Plum school board member who published anti-Muslim Facebook post is resigning
The Plum Borough School Board will hold a special meeting Saturday morning to accept the resignation of a board member who posted an anti-Muslim message to his Facebook page.
Board member Brian Wisniewski had faced calls to resign since he published a post that said, “Does it worry anybody that we have three devout Muslims in Congress that have unlimited access to our top secret government documents?” He has since removed the post.
School district officials denounced the post in an emailed statement this week.
“This District is not affiliated with this posting in any way,” the statement said. “We vigorously disagree with and condemn the content of the post, and we do so in the strongest possible terms.”
Mr. Wisniewski’s resignation letter included an apology and acknowledged that “freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences.
“I want to sincerely apologize for the post that I reposted on my personal Facebook account in a moment of frivolity,” the letter read. “It was not my intention as a school board member to detract from the educational direction and mission of the school district.
I accept responsibility for what I reposted and I have come to understand that it was wrong to do so.”
The letter also said that all forms of xenophobia were inconsistent with the values he held during his 31 years as a member of the Air Force and Air National Guard.
The board plans to advertise the vacant seat.
The special meeting will be held at 9 a.m. in the high school library.
The Facebook share drew criticism from the NAACP Allegheny East Branch and, on Thursday, from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Anyone associated with such bigoted views should not be in a policymaking position impacting a diverse student population,” said CAIR-Pittsburgh program director Zohra Lasania, in a press release.
On Friday, the council said, “We welcome this reported resignation and hope it sends the message that bigotry of any type will not be accepted in our state’s schools.”
CAIR’s Washington headquarters has reported what it described as “an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.”