James King

WHITE COUNTY, Ga. — A White County anti-critical race theory (CRT) activist who was verbally attacked by a White County Board of Education member in September is now being threatened by a Lumpkin County lawyer.

Former substitute teacher James King believes the White County School System is teaching CRT to students. He and the organization Citizens for Transparent Education have filed several open records requests with the School Board to support his claim. In September, School Board member John Solomon screamed at King and shook his finger in his face during a September meeting. Several bystanders said they were afraid Solomon was going to punch him.

On Tuesday, Dahlonega lawyer Matthew Hoyle took to Facebook to demand King halt his “harassment” of educators.

“I’m here to let you know that you have stepped over the line, and should you continue to attack and harass the educators that taught me to be the man I am today, I will be forced to fight you with the full force of not only my law firm but every law firm I can pull into this situation, which I assume will be plenty,” he wrote. “Again, I do not wish to bury you in legal fees but I will.” He also warned of “dire consequences” if King failed to comply.

Hoyle also accused King of “downloading and disseminating government-owned material and intellectual property.”

During a phone interview with Fetch Your News on Wednesday, Hoyle said, “I actually did not intend to send that to James on Facebook. I hit send and didn’t mean to then I unsent it but I guess he read it. I usually sit on letters for 24 hours.

“My concern was in protecting educators from potential hate crimes. They had expressed concerns about their personal safety. I respect teachers’ requests not to have people call and make personal threats.”

King said, “Honestly, Mr. Hoyle’s message scared me- which is what I believe he intended to do. After speaking with a friend who is a practicing attorney, he advised me that Mr. Hoyle was most likely only seeking to intimidate me and the members of Citizens for Transparent Education into stopping our fight against Critical Race Theory in White County.”

King rejected the claim that he downloaded government-owned material and intellectual property.

He said the information he collected came from taxpayer-owned school email and Google Classroom accounts that are subject to Georgia’s Open Records Act enacted to promote transparency in government.

King said his investigation of CRT in White County Schools will continue.