Last week, dozens of Colorado school board members and administrators issued an open letter to the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA), making what they called “an urgent and resolute demand” that the organization “immediately adopt rules” to ban trans-identifying teens from participating in high school athletics in Colorado. Signed by 80 signatories representing 14 public school districts, ten charter schools, and one BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), the letter references President Trump’s February 5 Executive Order, “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” and suggests that CHSAA will be subject to federal investigation if it does not comply with the letter’s demands.
“The implications for CHSSA [sic] are unmistakable,” the letter said. “By maintaining policies that permit boys to compete as girls, CHSSA [sic] risks exposing Colorado schools to federal investigations, the potential loss of critical funding, and legal liability under Title IX. Beyond compliance, however, our demand is rooted in a fundamental commitment to our female students,” the letter went on. “Girls’ sports exist to provide equitable opportunities for competition, achievement, and personal growth – opportunities that are undermined when biological males, with inherent physical advantages, are allowed to participate. Parents, coaches, and athletes across our districts and schools have voiced growing concerns about fairness and safety, and we cannot stand idly by as their trust in our athletic programs erodes.”
Though local outlets covered the letter as if it were an organic outpouring of concern from education professionals about the hot-button topic of transgender student athletes, a Colorado Times Recorder investigation – months in the making before the release of the letter – can now reveal that the letter was not nearly as organic as it was made to seem. Representing districts and charter schools spread across the state, almost all of the 80 signatories have direct professional ties to one of the most influential conservative political operatives in Colorado; a man who has declared his own opposition to the state’s legal protections for transgender individuals and has boasted of using the press to help his clients “emphasize [their] message through other means.”
Brad Miller does not make many headlines. A conservative Colorado attorney whose small firm focuses primarily on education issues, there is no reason most Coloradans would have heard of him. Though his name may be unfamiliar, hundreds of thousands of Colorado families have contended with Miller’s work in school districts across the state: in Jefferson County schools and Loveland’s Thompson school district a decade ago, in Woodland Park since 2022, and in almost every other district where conservative culture wars have made the news in recent years.
Though Miller does not style himself as a political operative, his firm’s track record tells a different story: not only is Miller deeply engaged in the politics of conservative education reform, he appears to be remarkably good at it. In an era when Colorado Republicans have failed to wield any influence at the state level, Miller – and his firm, Miller Farmer Carlson Law – has moved the ball forward for conservatism on dozens of fronts from the northeastern plains to the southwestern mountains. Last week’s letter, seemingly designed to persuade news organizations to elevate the hyper-partisan issue as the nonpartisan concern of education professionals, appears to be the latest example.
Though one school board member told the Colorado Springs Gazette that Miller had authored the letter, no outlet noted the connections between Miller and the letter’s signatories, or Miller’s past comments on Colorado’s transgender protections. The findings of an ongoing CTR investigation into Miller Farmer Carlson’s work around the state reveal those connections:
Of the letter’s 80 signatories, 58 of them are current or recent clients of Miller’s firm. The signatories from El Paso County’s District 49, Pueblo’s District 70, Montezuma-Cortez, Elizabeth, Brush, and Woodland Park – totaling 21 signers – currently retain Miller’s legal services. Miller also has current or recent professional relationships with the signatories from nine of the ten charter schools on the list, and with Education ReEnvisioned BOCES, accounting for another 37 people (though many of the charter boards who signed did not list individual names, signing instead as a unified board).
Of the remaining signatories, another 19 are otherwise professionally entangled with Miller’s work, like the signatories from Mesa County Valley 51, who attempted unsuccessfully to hire Miller’s firm in the recent years. Only three of the letter’s 80 signatories lack clear connections to Miller.
When asked about his connections to the signatories, Miller initially said that “most of the district signatories” were not his clients, which is strictly true: most of the public districts which contributed signatories are not Miller’s clients, but the majority of overall signers are. When presented with the connections we have uncovered, Miller conceded that CTR’s “count is likely accurate.” He also noted that “dozens more” signatures would soon be released in an addendum to the original letter and said that “none of those, I believe, are clients or contacts of mine.” As of publication, no addendum has yet been published.
