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 eliminate the course 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.
The implementation of ethnic studies in some school district has been a lightning rod for anti-DEI forces and those who believe telling the story of racism is itself racist.
“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.”
A school board motion to reassign Chiu of her committee assignments and to require her to speak with those she offended was defeated.
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