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MISHAWAKA, Ind. — New documents uncovered by REAL News Michiana show the President of the Penn Harris Madison School Board secretly ordered and directed school employees to investigate and harass a parent who has been critical of him, while at the same time threatening his fellow board members with felonies if they intervened. Emails show Board President Chris Riley directed PHM Communications Director Lucha Ramey to dig through nearly three years of the parent’s social media posts which were then submitted to the St. Joseph County Police department, where the district falsely accused the parent of threatening the school district, teachers and staff. While investigators determined there were no threats, they were forced to spend months looking through all of the information — which provided cover for the school district to ban the parent from school grounds for months due to a false “criminal investigation.” All of which is a violation of the Indiana Attorney General’s Parents’ Bill of Rights.
During that time, School Board President Ryan McCullough also attempted to get the parent fired from his private sector job by sending messages to his employer on LinkedIn. (A video from the parent describing the entire timeline of events can be viewed at the bottom of this story.)
PARENT BANNED FOR MEME
The parent, Ben Dallas, was banned from school property from mid-September of 2023, until early December. According to a letter Dallas received, the ban stemmed from a video he created and posted to YouTube in which he uses a popular meme from the movie The Matrix. The meme shows the main character, Neo, dodging bullets being fired at him. In the meme created by Dallas, Neo is depicted as school board president Chris Riley. Instead of dodging bullets, Riley is dodging words that come across the page. Those words include “accountability,” “hiring sex workers” and “implicit bias” — all issues Riley has been accused of ignoring in the PHM School Corporation.
Chris Riley also submitted a report to the St. Joseph County Police Department claiming the above video was threatening gun violence against him and PHM. Investigators concluded their investigation on October 5th, determining no crime was committed. However, the ban on the parent remained.
INVESTIGATION REOPENED
For nearly a month, a minority of board members along with Indiana State Representative Jake Teshka questioned school leadership about the continued no-trespassing order with little to no response. Finally, on November 3rd, Superintendent Jerry Thacker told board members that the ban remained because the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office was investigating. However, inquiries to the prosecutor’s office by both Teshka and School Board Member Matt Chaffee show the Prosecutor’s Office never received a report and were not involved in any investigation. And several requests by 2-3 board members at multiple meetings to investigate the re-opening were denied by President Riley.
Three days later, on November 6th, Lucha Ramey sent the St. Joseph County Police Department a PDF file with 80 links to videos Dallas had created dating back several years. This action caused SJCPD to reopen its investigation more than a month after the initial investigation had been closed. All of this was directed by Board President Chris Riley.
According to the police report, nothing provided by the school corporation contained threats, however, detectives were forced to view all of the videos.
“I did not find any threatening content posted by (the parent).” The SJCPD detective wrote in his report regarding the parent’s YouTube videos sent to him by Ramey. “While watching the videos of (the parent) speaking at board meetings I did not hear any threats made by (the parent).”
Despite the findings of the detective, PHM banned the parent from school property for nearly three months while falsely claiming he made threats against PHM.
OBVIOUS RETALIATION
Dallas has been extremely vocal and critical of PHM, its administration and school board members for several years. He has spoken out about Critical Race Theory, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, radical gender theory and the district’s employment of a drag queen who works as a paraprofessional with developmentally disabled children.
While the district claims Dallas was banned from school property for the “threatening” meme, the banishment came only ONE DAY after the US Department of Education came down with a ruling showing the school district violated the civil rights of straight white students — all stemming from a formal complaint filed by Dallas.
Dallas was also successful in another complaint that he filed against PHM in 2023 in which the school district violated Indiana open door laws. That case is currently being used as an example by the state as how school boards should not behave in an article titled “Guidance from the Public Access Counselor on Public Comment at School Board Meetings.”
One week after PHM banned Dallas from school grounds, the PHM School Board Vice President sent Dallas’ employer a message on Linkedin in an attempt to get the father of 4 fired from his private sector job.
“I thought you should be aware that one of your employees… uses these platforms to post some disturbing social media post.” PHM School Board Vice President Ryan McCullough wrote in his message on September 28th. While a screenshot of the message can be seen below, RNM has redacted portions that could identify the parent’s employer.
VETERAN DISCRIMINATION
REAL News Michiana learned from multiple sources in October of 2023, the Penn Harris Madison School Corporation had been maintaining the ban because Dallas is a combat veteran. According to two sources who wish not to be named out of fear of retaliation, Superintendent Jerry Thacker said PHM was finding ways to keep the ban against Dallas because he is a veteran and he owns guns. Dallas retired from the Army in 2016. He did two combat tours, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
A full video from the parent himself describing the timeline of events can be seen below.
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