UPDATE x3: The Company You Keep: Partisan Endorsements, Right-wing Extremism & the Bloomfield Hills School Board
- Four candidates for the BHS Board of Education running as a slate have touted their “non-partisan” status
- In reality, the slate candidates (plus a fifth non-slate candidate) have been endorsed and assisted by at least one right wing political action committee with direct ties to the Republican Party, and have so far refused to disavow that endorsement
- Some organizations supporting these candidates are promoting an anti-vaccine, anti-mask, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-equity & book banning agenda
- UPDATE: 3 weeks after this was posted, the PAC in question quietly removed 2 of the slate candidates from their website, without any of them ever acknowledging seeking/accepting the endorsement in the first place.
- UPDATE x2: A few days later, the PAC removed the other two slate candidates. Again, none of the four have ever explained why their names, photos, bios & links were on the PAC site in the first place.
- UPDATE x3: Two weeks later, all four slate candidates have been officially endorsed by the official Oakland County Republican Party, completely debunking their insistence that they “haven’t been endorsed by any partisan political organizations.”
The Basics:
On November 8, 2022, four of the seven seats on the Bloomfield Hills School Board are up for election. The BHS School Board is officially a nonpartisan body.
Three incumbents have chosen not to run for another term: Howard Baron, Lisa Efros and Jennifer Matlow. One has chosen to do so: Paul Kolin, who was also president of the Board until he was unanimously stripped of that position by the rest of the board roughly a year ago for multiple violations of BHS school board policy, procedure and their code of ethics.
In addition to Kolin, nine other BHS area residents are running for the four open positions: Jim Baker, Lindsay Baker (no relation to my knowledge), Sandeep Chada, Tareq Falah, Nick Haugen, Meagan Hill, Harris Ng, Carolyn Noble and Lauren Wilson.
Kolin has banded together with three of the other candidates to officially run as a slate for all four spots: Ng, (Lindsay) Baker, and Hill. They’re running under the slate name of “Education First BHS.”
The other six candidates are each running independently of each other. However, four of them (Chada, Falah, Haugen and Noble) have recently been endorsed by the local Birmingham-Bloomfield Democratic Club…in response to an ugly situation which has been brewing over the past year or so. (Full disclosure: I’m on the executive board of the BB Dems myself).
Before I delve into the BHS BOE election specifically, we need to step back and look at the bigger picture:
The GOP Politicization of School Boards:
There’s been numerous articles and reports about this trend, but this story by Andrew Atterbury & Juan Perez Jr. in Politico from last December seems to boil the problem down to its essence:
Republicans eye new front in education wars: Making school board races partisan
Republicans across America are pressing local jurisdictions and state lawmakers to make typically sleepy school board races into politicized, partisan elections in an attempt to gain more statewide control and swing them to victory in the 2022 midterms.
Tennessee lawmakers in October approved a measure that allows school board candidates to list their party affiliation on the ballot. Arizona and Missouri legislators are weighing similar proposals. And GOP lawmakers in Florida will push a measure in an upcoming legislative session that would pave the way for partisan school board races statewide…
…“We’re out there trying to elect good conservatives that will follow essentially the governor’s mission as it relates to education,” said Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota), the state Senate’s education chair who also leads the Republican Party of Florida.
“When you have a leader like DeSantis come out and say that there should be no lockdowns, if you have a Republican elected official, you would think they would…probably go along with what he asked.”
…During a monthslong fight in the fall over mask mandates, some of the state’s biggest school districts defied the popular GOP governor, who in turn steered state officials to block any schools from requiring masks as a means to combat the Delta strain and empower parents to make decisions for their children.
via The Detroit Free Press from last November:
Michigan school districts this year have dealt with anti-government groups protesting at an elementary school, unmasked students pressing into school buildings and people harassing and threatening school board members.
…(MEA leaders) called for public support against “angry rhetoric, provocative threats and harassment” of school board members and teachers.
…As the state moves away from mandates, local officials must decide whether to keep in place the same policies that led right-wing groups to target Gov. Gretchen Whitmer with armed protests and a kidnapping plot…
School board members have told Wotruba they believe they were followed home from meetings, others have dealt with harassment at their offices and a school board member from St. Clair Shores received a threatening phone call at his home.
“People’s Rights”…was launched by Ammon Bundy, who is known for his stands against federal authorities…Bundy was convicted of trespassing and obstructing police officers after refusing to leave a closed room at the Idaho statehouse.
…Johnson also has support from members of Moms for Liberty, a conservative “parental rights” group showing up at school board meetings across the country.
…Parent groups, with increasing rancor this summer, singled out school diversity and equity programs as problematic, claiming programs that celebrate diversity villainize white people. However, educators and administrators say the criticism confuses the programs, which are meant to close opportunity gaps between white students and students of color.