Here’s what we know about the signatories’ connections to Miller, and Miller’s involvement in drafting, circulating, and promoting the letter.
To anyone following education politics in Colorado, Miller’s most noteworthy current clients are likely the board members of the Woodland Park School District (four of whom signed last week’s letter). Since a controversial conservative slate of candidates won a majority on the district’s board in late 2021, the Teller County school district has been a flashpoint. When the new board was sworn-in, hiring Miller Farmer Carlson was one of their first official acts.
Under Miller’s legal guidance, the board approved a divisive new charter school for the district, hired Miller’s long-time ally Ken Witt as superintendent, and became the first district in the nation to adopt the highly political American Birthright social studies standards, which were produced by a network of right-wing think tanks. In Miller’s first full year as the WPSD attorney, thanks in large part to the board’s actions, the district was the target of lawsuits, and legal costs increased by roughly 900%.
Though Miller’s clients in Woodland Park have made plenty of news – both local and national – most of his clients fly significantly further under the radar. In the Elizabeth School District, for instance, on the eastern plains, Miller’s work has made news, but far less than in Woodland Park. In Elizabeth, another long-time Miller ally, Dan Snowberger, was brought in as superintendent, while the far-right board majority earned some meager headlines (and a sizable ACLU lawsuit) with an attempted book ban. Last year, the Colorado Times Recorder also reported that a company owned by Miller’s son, Tagg Education, had contracted to provide the rural district with unlicensed substitute teachers. Snowberger and three of Elizabeth’s current school board members signed the letter to CHSAA.
Miller’s clients in Colorado Springs District 49 (commonly referred to as D49) have also flirted with newsworthiness in recent years. In 2023, the D49 board – which documents obtained via public records request confirm is represented by Miller Farmer Carlson – passed a resolution to acknowledge the United States’ alleged “Judeo-Christian biblical foundation” by hanging signs with “In God We Trust” in public buildings through the district. The D49 board has also waded into controversies around “critical race theory” and transgender issues in the past. Three members of the D49 board and the district’s superintendent signed last week’s letter about transgender student-athletes.
Four of Miller’s clients from the Montezuma-Cortez school district also signed last week’s letter: three board members, and controversial superintendent Tom Burris, who was charged last year with failing to live up to his duties as a mandatory reporter. Located in the far southwestern region of the state, hundreds of miles from Denver, Montezuma-Cortez has experienced its fair share of controversy in recent years, but very little of it has broken into Front Range news outlets.
A public records request confirmed that Miller Farmer Carlson also represents Pueblo District 70, which contributed four signatories to the letter. Combined, the signatories from these five districts – all of whom are current Miller clients – account for 25% of the letter’s signers. They are not, however, Miller’s only clients on the list.
In addition to representatives of public school districts, last week’s letter urging CHSAA to ban transgender athletes was also signed by representatives of ten charter schools and one BOCES, almost all of whom are past or present Miller clients.
The entire four-member board of Education ReEnvisioned BOCES (ERBOCES), which channels state education funding to contract schools and homeschool enrichment programs, signed the letter. Miller was involved in the founding of ERBOCES as Colorado Digital BOCES in 2014, and has represented the organization ever since. Ken Witt, who served as superintendent in Woodland Park through most of the district’s recent controversies, leads the organization, and Elizabeth superintendent Dan Snowberger is a former member of the ERBOCES board.
Nine of the ten charter schools that contributed signatories to the letter have also contracted Miller’s services in recent years. In addition to having provided trainings and briefings for board members at James Irwin Charter Schools (seven signatories), for instance, Miller is also an officer of the nonprofit backing the school, the James Irwin Educational Foundation. Miller has also represented New Summit Charter Academy (six signatories), appearing as the school’s attorney in board minutes, and has a long-standing relationship with the school’s executive director, Kim McClelland, who was the original founder and long-time executive director of ERBOCES.
