Carl Paladino. (Photo by Marino for NY Daily News.)
A school board in Buffalo, New York, on Thursday cast its votes to oust a Trump campaign official who went on a disgustingly racist tirade against First Lady Michelle Obama last week.
School board member Carl Paladino, who worked as the co-chairman of Trump’s New York campaign, drew national condemnation when he compared Mrs. Obama to an ape.
“I’d like her to return to being a male and be let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he wrote. In addition to his outwardly racist remarks, Paladino also said he wished Pres. Obama would “die of mad cow disease” and be “buried in a cow pasture.”
The disgraced official’s inflammatory remarks landed him in hot water with fellow Buffalo School Board members, prompting them to cast the 6-2 majority votes needed to kick him out. But Paladino has adamantly defended his distasteful remarks and said he has no plans to step down from his post.
#BREAKING resolution calling for @CarlPaladino to resign from the @Buffalo_Schools BOE in 24 hours passes 6-2 @WGRZ pic.twitter.com/8T6an1ukCG
— Jeff Preval (@PrevalWGRZ) December 29, 2016
“Words matter, Mr. Paladino,” School Board President Barbara Seals Nevergold said during a board meeting Thursday, which Paladino did not attend. “Our president, the Commander in Chief of this nation for the last eight years, Mrs. Obama, our First Lady, and Mrs. Valerie Jarrett, special presidential council are all African-Americans.
“The impact on children of color, especially African-American children is incalculable,” she added. “How do we encourage them to use their God-given talents to soar, to reach for the stars, when a sitting board member responsible for their education demonstrates such contempt of their role models?”
The final resolution to oust Paladino calls on him to resign from his position within 24 hours before calling on State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia to remove him, according to the Buffalo News. In their motion, board members argued that the “unambiguously racist, morally repugnant, flagrantly disrespectful, inflammatory and inexcusable comments by Mr. Paladino,” reflected negatively on the Buffalo School Board, which serves children and their families in a district comprised of over 70 percent minority students.
The resolution went on to argue that Paladino’s remarks violated the state constitution and Dignity for All Students Act, which guarantees all students the right to an education free of discrimination and harassment, the newspaper reported.
This isn’t the first time the troubled school board member has come under fire for making inflammatory comments, however. According to RawStory, Paladino has been previously accused of bullying Black women and causing quite a stir when he emailed a disturbing image of a woman having sexual intercourse with a horse.
At Thursday’s board meeting, Nevergold tore into the former Trump campaign co-chairman for his racially offensive remarks, which she said sought to reduce Black Americans to “depraved individuals, frauds, criminals, gorillas and more.” Her lengthy tongue lashing condemned Paladino’s bigoted antics and noted that people from all over the country were shocked that a school board member would “demonstrate such a lack of responsible leadership.”
“They would like me to tell you, ‘You’re fired,'” Nevergold concluded, as the audience erupted in applause. “But those are not my words. So, I’m asking you to do the right thing and resign.”
