Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is turning up the heat on an Ohio school board member who advocates the flouting of laws prohibiting radical “transgender” indoctrination on schoolchildren.
Lauren Marchaza, a Mentor Public Schools board member in Mentor, Ohio, revealed in a February 11 board meeting that she does not think it is necessary to follow laws to protect underage children from sexual indoctrination. A video of her comments shared by the popular account @libsoftiktok has been viewed over 400,000 times as of Wednesday morning.
Trump signed an executive order on January 29 called “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” which threatened to withhold federal funding for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools,” including that which is based on gender ideology and “discriminatory equity ideology.”
Trump’s order followed passage of an Ohio law earlier in January that prohibits teachers from pushing “sexuality content” without parental knowledge.
Referencing Trump’s order, Marchaza said “the phrase [used is] ‘consistent with applicable law.’ I think that kind of gives everybody a little bit of flexibility in terms of like what is legal and what is not.” She added that “there are multiple provisions in federal law that prohibit the federal government from getting involved in state and local decisions about K-12 curriculum, so no executive order can actually overrule, um, that federal law or regulation, so I think that is important for us to remember.”
Moreno isn’t buying Marchaza’s amateur attorneying.
“Her misleading statements could be interpreted, at best, as attempting to engage in the unauthorized practice of law, and, at worst, as the pronouncement that the Board will refuse to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders,” Moreno wrote to the school board’s president Maggie Cook.
Lauren Marchaza, board member at @mentorschools and former manager of a Planned Parenhood, says their school won’t follow Trump’s Executive Orders because she only has to follow state law.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 12, 2025
NEWSFLASH: Ohio Gov signed a bill a few weeks ago cracking down on radical indoctrination… pic.twitter.com/L5Dm96WqIm
“To the best of my knowledge, Board Member Marchaza is not a lawyer,” Moreno adds. “And yet, she has seemingly made the sole determination that the Board can undermine the President of United States’ constitutional authority to protect parental rights in education, and outlaw unconstitutional, far-left racial discrimination in public schools.
“I don’t know how else to interpret this Board Member’s statements other than as an indication that the Board plans to flagrantly disregard President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Moreno asked for clarification on the official position of the Board within five days. He specifically asks Cook:
- Does the Board and Mentor Public Schools plan to enforce President Trump’s Executive Orders including but not limited to, the Executive Order “Ending Racial Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”?
- Does the Board and Mentor Public Schools plan to fully comply with the laws cited in President Trump’s Executive Order?
- Why did a non-attorney Board Member provide legal analysis of and commentary on the President’s Executive Orders to the Board, as opposed to the Board’s counsel?
- Are you aware that Lake County receives over $1 billion in state and federal funding?
Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders, including several to protect schoolchildren from radicals masquerading as educators.
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye
