Family · Ann Arbor, MI Metro · September 18, 2026
DOJ Gives Ann Arbor Schools 14 Days to Fix Parental Rights Violations
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The whole enforcement action turns on making the district live up to its own book of rules — the FERPA conditions it accepted when it took federal education money. What made the September letter possible was not outside opinion but the district's own words: after announcing in August that the policy had been revised, Equity Trustee Chair Susan Schmidt told the Aug. 26 board meeting, "It doesn't mean we're changing anything. We're trying to be more clever than that." The gap between the stated revision and the admitted practice is the case.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Radical Integrity means the same test applied to your own side this month. Before you speak at a meeting, actually read your district's records policy and the federal Student Privacy Policy Office's plain-language summary of the 45-day inspection right, so that what you claim in public matches what the documents say. And check your own church school, co-op or ministry: if it keeps counseling notes or forms parents have never been shown, close that gap yourself before anyone points at it.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Out of thousands of districts with similar policies, two were named first — Ann Arbor and Anne Arundel County — and the September letter personalized it further by quoting one trustee by name. That is target selection, freezing and personalizing: one district, one sentence, one official becomes the face of a national dispute. The same mechanism can be pointed the other way at a single parent who stands up at a board meeting.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Keep your own questions aimed at the policy and the board as a body, not at the trustee whose quote went national — ask for the vote tally and the policy number, not for anyone's resignation. If a parent or teacher in your district is singled out for asking the same questions, go to the next meeting with them and say publicly that you share the question. Refusing to leave anyone standing alone is the counter.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The operative pressure is a 14-day clock and the phrase "risk losing federal funding," plus the letter's framing as a final chance before litigation. Termination of a district's federal funds is a rare and lengthy administrative process; the threat is doing more work right now than any action taken. The district's own answer — reviewing with counsel, committed to "complying with federal law" — is shaped by the threat, not by a finding.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Name the realistic outcomes out loud before the next meeting: most likely a negotiated policy rewrite or a civil suit that takes a year or more, not a sudden loss of teacher salaries. Look up the federal revenue line in your district's adopted budget so you know the actual dollar share at issue rather than repeating "they'll lose everything." Then ask the board the practical question — what written guidance goes to counselors and principals in the meantime.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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