campaigned for attorney general in 2020, pledging to be a “a watchdog against waste, fraud, corruption, and inefficiency in government.” Rokita is a tryhard Trump supporter, tweeting — just days after the U.S. Capitol insurrection in 2021 — that he “will always be for our President @realdonaldtrump.” Rokita attracted national attention in 2022 for lambasting an OB-GYN who provided an abortion to a child rape victim who traveled to Indiana from Ohio.
The attorney general has little explicit purview over the state’s system of public education, and Rokita has previously supported privatization of schooling through vouchers. But Rokita nonetheless has railed as attorney general against the “garbage woke agenda” being taught in Indiana schools. In an interview with a local TV station, Rokita touted Eyes on Education as an answer to “leftwing nonsense” and what he called “trans-sanity.”
Rokita’s pressure campaign against liberal teachers comes at a moment when the GOP-dominated state assembly has been passing laws targeting the LGBTQ community in Indiana schools, including a measure that bans “human sexuality” content being taught before third grade, and forces schools to alert parents if a student requests a different name or pronoun be used in class. (The state American Civil Liberties Union chapter campaigned against the measure, arguing it forces districts to out trans youth.)
Eyes on Education has already been blasted in a joint statement signed by the presidents of several of Indiana’s largest teachers associations. They describe the portal as a dangerous “farce” that is being used to further Rokita’s “own political ideology.” They accuse the attorney general of only posting submissions that “don’t align with his own political ideation … the same thing the site claims to combat.” They assert that the Rokita is “weaponizing a government website for his personal benefit.”
The open letter calls Eyes on Education a violation of teacher privacy that engages in the “intentional act of doxing.” And it accuses Rokita of pushing “manufactured outrage” to target a profession that is being “incessantly denigrated” by the state government.
The joint educators’ statement concludes, “We call on the attorney general to take down the Eyes on Education portal immediately and cease the political and vicious attacks on Indiana teachers,” adding: “Hoosiers deserve better.”
Voters may be thinking the same thing about the top lawman in Indiana. Rokita was recently disciplined by the state Supreme Court for violating Indiana’s code of professional legal conduct. In November, he received a “public reprimand” for making prejudicial statements about a doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from out of state who had to seek care in Indiana after a 6-week abortion ban went into effect in Ohio. (Conservative commentators initially tried to debunk the true story as liberal exaggeration, but when facts turned against them, they pivoted to targeting the abortion provider.) Speaking to Jesse Watters on Fox News, Rokita called the OB-GYN an “abortion activist acting as a doctor.”
In a signed affidavit settling the case, Rokita agreed to the discipline “because I know that if this proceeding were prosecuted, I could not successfully defend myself.” Rokita nonetheless continued to contest the issue in the court of public opinion. He soon released a combative statement blasting “liberal activists” for attempting to “cancel” him — because, he said, they “hate the fact I stand up for liberty.”
More from Rolling Stone
Best of Rolling Stone
Solve the daily Crossword