“Moms for Liberty” & other “Parental Rights” PACs:
Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the “Moms for Liberty” (M4L) organization:
Moms for Liberty is an American conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that says it advocates for parental rights in schools. The organization has campaigned against COVID-19 restrictions in schools, including mask and vaccine mandates, and against school curriculums that mention LGBT rights, race, critical race theory, and discrimination, and multiple chapters have also campaigned to ban from school libraries books that address gender and sexuality issues. Moms for Liberty has been likened to the Tea Party movement and the Moral Majority organization.
Moms for Liberty has been criticized for harassment from its members, deepening divisions among parents, making it more challenging for school officials to educate students, and having close ties to the Republican Party rather than being a genuine grassroots effort.
More on “M4L” via Media Matters for America, which includes a Michigan connection:
“Parental rights” means strategically harassing public schools
On October 4, Attorney General Merrick Garland released a memo condemning a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Although Moms for Liberty is not the only factor in this spike in harassment, the group grew in membership during this same time period that school board members across the United States started facing an increase in threats from angry parents and community members.
The article goes on to note that M4L specifically targeted LBGTQ+ protections, accused board members of being “pedophiles” and made direct threats, stating that “If you thought January 6th was bad, wait until you see what we have for you.” A board member had her cellphone number posted publicly and had a false accusation of child abuse made against her.
An administrator of the Facebook group for the Livingston County, Michigan, chapter posted a threatening message directed to anyone backing Biden’s review of school board threats and violence: “Not a single person on the right side of the aisle better be backing this, if they are they better be prepared to be REMOVED 1776 style.” (The “1776” reference is about the American Revolution; in far-right circles, “1776” often implies the threat of political violence.)
Moms for Liberty & “Mama Bears”
In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin…thanked another group: “Way to go, mama bears!” he said. “You guys were awesome.”
…In the days leading up to the election, conservative Virginia parents coalesced around the phrase “mama bear,” scrawling it on signs in support of the governor and posting it as a hashtag on social media.
Virginians aren’t the only ones who have recently embraced this term, which refers to fiercely protective mothers determined to shield their cubs from harm.
…But the mama bears are not up in arms about every issue that threatens children — they don’t advocate for gun control, for example, or decry air pollution near schools. The particular constellation of conservative causes that unites them is very specific. Mama bears want to banish critical race theory and LGBTQ-friendly books from the school curriculum, oppose accommodations for transgender students, and abhor vaccine and mask mandates.
There isn’t (yet) an official Mama Bear organization — it’s more like a rallying cry or set of code words. But its pervasiveness is unmistakable. The hashtag is all over social media. There’s a book…You can buy T-shirts that say #mamabear from multiple sellers on Etsy, alongside other shirts that say “Make vaccine manufacturers liable again” and “Don’t blame me, I voted for Trump.”
(“Papa Bears” was later added to the M4L lexicon.)
“Coalition for Common Sense” and “Get Kids Back to School PAC”:
Of course, just as M4L isn’t technically part of the Republican Party, there are other organizations (often Facebook groups) & Political Action Committees (PACs) which use different branding, perhaps in an attempt to distance themselves from the Party and M4L in order to appear “non-partisan.”
For instance, last September, a full-page ad appeared in the Woodward Eagle which attacked three members of the BHS BOE (not coincidentally the three who decided not to run again). The ad falsely accused them of being part of a Facebook group “targeting” parents who opposed mask mandates; in fact, there was no “targeting” of anyone by the Facebook group in question.
I wrote a lengthy, in-the-weeds explainer about what had actually happened at the time if you’re interested in learning more about it.
The larger point is that none of the three school board members who were “targeted” by the attack ad knew anything about the chat group or the “list” discussed at the link above until they found out via a police investigation unilaterally begun by then-school board president…Paul Kolin.
In any event, these three board members had done nothing wrong yet were falsely attacked in a full-page newspaper ad paid for by the “Coalition for Common Sense PAC” (C4CS).
The C4CS PAC was created by a man named David Staudt, who isn’t from the BHS area; he’s in Novi…where he also owns the political consulting company which created the ad. In fact, he’s the Republican Mayor Pro Tem of Novi. For that matter, he’s also currently the Republican nominee for the 21st district in the Michigan House of Representatives.
Staudt’s consulting company, Impact Media Professionals, publicly brags about working with “conservative candidates & organizations up and down the ballot.”
The C4CS PAC was registered on September 17th, 2021…less than a week before the attack ad ran in the Woodward Eagle, and the ad itself ran just one day before a regularly-scheduled BHS board meeting which included a closed session with district legal counsel regarding the “list” incident. The idea that this was a coincidence of timing strains credulity.
Another one of Staudt’s Political Action Committees is the “Get Kids Back to School PAC” created on November 17, 2021 out of the same address in Novi. And this is where we get to the core point of this post.
