Ethnic Studies Fight Leads to Backlash Against CA School Board Member
The Palo Alto Unified School District Board voted this week not to censure a board member who previously voted against a measure to approve a controversial “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum for the district. Tuesday’s roughly five-hour PAUSD meeting saw the board vote on a resolution stripping Trustee Rowena Chiu of her committee assignments after her vote at a previous meeting and reposting a social media post that caused controversy. The controversy invokes the larger debates over the appropriateness of ethnic studies curricula that have embedded ideological positions and how school board members have been treated for speaking out on divisive issues.