NCAE demands superintendent candidate stop using apple-shaped campaign materials

RALEIGH, N.C. (WGHP) — A North Carolina Association of Educators has sent a candidate a cease-and-desist letter over the use of an apple shape in campaign materials.

According to a release by the NCAE on Thursday, the association has asked Republican nominee Michele Morrow’s campaign to stop using apple-shaped campaign materials in her campaign for state superintendent. The initial cease-and-desist letter was sent on July 12.

The NCAE says that it has “exclusive rights to use the registered service mark of an apple outline” and that the apple shape is a “trusted symbol of educators’ endorsement.”

The Maryland State Education Association has held a trademark for the “Apple Ballot” design “for Political Advocacy Services, namely, promoting the interests of public educators by evaluating and endorsing candidates for political office on the basis of their support for public education” since 1998. The NCAE has licensed that design since 2014.

Morrow, the Republican challenger who unseated incumbent State Superintendent Catherine Truitt in the primary and has found herself at the center of multiple national controversies over prior comments , is not endorsed by the NCAE. In December 2023, the association endorsed her opponent, former Guilford County Schools Superintendent Mo Green.

“Public school staff handing out Apple Ballots has been a staple sight at North Carolina polling sites for decades and NCAE members want there to be no mistake about who belongs on the Apple Ballot,” the association wrote in their release.

NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly said in the release, “Michelle Morrow does not support public education and has never worked in or even sent her children to a North Carolina public school. Voters can see she’s trying to hide behind the apple symbol, but her disrespect of public school teachers and staff, support for political violence, and her plan to put cameras in school bathrooms, just to name a few, makes her unqualified for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.”

These letters, along with pictures of the campaign materials, can be viewed here .

Morrow’s campaign responded on July 31, refusing to comply with NCAE’s demands and claiming that the apple shape has become a generic symbol of public education.

“Why would NCAE use bogus legal tactics to thwart NC’s Student-First Candidate?” Morrow said in a post on X earlier this month. “Because Michele Morrow is fighting for you! That’s why.”

In a letter to the NCAE, Morrow’s campaign wrote, “Mrs. Morrow is concerned by your assertion her campaign could even possibly be associated with the NCAE. While we believe your legal demands are motivated by political animus and not legal merit, Mrs. Morrow is willing to ‘go the extra mile’ to distance herself from NCAE and its long established and routine endorsements of left wing, Democratic party politicians, such as Josh Stein and Mo Green, as well as your history of endorsing and promoting public policies Mrs. Morrow finds disastrous, such as your past advocacy to close public schools throughout most of 2020 and your aggressive demands for mask mandates for students.”

In a follow-up sent on Thursday, the NCAE said it will take further legal action against Morrow if she does not stop using the apple shape in her campaign.

Morrow’s campaign has been reached for comment.

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