Democracy and Education

Episode 9

Rejecting Extremism

Alarmed by the allegations made by Libs for TikTok and Moms for Liberty, Courtney Gore ran for school board in her home town of Granbury Texas in 2021.

Once on the board, she searched for the evidence of indoctrination and the sexualization of children she had been warned of. When she found none, she went back to her community to tell them the good news. But they didn’t want to hear it and cut ties with her.

Now she realizes that she had unwittingly been part of a campaign to sow distrust in public schools in order to undermine them and pave the way for vouchers.

In this conversation with Karin Chenoweth, Courtney Gore lays out how she did something that is very difficult—she changed her mind. In the process she lost friends and lost one community. But she held true to her essential principle of being accountable to voters and her responsibility to provide an “amazing” education to all the children of Granbury. And she gained a new community of people who appreciated her openness to facts and evidence.

Thanks to Jason Schwartz of ProPublica for first publishing the story of how Courtney Gore changed her mind.

She Campaigned for a Texas School Board Seat as a GOP Hard-Liner. Now She’s Rejecting Her Party’s Extremism.