Despite seeking to oversee public education in a state of 10.5 million people, she is herself a homeschooler.
She has no prior political experience.
She attended the Jan. 6 rally to support Donald Trump’s quest to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
She received candidate training alongside a Proud Boys member.
And yet, Morrow upset incumbent Catherine Truitt in the Republican primary on Tuesday.
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Morrow, who rallied for Trump in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, has repeatedly made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, while calling for death to Trump’s political enemies — and to former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his former wife Melinda Gates for promoting vaccines.
Morrow could not be reached for comment for this story.
In a post on Twitter (now X) on Dec. 29, 2020, Morrow wrote: “I do support death to vaccine mongers like Bill and Melinda Gates.” (Raw Story reviewed the post on Wednesday, but it has since been removed for violating X’s rules. The post has been archived.)
Twitter reply by Michele Morrow screen-captured by Raw Story on March 6, 2024
In another post the same day, she wrote: “We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!!!”
Morrow livestreamed herself with other Trump supporters walking to the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
“We are here to take back America,” she said. “We are here to stop the steal. We are here to ensure that President Trump gets four more years.”
Morrow, who has worked as a Christian missionary, exhorted her livestream followers: “We need to fight back with prayer… May the people of God arise. May the Holy Spirit descend on D.C., and may souls be saved. And may the United States once again return to one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”
In the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Morrow rebuked a call by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to prosecute those involved. Four people died during the attack — all Trump supporters — and dozens of police officers were injured.
“We do not condone violence and destruction,” Morrow wrote. Nor will we stand for treason and cowardice. Did anyone offer to talk with those entered? Or only force them out and threaten them? Thousands of us were here in Nov & Dec. We never heard from ANY Congressmen. Now you want to talk?”
Following President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, Morrow took part in the far-right shift towards focusing on public schools as sites for cultural and political struggle.
A post in the private Facebook group Education First Warriors shows Morrow attending a candidate training with a member of the Proud Boys in January 2022. The photo was posted by Sloan Rachmuth, the president of the Education First Alliance.
Proud Boy member John Fischer, who like Morrow would go on to lose a local school board race that year, later attended a rally with other Proud Boys wearing masks and paramilitary gear who harassed patrons at a drag show in Sanford, N.C.
Public schools are 'greatest threat to humanity'
Truitt, who Morrow defeated Tuesday to win the Republican nomination for superintendent of public instruction, has held the post for the past four years.
The person in this position is responsible for developing curriculum and administering state and federal funds in North Carolina K-12 schools.
Morrow’s primary win sets up what’s likely to be a spirited general election fight with Maurice “Mo” Green, formerly the superintendent of Guilford County Schools — the third largest district in the state — who won the Democratic primary.
Green received the endorsement of the NC Association of Educators, whose president declared the election to “be critical to the future of public education in North Carolina” while warning that “anti-public school politicians want to tear down our schools.”
Some of Morrow’s views on public education are outlined in a 2023 Newsmax opinion article that promotes a Christian nationalist vision for education, while claiming that preserving traditional gender roles is a matter of national security.
Morrow wrote that “government-run (read public) schools and medical systems” are “the greatest threat to humanity,” while arguing that removing God “from the classroom, the courtroom, and the public square” is opening “ourselves up to chaos and confusion.”
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In the same article, Morrow claimed that the American soldiers who liberated France during World War II are being demonized as “toxic.” She also complained that society is “filling our children’s minds with the lie that gender roles are an oppressive, social construct to be rejected” and “telling them that it is ‘heroic’ to block the natural processes of development.”
Green, the Democratic nominee for superintendent of public instruction, is largely refraining from commenting on his opponent.
In a statement to Raw Story, Green said he will work to make the North Carolina public school system the best in the country by advocating for full funding, ensuring staff receives adequate pay and “celebrating the good in public education.”
Morrow, in contrast, has a history of negatively framing public education.
Speaking at a candidate forum during her unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Wake County Board of Education in 2022, Morrow said her children have been educated in public, private and home schools.
“And what worked best for my kids in preparing them to be critically thinking, hardworking and intelligent adults and prepared for entering into the adult world and following and pursuing a career that they are passionate about was homeschooling,” she said.
Morrow added: “I would be more than happy to put my last child, who is in fifth grade now — 10 years old — to put him in the public school system if I believed that the public education system was focused on academic excellence and preparing our children for the career of their choice.”