Here’s the core mission & purpose of GKBTS PAC according to their website:
Get Kids Back to School PAC is an independent expenditure-only committee dedicated to supporting candidates for local school board races who support the full return of students to school without mandates or restrictions.
GKBTS PAC then goes on to say that their core mission is to “push back” on the supposed “erosion” of “traditional curriculum” in favor of “wokeness” which they claim “waters down” education. For those unfamiliar with the concept of “wokeness,” here’s the basic definition:
(being) aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
While being actively aware of & attentive to issues of racial and social justice is a good thing, the term has been politically weaponised as a pejorative by certain elements of society:
You will not be surprised to learn that (the term “wokeness”) has been a favorite of Fox News of late, overlapping with that network’s obsessive focus on “critical race theory,” itself a term repurposed by the right.
In the Foxworld lexicon, “woke” is the adjective and “critical race theory” the verb, both referring to a contrived framing of the left — essentially that there’s an effort to play the race card to put White people on the defensive.
Not only has “CRT” (critical race theory) has never been taught at the K-12 level in the first place, the term itself is essentially a construct of right-wing conservative media, as universities generally teach institutional and systemic bias/racism, not “CRT” per se.
Still, a basic understanding of what it refers to would probably be helpful:
Critical race theory (or “CRT”) is a school of thought that explores and critiques American history, society, and institutions of power (including government and legal systems) from a race-based perspective. …the CRT movement has contributed to a deeper understanding of how race has been constructed in and impacted the United States. It also poses key questions, such as: Has the American legal system and traditional civil rights litigation been effective at achieving racial justice? And if not, what should be done about that?
…all of which seem like pretty reasonable questions to me.
GKBTS PAC was created by an openly partisan Republican activist who’s also currently a Republican nominee for the state legislature.
One of the articles promoted by GKBTS PAC last December is a statement from Republican State Senator Lana Theis pushing against mandatory vaccinations.
If the name “Lana Theis” rings a bell, she’s the one who accused her Democratic Senate colleague, State Senator Mallory McMorrow, of being a “groomer” who wanted to “sexualize kindergartners” last spring.
In fact, even as I’m typing this, the home page of the GKBTS PAC website is heavily promoting the following upcoming event:
Yep, the “Mama & Papa Bear” Ice Cream Social. And their guest speaker?
That’s right: The Republican nominee for governor of Michigan (who thinks that 14-yr old rape victims should be forced to bear children) is their “special guest” along with the Republican nominee for another state House district.
(Also note the logo for the Republican nominee for MI Secretary of State at the top…Kristina Karamo, who claims that Women’s March protesters were “addicted to porn,” that abortion is a “satanic child sacrifice” and that yoga is a “satanic ritual.”)
Here’s GKBTS PAC’s “Kickoff and Meet-and-Greet” from last December…sponsored by the Northville Republicans Club:
So, who has GKBTS PAC endorsed for BHS School Board?
Here’s their endorsement page for Bloomfield Hills Schools:
I’m not that familiar with Lauren Wilson, but on her website she touts her endorsements by Michigan’s 11th district Republican Party as well as the “Michigan Health Choice Alliance” (another Political Action Committee which opposes requiring vaccinations and/or masking during an airborne pandemic) and “Save Our Kids Michigan” which is again devoted to promoting “Parental Choice” (wink, wink).
As for the others, yes, it includes all four members of the “Education First” slate: Paul Kolin, Harris Ng, Lindsay Baker and Meagan Hill.
I first wrote about the connection between the GKBTS PAC and the BHS “slate” candidates on Twitter on September 5th, 2022.* I wrote a more in-depth thread about the various connections between GKBTS, M4L, and a White Supremacist sympathizer named Shane Trejo (Trejo is the co-director of a ‘nonprofit’ corporation, also Novi-based, with David Staudt) a few days later.
*(Clarification: my original tweet from 9/05 read that the PAC is “pushing 4 anti-mask, anti-”woke” candidates.” the “4” in this tweet was shorthand for “for” as in “pushing for anti-mask, anti-”woke” candidates.” That is, I was referencing the type of candidates the PAC is supporting, not necessarily that these 4 particular candidates subscribe to anti-mask, anti-”woke” policies…although I know for a fact that Kolin and Ng, at least, did strongly opposed mask mandates last year.)
The “Education First” slate posted the following statement some time after my original tweet on September 5th:
School boards are supposed to be non-partisan, yet national politics has invaded our schools. Let’s prevent that from happening at Bloomfield Hills Schools and focus on Education First.
Aside from our slate, almost all the other BHS board candidates have received political party endorsements. As an Education First slate, we will represent all students, parents, and stakeholders. Education is not partisan.
Education First will continue to be non-partisan. We are not beholden to political party special interests. We will not accept endorsements from political parties. Our funding is grassroots from the community that we hope to serve. We will not accept money from political parties.
