A Pennsylvania school board president is facing backlash after he cut off an Iranian immigrant mother who was speaking out against the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) during a board meeting last week.
Anita Edgarian, a mother of three, was voicing her concerns about CRT during a Chester School District board meeting on July 26 when board president Chris McCune confiscated her microphone and had her escorted out of the building.
“I grew up during revolution,” Edgarian told board members. “My motherland has been ravaged by communism and I left the Islamic country that was hunting us down,” she said.
“I send my kids to study mathematics, literature, and history, and I want them to study every kind of history.”
While she was still addressing board members, and as she was asking whether teachers were being taught CRT, Edgarian was cut off by McCune who told that she was “at time.”
“No, no,” Edgarian objected, but McCune shot back, “Yes, you are,” before taking her microphone and telling her to leave.
“This is shameful,” McCune said as Edgarian was being escorted out of the building by police officers.
“We’ve had a respectful meeting up until you. You bombarded up there, and now you want to monopolize the meeting. Not happening. You’re gone,” he said.
“By the time I asked that question, he was already coming toward me. And so that’s a clarification because my parents have raised me better,” she said, referring to questioning whether teachers had been taught CRT.
She said in the interview that she just wanted to clarify what her children were going to be taught as part of the school curriculum.
McCune has since faced calls to resign, with a Republican committee in West Chester calling his conduct “reprehensible.”
The Republican Committee of Chester County in a letter released Sunday accused the school board president of attempting to intimidate Edgarian, saying that he should either resign or attend anger management counseling.
“Since when do policemen haul off parents for exercising their 1st Amendment right of free speech?” the committee asked in its letter. “Shouldn’t she be allowed to return to her seat instead of being turned out of the building?”
The Epoch Times has contacted the West Chester Area School District for comment.
CRT is a quasi-Marxist ideology that interprets society through the lens of a racial struggle, sees inherent racism in the foundations of Western societies, which it seeks to fundamentally transform to end this claimed racial oppression. An effort to incorporate CRT in U.S. schools has been pushed by progressive politicians, activists, and major teachers’ unions, drawing backlash from parents and conservatives.
States that have banned or restricted the teaching of CRT in public schools include Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas, while more than a dozen states are considering or have partially imposed similar restrictions.