Miller is also the long-time legal counsel to Monument Academy in El Paso County, which contributed seven signatories to the letter. Miller’s mother-in-law, Jane Lundeen – mother to Miller’s wife, and to his brother-in-law, state Sen. Paul Lundeen – formerly served as the school’s principal. Colorado Springs Charter Academy, whose executive director signed the letter to CHSAA, is also currently represented by Miller, as are Leman Academy of Excellence, which contributed four signatories, and the Classical Academy (at least as of last October), which contributed another three. Miller has also served as legal counsel for Golden View Classical Academy, at least in the past. The Times Recorder could not ascertain whether Miller still represents Golden View. According to a 2023 letter from Miller’s firm, he represents Loveland Classical Academy (one signatory), and public meeting minutes show that he has also provided legal counsel to the Colorado Military Academy (one signatory).
Of the ten charter schools on the list, the only one not represented in some capacity by Miller Farmer Carlson is Liberty Tree Academy, which is represented by the Charter School Law Group, but even Liberty Tree is rife with other connections to Miller. Liberty Tree’s board president, former state Rep. Tim Geitner, has hosted a podcast with Miller. In 2022, Geitner’s wife, Carrie Geitner, then serving as an El Paso County Commissioner, unsuccessfully nominated Miller to serve on the county’s Board of Health.
Excluding Liberty Tree, the signatories from ERBOCES, the nine Miller-represented charters, and the five Miller-represented districts add up to 58, or 72.5% of the letter’s signatories – and those are just current or recent clients. Amazingly, Miller’s established connections to the signatories extend even further.
Of the public school districts which contributed signatories to the letter, two of the non-Miller-represented districts have attempted to hire him in recent years. Miller’s firm did not formally represent the Brush School District, at the time of the signing, for instance – a Morgan County district with about 1,400 students – but it is not for lack of trying: a year and a half ago, three members of the seven-member board attempted unsuccessfully to hire Miller, defeated by the other four. In a November 2023 board meeting, minutes show that Miller was present as a guest, and that he “shared information about his law firm and the work they do for school districts.” At the next meeting, in December 2023, the board voted on retaining Miller’s services, but the vote narrowly failed. Board President Paul Chard, who voted to hire Miller in the split vote in 2023, signed onto the anti-trans letter with the other six members of the board. At a Brush board meeting hours before the original publication of this story, Miller was formally hired as the district’s attorney, but did not yet represent the district at the time the letter was signed.
Three members of the Mesa County District 51 board also signed the letter to CHSAA. District 51 uses in-house counsel for its legal services, a status quo the school system arrived at in 2022 after an aborted attempt by the board’s conservatives to hire Miller’s firm via “back room maneuvering” and possible Colorado Open Meetings Law violations. School board member Andrea Haitz, who spearheaded the failed maneuver to hire Miller’s firm, is now the board’s president and a signatory to the letter. She was joined in signing by fellow board members Angela Lema, who was also involved in the effort to hire Miller, and Barbara Evanson, who was elected to the board in 2023 after campaigning on teaching creationism in science classes. With the addition of the ten signatories from Brush and District 51, the proportion of Miller-connected signatories climbs to 82.5%.
Miller has connections to several of the remaining signatories as well, though they are more tangential.
The sole signatories from each of two school districts, Thompson, and Delta 50J, also have ties to Miller. Though Miller does not represent either district (he represented Thompson ten years ago), he has connections to each district’s sole signatory. Miller serves on a policy team at Advance Colorado – the state’s foremost conservative organizing engine – with Thompson school board director Nancy Rumfelt, who signed the letter. Beth Suppes, the lone signer from Delta 50J, attended a Miller-sponsored conference for Colorado Leaders for Academic Success (CLAS) in February of this year. In addition to the CLAS conference being sponsored by Miller Farmer Carlson, CLAS itself was created by the firm: Miller’s son, Joshua, who works at the firm, filed the original paperwork incorporating the organization.
