Michele Morrow, GOP candidate to lead NC public schools, once called for security cameras in student bathrooms

Michele Morrow, who has called for the execution of Democrats, included the measure in a post about stopping school shootings. She recently walked back the suggestion. 

Michele Morrow, the Republican candidate for North Carolina’s public school superintendent, suggested in a recently-resurfaced social media post that schools should install cameras in bathrooms to prevent gun violence. 

Cameras in school bathrooms would raise serious ethical and practical issues, including  privacy concerns for students. The idea also clashes with Morrow’s previous statements on giving parents far more control over what their kids read, learn and do at school.

Morrow proposed the measure in 2023 on X, formerly Twitter, in 2023, and though she recently walked back the suggestion, she has not taken down the post. 

She wrote, “My plan to stop people having guns in schools. 1. Controlled entry and exit doors (SRO’s and metal detectors) 2. Video surveillance in classrooms, hallways and bathrooms 3. Immediate expulsion for the remainder of the year for any violations 4. Charge parents if it is their gun.”

In a statement to WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR news station, Morrow said that she did not mean she wanted cameras inside bathrooms, though those are the words she used in her tweet. The cameras should go outside the bathrooms, she said.

“The safety of our students is a top priority of mine,” Morrow said in the statement. “Many families have shared with me that their children are afraid to go into the bathroom at school, leaving many to go the entire school day without using the bathroom. Surveying who goes in and out of the bathroom just like we do at other points of entry will help keep our students safe.”

Morrow has made school safety a central issue of her campaign, but she has also demonized LGBTQ students, called for the execution of prominent Democrats and vilified public schools as “indoctrination centers.”  

The Republican candidate, who homeschooled her children, also called for the abolition of the NC Department of Education. 

In November, Morrow is facing longtime public schools leader Mo Green in the superintendent’s race. Green is a former superintendent in Greensboro and the leader of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, which awards grants and advocates for numerous causes in the state, including public education. 

 

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‘Extreme and out of touch’ 

Morrow’s suggestions on gun violence underscore her lack of experience in the North Carolina public school system, Bryan Proffitt, the Vice President of the North Carolina Association of Educators—the state’s largest teacher advocacy organization— said in an interview.

“With something that is as complicated and as important for us to wrestle with as gun violence, a simple 4-point solution that does not talk at all about what the situations could be that might cause a kid to bring a gun to school is not enough,” Proffitt said.

Morrow has defended the idea of bringing more guns into schools, claiming that teachers should have the right to carry concealed firearms in their classrooms.

Proffitt is among a large number of educators who have raised concerns about her candidacy and endorsed Green. 

“It feels a bit maddening when solutions come from people who do not spend their time in public schools, who are openly disrespectful to educators,” Proffitt said. 

Between 2019 and 2021, Morrow made several social media posts endorsing conspiracy theories and calling for acts of violence against Democratic leaders.  She said Islam was “evil,” criticized North Carolinians who speak Spanish in public and spread Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2o2o election was stolen.

Morrow “is the last person to make our schools safer because she has made so many calls for violence herself,” Green said in a statement to Cardinal & Pine. 

He called Morrow’s suggestions “extreme and out of touch” and emphasized that “cameras won’t fix the root causes of gun violence that need to be addressed.”

While security cameras are common in schools in many of the areas Morrow suggested, efforts to put them in bathrooms have raised concerns in some states.

Students in a Colorado high school said they avoided the bathrooms after cameras were installed inside.

The National Center for Education Statistics says that while official security cameras inside a school bathroom would not necessarily violate federal law, any school installing them should address several issues, including issuing a clear statement of appropriate reasons for the camera; clearly citing who has access to the equipment and footage; and how long the footage would remain available. 

Schools may also need to get parental consent.

Morrow has said parents should have far more say in what happens in their children’s school, arguing that parents should be able to have a say in lesson plans, be able to ban  any books they find offensive and be notified immediately if their children ask a teacher to refer to them by a different pronoun.