Palo Alto School District Board member Rowena Chiu, a woman who once accused Harvey Weinstein of attempting to rape her, is under fire after she reshared a post on X targeting a school administrator. According to KTVU, community members say the post, now deleted, was racist and harmful.
On January 27, per Palo Alto Daily Post, Chiu shared a post from an account called Asians Against Wokeness on X about Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Danae Reynolds, who is a Black woman. The post received racist comments and threats towards Reynolds.
The post referenced issues that arose during a public forum on the Palo Alto Unified School District’s plans for a mandatory ethnic studies course for high school freshmen. According to The San Francisco Standard, Chiu promised to pause a plan to make ethnic studies mandatory for high school freshman during her campaign for school board last year.
Chiu asked several questions about the course that were met with jeers from those attending the public forum. She claimed that the feedback she was receiving from the community made her feel unsafe. She also argued that the ethnic studies course would make students feel unsafe when questioned about her opposition to the course.
“I think that the fear is based on an ideological framework around oppressor-oppressed that will make some students in this school district feel unsafe,” Chiu said, per Palo Alto Daily Post.
Reynolds was concerned about Chiu’s use of the word “unsafe,” suggesting that “uncomfortable” was the more appropriate word.
“I worry about the word ‘safe’ as a person who has to worry about my husband driving and coming home if he gets pulled over,” Reynolds said, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post. “I know that we have members in our community who may be worried about the terms ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed.’ I completely understand that. But as a person who comes from a community that has and continues to be oppressed, I have to live with that every day. And our students of color in our district live with that every day.”
Asians Against Wokeness framed Reynolds’ comments as her lecturing Chiu about the correct use of the term. They also claimed that she said Asians aren’t truly oppressed but did cite where in the meeting she specifically made those comments.
Chiu reposted the message from Asians Against Wokeness with her own message comparing her experience at the forum to the abuse she suffered from Harvey Weinstein, a comparison many found offensive.
“In 1998, Weinstein told me, as he attempted to rape me, that he ‘liked Chinese girls, because they’re discreet.’ In 2025, as an elected official, I spoke up about Asian oppression, and I was suppressed yet again,” Chiu wrote in the now-deleted post.
A school board motion to reassign Chiu of her committee assignments and to require her to speak with those she offended was defeated.
(Correction: An earlier version of this story said Chiu campaigned on the promise to eliminate the mandatory requirement for an ethnic studies course in the freshman year of high school. She only wanted to pause the plan. We apologize for the error.)
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It should not be lost on anyone that the treatment of Chiu by Dharap and Segal (and their ilk) was a manifestation of the worst aspects of the oppressor-oppressed narrative that is often peddled in the “liberated” ethnic studies courses that were the very backdrop of this whole debacle.
Dharap et al made the decision that Chiu’s supposed “abuse of power” warranted a public shaming in the name of protecting someone holding a “higher” rank in the olympics of the oppressed — someone who is allowed to feel “unsafe,” as opposed to Chiu who is only allowed to feel “uncomfortable.”
Make no mistake, historical injustices and oppression are real, but addressing those realities by sowing divisiveness in the manner of Dharap et al (whilst professing to promote inclusiveness) is a road to nowhere.
Further, the proposed resolution from Dharap and Segal managed to be patronizing and parochial and absurd all at the same time. Dharap claimed the anti-Chiu resolution, drafted against a backdrop of calls for her resignation, was only meant to have “impact” and lacked any “intent.” Because a resolution never lacks intent, claiming otherwise is absurd. Insofar as the resolution framed committee re-assignments as being for the PROTECTION and BENEFIT of CHIU, that was both patronizing and parochial — Chiu appears more than capable of speaking up when she seeks protection and/or benefits for herself, she does not need Dharap and Segal to do it for her.
Finally (although there is much more to say), it is worth noting that throughout the night Dharap and Segal also exhibited the height of hypocrisy regarding the “abuse of power” that they supposedly abhore. Segal allowed anti-Chiu sentiment to be expressed during more than one agenda item, but when pro-Chiu sentiment sought to be expressed on the same agenda item, Segal cut off the latter. Also, Dharap manipulated parliamentary procedures to prevent Chiu from getting a clear up/down vote on the resolution against her; Dharap (whilst feigning an intent to understand Chiu) thus effectively railroaded the board into voting on a procedural motion to “voluntarily” re-assign Chiu’s committee assignments and then effectively tabled the resolution against Chiu. And ultimately, AFTER the matter was finally (seemingly) put to rest, both Dharap and Segal, like children who must get in the last word, inappropriately and effectively grand-standed as to how they were indeed right, and Chiu was wrong.
Let’s be clear:
Chiu MAY have made a momentary and ill-advised repost with an unexpected, but not unforeseeable adverse impact on an PAUSD employee.
But Dharap and Segal DEFINITELY waged a long-timed and calculated campaign with an expected and foreseeable adverse impact on a PAUSD board member.
I will take the former over the latter every day and twice on Sunday.
Let’s keep Chiu and recall (oust) Dharap and Segal.