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Mike Hixenbaugh Profile picture
Mike Hixenbaugh
@Mike_Hixenbaugh
Senior reporter @NBCNews | Co-creator of SOUTHLAKE & GRAPEVINE podcasts | Peabody winner & Pulitzer finalist | Author of THEY CAME FOR THE SCHOOLS
Ella Sanders Profile picture Greg in Langley 🇨🇦 Profile picture Hakan Profile picture 3 subscribed
Mar 25 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
LifeWise Academy teaches Bible lessons during the public school day, and it's spreading fast — with chapters in more than 300 schools across 12 states reaching 35,000 students.

I spent some time reporting on the program and its founder's ambitious goals.🧵nbcnews.com/news/us-news/l… First of all, this is legal. Many are surprised to learn that under a 1952 Supreme Court case, groups are free to offer religious instruction during school hours, so long as it's off-campus and not funded by the gov.

LifeWise has supercharged the concept. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/l…
Oct 26, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
NEW from me: A look at Speaker Mike Johnson's ties to evangelical activist David Barton, who's spent decades fighting church-state separation & who says he's already in touch with Johnson's team to offer advice on who he should hire to his staff. @NBCNewsnbcnews.com/news/us-news/e… Barton said on his podcast that he’d already been in touch with Johnson’s team, “talking with them about staff” and offering advice on who the speaker should hire.

“They need to be the people with his worldview,” said Barton. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/e…
Oct 25, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Rep. Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the U.S. House, sued New Orleans in 2003 to block the city from giving health care benefits to the partners of gay employees. (Johnson was a lawyer for Alliance Defense Fund, the influential group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom) Image In 2004, Johnson defended a Louisiana elementary school that had been leading students in Christian prayer at recess, arguing that "The founders of this country believed that religion and morality were indispensable."
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Oct 5, 2023 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
🧵Last August, I was listening to a feed of a heated North Texas school board meeting while juggling my nightly dad duties.

Which is why I was getting my 3-year-old to bed when I heard a mom make a shocking statement that @ahylton26 and I have now spent a year investigating. 1/ The mom said a teacher in Grapevine, Texas, had given her child access to information that led the teen to change genders.

As her time expired, she said, "I lost my son."

As I rubbed my own kid's back, the thought hit me: What book could separate a parent from their child? 2/
Apr 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A Franklin, Tennessee, council member just held up a photo of what she described as a drag queen biting into “a live, beating heart” in explaining why she’s going the vote against granting a permit for a LGBTQ pride festival.

“This could have happened here.” This same Franklin aldermen is scolding pride festival organizers for refusing to offer a booth to this religious group, which believes that homosexual attraction is the result of Original Sin and teachers gay youth to embrace a lifetime of celibacy: equipyourcommunity.org/what-does-equi…
Apr 11, 2023 • 28 tweets • 8 min read
“I believe that their lifestyle is wrong,” this man said, speaking out against allowing an LGBTQ pride festival in Franklin, Tennessee.

Folks came wearing “Protect ALL kids” stickers. Lots of others wearing rainbow T-shirts as well.

Happening now. Image “I’ve had gay and lesbian friends since before these kids were alive,” this speaker said, calling on Franklin city leaders to not allow an LGBTQ pride festival in town. Image
Apr 11, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
WATCH: Last month, at an event hosted by Patriot Mobile, David Barton urged North Texas school boards to seize on recent SCOTUS decisions to "go on the offensive" and impose Christian values in public schools:

"We can now go back to singing the traditional Christmas carols." David Barton continued: Student-led prayer, prayer at graduation, Ten Commandments displays, for-credit Bible classes: "We need to be aggressive in pushing these things" in public schools.
Apr 5, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
RIGHT NOW: David & Tim Barton, who've said the purpose of public schools "is to teach students to love and serve God," make the case for forcing public schools to display the 10 Commandments in every classroom.

One suggests the measure could have stopped the Nashville shooting. Image Context:
Apr 3, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Today in Austin, two Southlake Carroll school board members spoke at a press conference alongside GOP legislators about their recent decision to leave the Texas Association of School Boards over "woke, leftists policies."

The lawmakers called on other districts to follow suit. It's part of a yearslong pattern on Southlake leading the way in the backlash against DEI programs and LGBTQ inclusion in schools.