Miller does not officially represent Academy School District 20 (five signatories) in Colorado Springs, one of the ten largest districts in the state, but does represent charter schools within its boundaries and has personal and professional ties to members of the school board. D20 board member Aaron Salt serves on the same Advance Colorado policy team as Miller and Thompson’s Nancy Rumfelt. Salt was also recently hired to take over the superintendent role in Woodland Park, where Miller plays a prominent role. Another D20 board member, Derrick Wilburn, has been represented in court by David Illingworth, a former Woodland Park school board member who now handles Miller-adjacent cases like the charges against superintendent Tom Burris in Miller-represented Montezuma-Cortez.
An email obtained via open records request by Colorado Springs-based activist, organizer, and former intelligence analyst Rob Rogers confirms that Miller is also the one who sent the letter to D20 to recruit signatories. “Hi Lauren,” Miller wrote in the email to D20 board member Lauren Yanez. “Wanted to share with you a letter that is being distributed asking board members to sign. I have shared it with the other D20 directors along with board members from multiple districts and charter schools. Thanks for considering this.”
Miller does not represent Colorado Springs District 11 (four signatories), either, but his long-time associate Amy Attwood does, as a lobbyist. Attwood, who handles public affairs for District 11, has worked with Miller and his clients at ERBOCES for years.
If these tangential relationships in Mesa 51, Delta 50J, Thompson, Academy District 20 and Colorado Springs D11 – representing another 11 signatories – count as ties to Miller, the proportion of Miller-connected signatories rises from 82.5% to 96.25%, leaving only three of 80 signatories without clear ties to Miller: Douglas County’s Christy Williams, Pueblo District 60’s Sue Pannunzio, and Widefield’s Dave Dock. Sources allege relationships between Miller, Williams, and Dock, but CTR’s investigation has not been able to substantiate those connections via public records.
A letter which the local media credulously covered as an organic expression of concern by education professionals was authored by one man; 72.5% of the letter’s signatories are his clients, and another 24.25% are connected to him in some way or other; and yet his name was barely mentioned in the coverage. It’s a remarkable saga: a remarkable failure by the local press corps and a remarkable success by Miller.
In 2023, Miller told a conference crowd that Colorado’s legal protections for transgender individuals trouble him. “I look at, for example, in Colorado, the transgender expression laws, and the opportunity that our state has given to children to ostensibly express their gender differently, and I feel like Winston in 1984,” Miller said. “I feel like I’m alone against the world. And the truth is, most of our community is blind to the truth.”
“As a believer,” he added, “it feels End-Times-ish to me.”
When reached for this story, Miller denied having played a major role in circulating the letter, but confirmed writing it, and confirmed his support for its contents. “I did draft the letter on behalf of my client, D49, and I support its elements,” Miller told the Times Recorder.
As an attorney, Miller represents the wishes of his clients. As one of the state’s foremost experts on education reform, though, Miller is often in a position to guide those wishes. He is the expert; his clients are just elected. Given his past statements on transgender issues, and his penchant for using the media to amplify his clients’ messages, it’s worth wondering who was ultimately steering the ship on the CHSAA letter: 80 education professionals, or one attorney.
This week, the Colorado High School Activities Association responded to the letter’s 80 signatories, declining to accede to their demands to enshrine discrimination in the organization’s bylaws, which currently ensure that transgender athletes can compete in high school sports “free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identification.”
For now, the inclusive status quo of Colorado high school athletics will continue. With downward pressure being exerted by the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Education, though, and upward pressure being exerted by conservative districts and charter schools around the state, it’s all but certain that the issue will raise its head again in the near future. And it’s all but certain that Brad Miller will be there when it does.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to note that Miller’s firm was hired by the Brush school district hours before the original publication of this article. This piece also originally identified The Classical Academy as contributing five signatories. They contributed three, with the other two coming from Augustine Classical Academy.
