School board president resigns over wife’s racist tweets about Kamala Harris
By Lee Brown
November 10, 2020 | 12:23pm | Updated
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Jon VenverlohTwitter
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A California school board president has resigned amid outrage over racist and sexist slurs his wife posted about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Former Google executive Jon Venverloh resigned from the Las Lomitas Elementary School District in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday — while distancing himself from the “reprehensible views” his wife, Mehridith Philips Venverloh, had tweeted hours earlier.
In one disturbing post, she dismissed Harris’ place in history as both the first black vice president as well as the first female one.
“All she needs to be qualified is a black p—y! No brain needed!” Philips Venverloh wrote on her Twitter account, which has since been deleted.
Another post suggested that Harris had used sex to “whore” her way to her history-making position, with other posts also attacking the LGBTQ community.
One local mom, Brianna Caldwell, told KGO that it was like was “watching systemic racism happening, on display in my own children’s school in our backyard.”
“I almost vomited, then I cried a little bit and then I was just shaking and I was so angry,” Caldwell told the station.
Philips Venverloh’s husband resigned from the school board after a petition was signed by more than 100 people in just hours, according to the Mercury News.
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“Given my wife’s social media posts, which expressed reprehensible views that I do not agree with, I know that my continued service would be a distraction from the work that needs to be done in the District over the two years remaining in my term,” Venverloh said in a statement.
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Before deleting her account, Philips Venverloh apologized for her “vulgar” words that she said were written “in a moment of disappointment.”
“I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” she said and added that she has been taking medications for a “debilitating neurological disease” but had been weaning herself off them in preparation for a scheduled hospitalization.
“I believe that the change in medication reduced my judgment between right and wrong when I made the posts,” she said.
The trustees of the board — which includes a middle school in Menlo Park and an Atherton elementary school — condemned the “abhorrent … racially based and gender-based hatred” shared in the posts.
The statement said the egregiousness of Phillips Venverloh’s posts has “undermined Jon’s ability to serve effectively on our governance team.”
With Post wires
By Lee Brown
November 10, 2020 | 12:23pm | Updated
Enlarge Image
Jon VenverlohTwitter
MORE ON:
KAMALA HARRIS
UK pol ripped for calling Kamala Harris ‘the Indian’
The race is on to fill Kamala Harris' vacated Senate seat
Former President Bush congratulates Biden, Harris on election win
People in Kamala Harris’ ancestral home wake up to her victory as new VP
A California school board president has resigned amid outrage over racist and sexist slurs his wife posted about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Former Google executive Jon Venverloh resigned from the Las Lomitas Elementary School District in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday — while distancing himself from the “reprehensible views” his wife, Mehridith Philips Venverloh, had tweeted hours earlier.
In one disturbing post, she dismissed Harris’ place in history as both the first black vice president as well as the first female one.
“All she needs to be qualified is a black p—y! No brain needed!” Philips Venverloh wrote on her Twitter account, which has since been deleted.
Another post suggested that Harris had used sex to “whore” her way to her history-making position, with other posts also attacking the LGBTQ community.
One local mom, Brianna Caldwell, told KGO that it was like was “watching systemic racism happening, on display in my own children’s school in our backyard.”
“I almost vomited, then I cried a little bit and then I was just shaking and I was so angry,” Caldwell told the station.
Philips Venverloh’s husband resigned from the school board after a petition was signed by more than 100 people in just hours, according to the Mercury News.
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
“Given my wife’s social media posts, which expressed reprehensible views that I do not agree with, I know that my continued service would be a distraction from the work that needs to be done in the District over the two years remaining in my term,” Venverloh said in a statement.
SEE ALSO
UK pol ripped for calling Kamala Harris ‘the Indian’
Before deleting her account, Philips Venverloh apologized for her “vulgar” words that she said were written “in a moment of disappointment.”
“I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” she said and added that she has been taking medications for a “debilitating neurological disease” but had been weaning herself off them in preparation for a scheduled hospitalization.
“I believe that the change in medication reduced my judgment between right and wrong when I made the posts,” she said.
The trustees of the board — which includes a middle school in Menlo Park and an Atherton elementary school — condemned the “abhorrent … racially based and gender-based hatred” shared in the posts.
The statement said the egregiousness of Phillips Venverloh’s posts has “undermined Jon’s ability to serve effectively on our governance team.”
With Post wires
