You may recall that last week, Carl Paladino, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, Tea Party activist, and co-chairman of the Trump campaign in New York state, generated bipartisan outrage when he openly hoped that President Obama would die of mad cow disease and likened Michelle Obama to a gorilla. Well, those comments may potentially cost Paladino one of his day jobs. On Thursday night, the Buffalo School Board gave Paladino an ultimatum–step down by the close of business on Friday, or it will ask the state department of education to remove him.
The board voted 6-2 to demand that Paladino resign his seat representing the Park District in south Buffalo within 24 hours, or else it will refer the matter to state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia. One of the two nays, Patti Pierce, said that while she disapproved of Paladino’s remarks, she believed that the board was blowing a chance to show that “we are a city of good neighbors and are about forgiveness.” She and the other nay, Larry Quinn, said they would have been content with Paladino making a public apology.
However, fellow member Paulette Woods rightly noted that any student who made such remarks would have been suspended on the spot. She and the other members who supported the resolution claimed that Paladino’s remarks were the culmination of a pattern of harassment and bullying dating back to when he was first elected to the board in 2013.
Paladino did issue a rather truculent “apology” on Facebook on Tuesday, saying that while the statement was “inappropriate in any circumstance,” he never intended to send it to alt-weekly Artvoice. However, he slammed the “rabid hordes of attacking parasites” and the “mean-spirited, disoriented press” for making such a big deal out of them.
The Buffalo News obtained a copy of the resolution; read it here. It declares that Paladino’s “unambiguously racist, morally repugnant, flagrantly disrespectful, inflammatory and inexcusable comments” have no place in a district that is over 70 percent minority. It also accuses Paladino of violating the Dignity for All Students Act, a 2012 law intended to protect the state’s public school students from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.
Before the vote was taken, school board president Barbara Seals Nevergold gave Paladino both barrels. Watch here.
Seals Nevergold accused Paladino of reducing accomplished African-Americans like the Obamas to “criminals, frauds, or gorillas.” She loudly wondered how Buffalo teachers can encourage minorities to “use their God-given talents to soar, to reach for the stars” when a school board member trashes such fine role models in this way. “Words matter, Mr. Paladino,” she said.
Seals Nevergold added that she and her colleagues had been bombarded with comments from people who were “incredulous” that a school board member anywhere in this country could make such hateful remarks.
“They would like me to tell you, ‘You’re fired!’ But those are not my words. So I’m asking you to do the right thing and resign.”
Paladino, who was the Republican candidate for governor of New York in 2010, didn’t attend the meeting. However, he let it be known that he has no intention of going quietly, or voluntarily. WKBW-TV in Buffalo has more on Paladino’s reaction; watch here.
In a statement that could have easily been written by Trump, Paladino claimed that the whole thing was an attempt to “unfairly settle” a $450 million lawsuit against construction contractor Lou Ciminelli.
With Paladino having no intention of stepping down from the school board–at least for now–the focus now turns to Elia. Some legal experts think that the board could have removed Paladino on its own authority. However, given the circumstances, the board did the right thing in asking an impartial third party to review the matter.
Paladino will be able to make his case to the commissioner, who will have to weigh whether the board’s contention that he breached his oath of office against the likely argument that he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights. All things considered, I can only agree with Woods. If a student said the things Paladino said, he would be suspended. I’d go one better. Any teacher or administrator who said these things would almost certainly be fired. A school board member should be held to the same standard. Paladino has to go, and he has to go as soon as legally possible.
(featured image courtesy Paladino’s Facebook)
