Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ's assistant attorney general for civil rights, announced she is investigating why a Turning Point USA chapter at a Maryland high school was reported to child protective services. A community member named Nancy Krause told a Calvert County school board meeting that she had filed the report — apparently because teenagers at Northern High School started a conservative club.
Dhillon responded on X to a post by Corey A. DeAngelis, president of the Educational Freedom Institute, who shared a clip from the school board meeting. Her statement was brief:
I'm looking into this.
Three words. But when the DOJ's top civil rights official says them about a CPS referral targeting a student political group, they carry weight.
The TPUSA chapter at Northern High School held its first meeting in November, the New York Post reported. According to its 17-year-old president, Luke Grover, the students wrote letters for veterans and discussed how to support their veteran community. That was the radical activity that apparently triggered a government referral.
At a Calvert County school board meeting, Krause laid out her rationale for the CPS report:
Students are widely recognized as a vulnerable population in critical, developmental stages and especially susceptible to influence.
She then reminded the room of their legal obligations:
All board of education members in this room are mandated reporters under state law, as I am.
And then the quiet part out loud:
Based on the circumstances surrounding this event, a report was made to child protective services.
The "circumstances surrounding this event" — teenagers forming a club, writing letters to veterans, having discussions about civic life. That's what warranted, in Krause's judgment, a call to child protective services.
Grover addressed the school board directly and pushed back against what he described as accusations of "grooming children" — a charge so reckless when aimed at a high school club that it barely deserves restatement. He explained the reality plainly:
We're not up for any problems, we're not causing any harm.
We're not doing anything wrong, our first meeting was in November, and we wrote letters for veterans and had productive discussions about how we can support our veteran community.
Grover also noted the chapter had banned any unknown adults from their meetings after receiving online hate — while still welcoming parents and known adult volunteers. A 17-year-old had to implement his own security protocols because adults couldn't handle teenagers exercising their First Amendment rights.
Maryland GOP Del. Mark Fisher, for whom Grover interns, spoke to ABC 7 News about the situation:
I'm so proud of these students and high school because they do know the Constitution, they do know their rights, and they do want to express themselves freely.
He didn't mince words about the adults involved:
Shame on these adults for attacking minors.
Consider the mechanism at work here. A group of students forms a chapter of a nationally recognized political organization — one founded by the late Charlie Kirk. They meet on school grounds. They write letters to veterans. And a community member walks into a school board meeting, invokes mandatory reporter language, and announces she's filed a CPS report.
CPS exists to protect children from abuse and neglect. It is not a tool for policing political association. But that distinction collapses when people convinced of their own moral authority decide that conservatism itself constitutes a danger to minors. Krause's framing — students as "vulnerable," "susceptible to influence" — borrows the language of child protection to smuggle in ideological enforcement. The implication is unmistakable: conservative ideas are the threat these children need protecting from.
DeAngelis captured the dynamic bluntly:
These lunatics want to take your kids away if you're conservative.
That's sharp rhetoric, but look at the facts and tell him he's wrong. A CPS report was filed against a student club whose documented activities include writing letters to veterans. The stated justification was that students are "susceptible to influence." If this happened to a progressive club — an environmental group, a voter registration drive, a DEI student council — every major outlet would run it above the fold for a week.
Dhillon's involvement signals that the administration views this as more than a local squabble. When the assistant attorney general for civil rights flags a case involving political targeting of minors, the implication is that someone's civil rights may have been violated. The fact that the targeting came through a government child welfare system — not just angry social media posts — makes the stakes concrete.
No formal charges have been announced. No official determination has been made about Krause's report or whether CPS took any action on it. But the DOJ's attention alone reframes the question. This isn't just about one woman and one school board meeting in Calvert County. It's about whether government systems designed to protect children can be hijacked to punish political participation.
A 17-year-old organized a club, wrote letters to veterans, and got reported to child protective services. The adults in the room weren't protecting children — they were punishing them for thinking differently.
