Fox_News_Classroom
Molly Butler / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Fox News editor Hannah Grossman’s yearlong obsession with demonizing educators and the chaos that followed

Several educators named in Grossman’s reporting have been doxxed, harassed, fired, hit with lawsuits, or forced to resign

Fox News’ Hannah Grossman has written nearly 100 articles in the last year that target specific teachers, schools, administrators, board members, or other staff, largely regarding the discussion of gender, sexuality, or systemic racism in the classroom. Multiple educators named in her reporting have been doxxed, harassed, fired, hit with lawsuits, or forced to resign.

Grossman is an associate editor at Fox News who, according to her Fox News webpage, “currently focuses on education” and covers “the U.S. Department of Education, the Pentagon's schools, teachers' unions and K-12 public schools.” She’s previously published articles on a variety of topics, often attacking the Biden administration, mainstream media, and “wokeness,” but shifted to mostly publishing articles about education in May 2022. 

In March, The Daily Dot's Claire Goforth reported that after Grossman published five articles attacking one trans teacher in California, both the teacher’s classroom and the school district offices received bomb threats. Media Matters analyzed all of Grossman’s published articles over the last year (from May 1, 2022 through May 1, 2023) and found that Grossman’s attacks on individual teachers and schools go well beyond one California school and one trans teacher. 

In fact, Grossman has published 33 articles targeting specific teachers, librarians, or other school staff by name, 52 articles targeting specific schools, districts, administrators, or board members, and 10 articles targeting specific colleges or universities, staff, or professors — accounting for nearly half of all of Grossman’s articles in the last year. Grossman has also published 20 articles targeting federal education officials. Other articles included broader attacks against teachers and teachers unions, public education, state and federal education departments, and education-related organizations. Fox News spread many of these articles across Facebook, where they earned thousands of total interactions.

Grossman’s numerous attacks on teachers are part of Fox News’ growing war on public education — and inclusive education in particular — in which the network has demonized and encouraged violence against educators, LGBTQ people, and those who support or affirm them. Fox hosts have even leveraged their fearmongering to call for the demolition of the public school system.

  • Grossman has written 33 articles targeting teachers, librarians, or other school staff by name, several of whom have been doxxed, harassed, threatened, fired, or forced to resign

  • Over the last year, Grossman wrote 33 articles targeting specific teachers, librarians, or other school staff, largely for discussing gender, sexuality, or systemic racism in the classroom. In fact, 14 of these articles targeted LGBTQ teachers in particular. 

    Several subjects of Grossman’s attacks have been doxxed, harassed, threatened, fired, or forced to resign:

    • More than 300 people reportedly attended a school board meeting the month after Grossman published a January 25 article targeting a nonbinary teacher from California, with some attendees calling the teacher “evil” and demanding for them to be fired. Grossman’s article was written in response to a New York Times article about trans students that featured the California teacher, and her piece falsely accused them of boasting about “changing students' genders without parents knowing.” 
  • Grossman Embed 1
    • In December 2022, Grossman wrote an article attacking two LGBTQ teachers and fearmongering about “social transitioning” — a process that often involves changing one’s pronouns, first name, hairstyle, and/or clothing. The article was the first of at least three that Grossman would write targeting one of the teachers, whom Grossman accused of “hiding students' gender transitions from parents.”

    The teacher had reportedly made a TikTok explaining that some students have asked them “not to disclose their [trans] identity” to family or other students, saying, “That’s a promise I always honor.” Grossman attacked the other teacher in multiple articles for using stuffed animals to teach students about gender identity.

    Both teachers had reported receiving threats even before Grossman targeted them.

  • Grossman Embed 2
    • In September 2022, Grossman wrote an article amplifying Oklahoma Education Secretary Ryan Walters’ calls to revoke a teacher’s license, falsely accusing her of providing students with “access” to “pornographic material.” The teacher told CNN that following the passage of Oklahoma’s HB 1775 she covered the books in her classroom that “could be at issue” with paper as instructed, but labeled them “Books the State Doesn’t Want You to Read,” and placed a QR code linking to the Brooklyn Public Library “Books Unbanned” page on the paper.

    The parent of one of her students complained, including on local television, where she said the teacher “should not have access to children now, or in the future. She should be stripped of her certifications. To be perfectly frank with you, she should have criminal charges against her.” The teacher was subsequently placed on leave, and then resigned.

    Three days after Grossman's article amplifying calls to revoke this teacher’s license was published, The Daily Beast reported that the teacher had told authorities that since her story went viral, she’d been doxxed and was “worried people may show up to her apartment.” She’d also reported getting messages saying she “should be lynched” or “sterilized” so she can’t “breed.”

  • Video file

    Citation From an August 26, 2022, KOKH report

  • Grossman has written 52 articles targeting specific schools, districts, administrators, and board members, and some of the targeted LGBTQ board members have faced death threats and lawsuits

  • Beyond targeting specific teachers, Grossman has also written 52 articles over the last year targeting specific schools, officials, and school board members. Some have subsequently faced death threats, lawsuits, and calls for their removal. Grossman has written numerous articles highlighting the chaos that has ensued at school board meetings across the country — much of which has been encouraged by Fox News’ dishonest and inflammatory reporting about alleged left-wing indoctrination of children in school.

  • Grossman Embed 3
  • She’s also written multiple articles targeting board members, school districts, and their administrators:

    • Grossman wrote at least 10 articles about specific school board members, 4 of which came in March of this year and targeted an LGBTQ school board member in Arizona.

    In February, this Arizona board member suggested the board reconsider extending the district’s longstanding contract with Arizona Christian University, citing concerns about anti-LGBTQ bias, noting that the university’s website claims it seeks to promote “biblically informed values” including “traditional sexual morality and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.”

    On March 3, Grossman wrote her first article targeting the Arizona board member, mocking her for “wearing cat ears during a meeting,” and suggesting that she and the board have a “bias against Christian beliefs.” This board member subsequently received death threats, and dozens of parents reportedly attended the next board meeting, some of whom pushed for her to resign.

    Arizona Christian University is now suing the school district and board — which has multiple LGBTQ members — with the help of extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom.

  • Grossman Embed 4
    • Grossman has also written 15 articles targeting specific school and district administrators, such as superintendents — seemingly contributing to at least one superintendent facing calls for his removal from state lawmakers.

    In March, the Arizona Capitol Times reported that an attempt to remove the superintendent of Scottsdale Unified School District had “spilled over to the Capitol after Fox News reported this year on an interview” he gave “to a progressive Michigan blog in 2019, a year before he was hired in Arizona.”

    Grossman had published two articles on the subject targeting the superintendent earlier this year.

  • Grossman Embed 5
    • Grossman has also written 20 articles targeting specific school districts and 6 articles targeting specific schools.
  • Grossman has written 20 articles targeting education officials at the state and federal levels

  • Over the last year, Grossman wrote 20 articles targeting federal education officials by name, including 15 articles specifically targeting Kelisa Wing, a former diversity, equity, and inclusion chief at the Department of Defense Education Activity. The pieces falsely accused her of anti-white racism and of indoctrinating the children of the nation’s military personnel with Marxism. As Grossman — and right-wing media more broadly — targeted Wing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) advocated for Wing’s removal.

  • Grossman Embed 6
  • Grossman also wrote eight articles that targeted state and local departments of education. For example, she wrote multiple articles targeting New York City’s Department of Education and the Oregon Department of Education, accusing the departments of pushing a “woke agenda” and “transgenderism.” Grossman also wrote five articles attacking the United States DOE, including attacking Education Secretary Miguel Cardona as “equity-obsessed.”

  • Grossman Embed 7