March 2 could be a memorable day for former Wake County school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

In the morning, Margiotta will be in court as a potential witness in the case against the Rev. William Barber of the state NAACP, who was arrested on charges of disrupting school board meetings in 2010. In the evening, Margiotta will receive the Civitas Institute's inaugural Courage in Leadership Award.

"We need to respect politicians who do the right thing in the face of criticism and hostility," said Francis DeLuca, president of Civitas, about the conservative group's award to Margiotta.

Facing South, the online magazine for the liberal Institute for Southern Studies, is linking the anonymous flier attacking the five Democratic-backed Wake County school board candidates to religious activists who advocate that Christian parents pull their children from public schools.

Facing South makes the connection in this online article Thursday night by pointing out how the header for the flier matches the name and images used for the upcoming film "IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America." 

"We had no knowledge of the existence of this flier prior to the news report and have absolutely no idea who created it," responded Colin Gunn, the film's co-director, when contacted by the N&O today. "We did not give anyone permission to use our graphics and there has been no requests from any person to use our graphics.

Again, just to be clear, this flyer has nothing to do with our film, and nothing to do with anyone associated with our project."

Americans for Prosperity is seeing some partial success in its efforts to get retractions of claims that the group financially backed the winning Wake County school board candidates in 2009.

The Huffington Post posted a correction today to the statement it made in an online Monday article about the school board candidates having been "bankrolled" by AFP. To try to beef up the story, it posts additional info today on AFP, such as the group's support of the Wake CARES lawsuit and a story earlier this year in Newsweek.

But Robert Greenwald, the director of the new film that came out Monday, isn't issuing a retraction. Neither is Sue Sturgis of the liberal Institute for Southern Studies.

UPDATE

Sue Sturgis has added a clarification to a blog post she wrote Monday about the video.

Dallas Woodhouse, president of the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity, is calling the new video linking the conservative group with the 2009 Wake County school board elections "a series of outright lies" and libelous."

In a statement today, Woodhouse said AFP's legal team has asked for retractions from Brave News Films and The Huffington Post for claiming that AFP bankrolled the winning school board candidates in 2009. Both liberal groups made the claim to try to charge that the conservative Koch brothers, who founded Americans for Prosperity, are responsible for the end of Wake's diversity policy and the resulting student assignment changes.

"Americans for Prosperity did not spend one single dime on those elections nor did AFP spend funds on independent electioneering communication activities during that election cycle," Woodhouse said in the statement. "Moreover, Americans for Prosperity was not engaged in any nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote activity or in issuing any voter education material. In sum, Americans for Prosperity had no presence during the 2009 Wake County School Board race."

A new video from a liberal group is accusing the conservative Koch brothers of having bought the Wake County school board elections in 2009 in an attempt to resegregate the school system.

The 11-minute video, released today by Brave New Films founded by Robert Greenwald, is part of a series of films attacking the Koch brothers. For this film, a variety of local supporters of the old diversity policy go on to blame the Koch brothers for the 2009 election results and ignore the notion that there was any large grassroots support for the changes.

"In 2009, the Koch brothers tried the destroy the Wake County Public School system," says a blurb flashed on the screen.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR RESPONSE FROM DALLAS WOODHOUSE AND FOR A LINK FOR AN INTERVIEW ROBERT GREENWALD GAVE TO MSNBC ON MONDAY ABOUT THE FILM

There's been some fallout from a December 2009 poll on the Wake County school system that was conducted on behalf of the conservative Civitas Institute.

Facing South, the online magazine of the liberal Institute for Southern Studies, is reporting today that the Georgia pollster hired by Civitas has been fined $10,000 by the state. The pollster got in trouble for not identifying itself during the robocalls.

The problem for the firm, Rosetta Stone Communications, is that one of the people it called was Sue Sturgis, an editor for the magazine. She filed a complaint with the N.C. Department of Justice that led to the fine.

The poll, conducted shortly after the new board majority had taken office, had found opposition to mandatory year-round schools and the diversity policy.