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Around February 18, 2026, a post in the Trumbull Talks Facebook group quickly went viral and drew national attention.

"Mrs. Brown at Hillcrest strikes again with her political agenda," the post read. "New class assessment."

The assignment that 8th-grade social studies teacher Lynn Brown planned to give her students included a success criterion that sparked immediate outrage: students were expected to identify similarities and differences between current U.S. immigration enforcement and the persecution of Jews in 1930s Germany.

After Libs of TikTok amplified the assignment, the district went into damage control mode. Superintendent Martin Semmel sent an email to the Board of Education at 10:58 p.m. on February 19, acknowledging he had learned of the controversial lesson on February 17. He immediately directed Principal Bryan Rickert to address the issue.

Rickert met with the teachers and told them the success criteria were inappropriate for the lesson objective. While the lesson was not scrapped entirely, administrators required it to be revised into a "much more open-ended" format. The district also assigned an extra duty officer to Hillcrest Middle School as a precaution.

A draft email to parents initially stated "the lesson was not taught," but the final version sent to families claimed only that "the direct comparison was removed" and the learning targets were replaced with open-ended, inquiry-based objectives focused on democratic safeguards.

Months earlier, Trumbull's Teacher-Librarian, Judy Grib, had recommended a New York Times Learning Network lesson plan to Brown on "Trump’s immigration crackdown."

The landing page featured an "Abolish ICE" protest sign, which linked to the NY Times plan. It included questions such as: “How are undocumented immigrants reacting to Mr. Trump’s efforts to deport millions?” and “What is the human cost of ICE’s tactics?” along with selected first-person accounts. For example:

• Read about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who became the face of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown after he was wrongly deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison.
• Read about how some American citizens, many of them Latino men, have been stopped and in some cases detained as immigration agents take a more aggressive approach.
• View an editorial cartoon that shows how one teenager and his family are navigating the risks of being undocumented.

Perhaps that's where Brown got the idea for the ICE-Nazi comparison?

But she could have also gotten the idea from the steady stream of progressive newsletters and anti-Trump advocacy emails received at her official school email address from MoveOn.org, Indivisible, the Working Families Party, America's Voice, 350.org, Everytown.org, 1440 Daily Digest, Apple News, Braver Angels Connecticut Alliance, the American Federation of Teachers, Feminist Shop, Nobody Wants This, Hakeem Jeffries, and of course Chris Murphy.

Heck, she even has a contact in Buffalo who keeps her updated on the local No Kings scene.

How does she find the time to consume so many radical newsletters at work?

In addition, Brown has used her school email for political activism outside Connecticut.

On July 5, 2025, she emailed Florida’s emergency management program demanding answers about access to an immigration detention center also known as "Alligator Alcatraz," writing that it "sounds unlawful" and that there was "something sinister happening to immigrants" in violation of their constitutional rights.

Unfortunately, it appears that Brown's personal politics keep just creeping into work.

This is not the first time she's been accused of politicizing the classroom, either.

In the fall of 2022, a parent filed a complaint after Brown discussed PizzaGate with two full periods of 8th graders. During an Electoral College lesson, students raised the topic of misinformation. When one asked what it meant, another mentioned PizzaGate. Brown then explained the conspiracy to the class, describing how a man influenced by a QAnon theory entered a pizza restaurant with a gun to "free trafficked children" and called him "misinformed" and foolish for his actions.

PizzaGate was not part of any approved instructional materials — just as the ICE-Nazi comparison was not part of the materials (at least according to the school).

Two Board of Education members expressed concern after the PizzaGate incident that Brown was “out of control” and potentially violating Board Policy 4000, which prohibits promoting personal political beliefs in the classroom.

The same parent then complained to Semmel in February 2026, "I emailed you a few years ago because she [Brown] took it upon herself to speak to two full 8th grade classes about “PizzaGate.” My child came home asking me what it was. Rickert’s response to me was just as disgusting saying that it was ok because it was a conspiracy. Conspiracy or not that was placed in my child's mind. Imagine if she looked that up on the internet and the ugly dark disturbing rabbit holes it would bring her down??"

The parent, still furious about the PizzaGate incident, lamented "there are never any consequences for Lynn Brown." Perhaps that's because Brown is one of those teachers promoting the exact progressive agenda favored by the unions?

Brown pushed anti-racism in 2020 because of George Floyd. She advocated for Trumbull teachers to be indoctrinated with equity / systemic racism training from SERC in 2021 to make classrooms "safe and equitable spaces." She did exactly that when she started the "Shades" club at Hillcrest to advocate for and create a safe space for African-American students. She continued to advocate for making diversity, equity and inclusion "key components" of the district's goals in 2022, certainly to the delight of her teacher's union.

In fact, the teacher's union Connecticut Education Association just stepped up to defend Brown on July 7, 2026 in an article titled, "They Taught—They Were Targeted; Their Union Stepped In."

The union's retelling of the ICE-Nazi assignment is a bit different.

The union claimed Brown and another teacher had principal support before the lesson, blamed a single parent and Libs of TikTok for the backlash, and insisted the assignment aligned with the approved curriculum. CEA Rep Mike Casey and Trumbull Education Association President Nick Banks both defended Brown, while CEA President Kate Dias warned that teachers face “great personal risk” for doing their jobs.

Union leaders asked the district to send a follow-up email to parents to correct alleged misinformation about the curriculum. Instead, the union said Semmel accused Brown of insubordination.

“When a teacher with this kind of experience and credibility is not supported, when teachers are put under a microscope and bullied, imagine the impact on their colleagues,” said Banks.

"Educators are being hit with threats to their profession, families, privacy, and personal safety, and that’s unacceptable," said Dias. "What’s equally unacceptable is having administrators open their teachers up to attacks, caving to political bias or pressure, or even worse, using their positions to advance personal political preferences over objective and balanced civil discourse.”

Actually, Ms. Dias, what is truly unacceptable is a teacher using her public school classroom to advance a clear personal political agenda while being shielded by your union. Parents and taxpayers have every right to expect social studies instruction that prioritizes facts, critical thinking, and the approved curriculum — not activist indoctrination.

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