You can watch the full press conference here: tlchouse.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph…
Apr 3, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Two GOP bills to chip away at the separation of church & state and promote Christianity in public schools are getting a hearing in the Texas Senate this week.

One, SB 1515, would require schools to display the Ten Commandments (King James version) in EVERY classroom. 1/ Every K-12 public classroom in the state of Texas would be required to display these words:

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant."

Yes, please explain that line to a 6-year-old. 2/
Dec 3, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: The Carroll school board in Southlake will once again consider removing the words “gender” and “sexual orientation” from the non-discrimination statement in the district’s student code of conduct.

This year’s SCOC vs a new draft proposal: This comes from a committee appointed by the board to review district policy, & comes three years after the district added explicit language to the student code of conduct prohibiting racial slurs and bullying based on sexual orientation. Most of that language would go away.
Dec 2, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The new Twitter feed is a mess. Tonight mine is filled with far-right influencer and conspiracy theory accounts that I don’t follow. In a few swipes I was served up a couple election deniers, the PizzaGate guy and an anti-Muslim extremist. (Yes I know I can switch the timeline to see the latest posts. As someone who tries not to spend all day on here, I preferred the curated feed)
Nov 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In the first tweet, Elon adopts the exact philosophical position — “Freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” — that he attacks in the second tweet. ImageImage “Yet unfortunately the debate over free speech online is also being shaped by fundamentally incorrect understandings of the First Amendment.” brookings.edu/techstream/mis…
Nov 6, 2022 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
NEW w/ ⁦⁦⁦@KateReports⁩: School board wars over Covid, racism, gender and sexuality have “softened the ground” for private school vouchers in Texas.

Now far-right megadonors are spending big to get the policy across the finish line. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t… “These groups have been demonizing what is being taught,” effectively eroding faith in public schools, @bjrottinghaus told me. “Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. If people believe that it’s true, then it’s politically potent.” nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t…
Oct 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
An example of how mandatory reporting & the resulting fear of criminal charges create a massive dragnet that ensnares innocent parents: 24 out of 25 abuse reports called in by PA educators turn out to be unfounded.

One of many findings in our new report: nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… And to be clear, this does not mean there was conclusive evidence of abuse even in the 1 in 25 reports from educators that were “substantiated” by child welfare caseworkers. Context:
Oct 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Kids have to get permission from their parents to read picture books like “When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball” at this Florida school district because one mom doesn’t like that it “opines prejudice based on race.” The form is a direct copy from one filled out by a parent in Katy, Texas.
Sep 20, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The young man filming this and making the anti-Semitic comment has been a frequent attendee at private events for conservative school board members in Southlake. One Carroll school board member even listed his endorsement on his campaign website. After being called out for associating with someone who aligns with white nationalists, Southlake’s mayor said that the young man has special-needs and minimized his openly racist views, saying the criticism of him was “just because he supports conservatives” Image
Sep 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Is there a word to describe when people believe something is ruined simply because Black people exist in it? Here’s the lead image with that credulous CNN article about how some people are saying “wokeness” ruined Lord of the Rings.
Sep 3, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
A Patriot Mobile-backed candidate in Mansfield, Texas, is urging followers to see a movie called “Uncle Tom II.”

I’ll have to look that up. According to this review, the movie argues that the initial success of Black Americans after the Civil War was undermined by socialists like MLK whose “godless” ideology “devastated the black family and created a vast community” of “ungrateful victims and freeloaders.”
Sep 2, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: In the latest turn in the saga over "In God We Trust" posters in Texas schools, an Austin law firm has sent cease and desist notices to four North Texas school districts alleging that the posters donated by Patriot Mobile don't actually comply with the state law. Image Here's the legal notice sent today to Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. Similar cease and desist letters were sent to Carroll ISD, Keller ISD and Mansfield ISD. ImageImageImage
Aug 25, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
How did a suburban Texas school district end up passing one of the most extreme policies in the country dealing with race, gender and sexuality?

The answer involves a Christian wireless provider, heavy-hitter GOP strategists and something called the Seven Mountains Mandate. 1/👇 Image If you want to skip ahead, read my story for @NBCNews, out this morning. 2/ nbcnews.com/news/us-news/-…