San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
S.F. school board: Officials call for vice president to resign over racist tweets.
In an unprecedented move, San Francisco’s top elected officials, including the mayor, state legislators and nearly all supervisors, called Saturday for a school board member to resign over racist tweets she posted in 2016 directed at Asian Americans.
“We are outraged and sickened by the racist, antiAsian statements tweeted by school board Vice President Alison Collins that recently came to light,” 22 current and former elected officials said in a statement Saturday. “No matter the time, no matter the place, and no matter how long ago the tweets were written, there is no place for an elected leader in San Francisco who is creating and or/created hate statements and speeches.”
Officials, who continued to add their names throughout Saturday, thanked Collins for her service and asked her to resign from her post. Mayor London Breed and school board members Jenny Lam and Faauuga Moliga and the head of the city’s teachers union also called for her to step down.
Officials, community groups and parents have widely criticized Collins’ racist tweets, which resurfaced last week amid a surge of violence and harassment against Asian Americans in the Bay Area and across the country.
The controversy was just the latest crisis to engulf San Francisco’s school district. It comes after the district was hit with two lawsuits in recent months — one over its slow reopening of schools and the other over a push to rename 44 schools with links to racism and oppression. The board was also criticized for a controversial decision to change the meritbased admissions system at Lowell High School. The disputes inspired a group of parents to start a recall campaign against three board members, including Collins, who was elected in 2018. The recall’s backers first uncovered Collins’ tweets. More than 24 hours after the furor erupted and after dozens of public officials asked her to step down, Collins — who declined to apologize Friday — expressed regret in an online post Saturday morning for the pain her words caused.
She did not resign and as of Saturday evening she had not deleted the posts.
Collins declined to identify her tweets as racist and repeatedly insisted they were taken out of context.
“A number of tweets and social media posts I made in 2016 have recently been highlighted. They have been taken out of context, both of that specific moment and the nuance of the conversation that took place,” she said in a statement. “... I acknowledge that right now, in this moment my words taken out of context can be causing more pain for those who are already suffering. For the pain my words may have caused I am sorry, and I apologize unreservedly.”
Breed, who also called for Collins’ resignation, does not consider Collins’ Saturday statement an apology for her social media posts, spokesman Jeff Cretan said.
Lam said she is “dismayed” by Collins’ statement, calling it a “nonapology.”
“In short, she deflected the issue to former President Trump, and claimed her tweets were ‘taken out of context’ twice when it was made clear when and why she made those statements,” Lam said. “I cannot imagine families will now feel safe with someone on our board who felt comfortable saying something so offensive about Asian Americans and still refuses to fully own up to it and apologize.”
Moliga said in a social media post Saturday that Collins’ “statements regarding the Asian American community are dangerous, hurtful, and unbecoming.”
He added that the “statements, no matter what context, are counterproductive and erosive to the trust and work we are called to do.” School board members Matt Alexander, Kevine Boggess and Mark Sanchez have not responded to requests for comment.
Board President Gabriela López was the lone defender of Collins.
“I stand in solidarity with Vice President Collins and Asian American communities,” she said in a Twitter thread Saturday afternoon. “This week has been marked by hate and violence . ... I appreciate that Vice President Collins has apologized for her remarks.
“We will stand by each other and commit ourselves to working through the process of hurt and pain. We must fight against white supremacy and misogyny, not each other.”
Lee Cheng, founder of the civil rights group Asian American Legal Foundation, questioned López’s ability to ability to lead, given her defense of Collins.
“She is is putting ideological loyalty over basic decency, and as such cannot possibly be considered an appropriate leader of a Board of Education of a school district that is a third Asian American,” he said.
Cheng also questioned López’s belief that the situation called for restorative justice.
“Restorative justice requires real responsibility,” he said. “Not forced, insincere, letmeexcusemyself, hey, hey let me make up context, Trumpmademedoit pablum.”
Others also rejected Collins’ apology, including the Chinese American Democratic Club, which said in a statement it is “dismayed” by her “refusal to accept responsibility.”
Roughly onethird of the district’s more than 52,000 students are Asian American.
Collins also came under fire in October when she was caught on a hot mike during a school board meeting about changing the admission process for Lowell High School. Speaking apparently to someone outside the meeting, she said, “I’m listening to a bunch of racists.” Many of the speakers against the plan were Asian American students and parents.
Those who signed the statement included 10 supervisors, with Dean Preston the only name missing; former Supervisors Norman Yee, Jane Kim and Sandra Lee Fewer; Assembly Members David Chiu and Phil Ting; BART Directors Janice Li and Bevan Dufty; and David Campos, chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party; Ivy Lee, former City College trustee; and Susan Solomon, president of United Educators of San Francisco. State Sen. Scott Wiener also called for her to step down.
In the tweets, Collins singled out Asian Americans in recounting an incident she said had occurred in the past. She wrote that her “mixedrace/Black daughter heard boys teasing a Latino about ‘Trump, Mexicans and the KKK.’ The boys were Asian
American . ... She spoke up when none of the other staff did. The after school counselor was Asian.”
“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump? Don’t Asian Americans know they’re on his list as well?” Collins wrote.
Using asterisks in references to the racial epithet, Collins continued, “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n **** r is still being a n **** r. You’re still considered ‘the help.’ ”|
Students have also spoken out. Based on the tweets, the Lowell Black Student Union removed Collins as a panelist at a Women in Leadership event Thursday evening.
Schools Superintendent Vince Matthews declined to address the tweets specifically, but sent a letter Friday to district staff about the issue.
“We have to band together and speak up when we see or hear racist actions or behaviors perpetrated against any member of our community,” he said. “... At a time when we are seeing a rise in antiAsian violence, xenophobia and racism across our country we must recommit to creating safe communities.”