Note the wording here: They insist that they’re “non-partisan” and state that they won’t accept endorsements or money from political parties. They don’t say anything about accepting endorsements or money from political action committees, the distinction of which can be fuzzy at best.
They also claim that they aren’t beholden to “political party special interests” instead of simply saying “special interests” which is how campaigns usually word this sort of thing.
Is it conceivable that they had no idea about this endorsement? Could GKBTS have endorsed these candidates without their knowledge or consent?
Well, as it happens, slate member Harris Ng and I recently had an email exchange about this very question. I asked whether any of the slate members knew about it beforehand and whether they plan on disavowing it now that they do know.
Ng claimed that none of them (he said “we” not “I”) knew about the endorsement until I posted about it publicly.
It’s important that Ng said “we” not “I”, since it would otherwise be conceivable that one of the four approached the GKBTS PAC on behalf of the entire slate without letting the other three know about it. If so, that wouldn’t speak very well of their ability to work together as a team, but I digress.
There’s a problem with Mr. Ng’s blanket claim of ignorance, however:
This image comes from a powerpoint presentation put on by Matthew Wilk, the director of GKBTS PAC, as part of a tutorial for potential school board candidates.
In other words, it’s up to the candidates to contact him about seeking an endorsement.
Who is Matthew Wilk? He’s the former president of the Northville School Board…who was also a COVID-19 denier at the height of the pandemic.
Wilk was removed from his position as board president after posting COVID-denial comments:
One post Wilk made, which has since been removed, suggested coronavirus “only exists in falsified statistics shouted on the news without context.”
Another post said, “How about we allow schools to reopen and grandma can take the extreme precautions? She can wear a spacesuit when she ‘needs’ to go out and shop and the rest of the world can go on about their lives…”
After two days of heated public comment which began Monday, the board voted to censure Wilk and remove him from his position as president.
In short, there’s only two possibilities here: Either Wilk decided to ignore his own PACs endorsement policy for the four BHS slate candidates for reasons unknown…or Mr. Ng was misinformed*. Again, remember, Ng didn’t just say that he wasn’t aware of the endorsement, he claims that none of them were.
*(Edit: I originally said the 2nd possibility was that Ng lied, but it’s also conceivable that one of the other slate members requested the endorsement & submitted the info but lied to the other members about it.)
I’ll note something else that’s rather important: Even if, against all odds, none of the “slate” candidates reallywere previously aware of the GKBTS PAC endorsement until September 5th…they’ve still known about it since then.
As of this writing, ten days have passed. Has the Education First slate issued a statement rejecting or disavowing GKBTS PAC? No. Has GKBTS PAC removed their endorsements, photos or bios of Kolin, Ng, Baker and Hill? No.**
**(this is no longer the case…see updates below)
So yes, it’s true that the local Democratic Club has endorsed four candidates for BHS Board of Education. The BB Dems have been quite up front and forthright about this.
Now it’s time for the “Education First” slate of candidates — who are supposedly all about “transparency” — to explain their connection to the hyper-partisan GKBTS PAC and why they’ve yet to publicly disavow GKBTS’s endorsement.
UPDATE 09/20/22:
Well, now…this is very interesting.
Here’s what the GKBTS PAC endorsement page for Bloomfield Hills looks like as of this morning. Paul Kolin and Meagan Hill have been removed from the page…while Harris Ng and Lindsay Baker are still listed.
I’m going to assume that Kolin and Hill requested that they be removed from the page…but as of this writing neither one appears to have issued any sort of public statement about it, nor has the “slate” website or Facebook page, so it’s difficult to know for sure.
This also means that Kolin and Hill are now running on a slate with two candidates who willingly associate themselves with the GKBTS PAC, which doesn’t help their case much.
UPDATE x2 09/22/22:
As of this morning, the other two “slate” candidates have also been removed from the GKBTS PAC endorsement page, leaving just Lauren Wilson.
There’s still been no public acknowledgement of why they were endorsed in the first place, especially since, again, the GKBTS PAC policy requires candidates to request their endorsement, including submitting their photo, bio, etc.
No disavowal, no rejection, just their names and photos quietly removed from the page.
Still, I guess that’s…something?
UPDATE x3 10/10/22:
Welp. So much for that.
On Sept. 29th, the League of Women Voters held a BHS Board of Education Candidate Forum. Towards the end of the forum, the question was asked:
Q: “Have you received any donations or endorsements from any groups? If so, which groups, and why do you think they support you?”
Not one of the “slate” candidates mentioned the GKBTS PAC endorsement. Presumably their defense of this selective memory loss would be that the PAC endorsement “doesn’t count” since the PAC has since removed their names from their endorsement list.
Cut to just a few days later, via the official Oakland County Republican Party website:
