Central Bucks School Board Members Release Statement, 'Stand Against' Offensive Speech

WARRINGTON, PA — More than a week after several comments at a Central Bucks School District board meeting garnered both local and wider-reaching uproar, four school board directors from the nine-person board have issued a statement to the community.

Jodi Schwartz, Lorraine Sciuto-Ballasy, Karen Smith, and Tracy Suits all signed the following release to families. They wrote:

At the Tuesday, November 9 Central Bucks School Board meeting, two speakers used our public comment platform to make derogatory comments against specific groups of people. While we unequivocally support the opportunity for the community to exercise their right to free speech, we do not support this inflammatory speech, nor do we believe it reflects the values of the Central Bucks School District or the community. We stand with these groups and any others offended by these troubling comments.

Several comments made at the meeting were widely regarded as transphobic and anti-Semitic, drawing on tropes and rhetoric used to disparage and vilify transgender and Jewish people. Buckingham resident Ed Mackouse suggested that bathroom usage by transgender people would lead to sexual assault; Doylestown resident Art Larson drew connections between "organized crime" and the Jewish community.

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At the time, some school board members clashed over how to respond to these comments. While Smith (who signed Wednesday night's letter) said "enough" repeatedly and seemed to want to stop Mackouse from speaking, board director Dana Hunter vocally defended each speaker's capacity to "say whatever he wants."

When prompted by Hunter, solicitor Jeffrey Garton intervened to say that as long as comments were not directed toward a specific person, they did not violate board policy.

Questions around limiting comments at board meetings have weighed heavy on the Bucks County community recently, after several taxpayers in the nearby Pennsbury School District sued solicitors and board directors over policies they say restrict free speech. On Wednesday, Judge Gene Pratter granted a preliminary injunction in that case, saying that Pennsbury's board policies to limit “personally directed,” “abusive,” “irrelevant,” “offensive,” “otherwise inappropriate,” “disruptive,” and “intolerant" comments were unconstitutional.

As such, the statement from Central Bucks' board directors explicitly states that, "while we unequivocally support the opportunity for the community to exercise their right to free speech, we do not support this inflammatory speech, nor do we believe it reflects the values of the Central Bucks School District or the community."

Central Bucks' school board struggles made national news this week, when the New York Times' podcast 'The Daily' released a two-episode series on the extreme rhetoric and fighting playing out in the district's community forum.

And after threats against the school on Tuesday sent Central Bucks High School South into lockdown and early dismissal, superintendent Abram M. Lucabaugh released a statement of his own on the recent volatility. An excerpt:

Every single person in our district and our community matters. Regardless of ethnicity, religion, orientation, identity or political affiliation, every single person has value, and deserves to be treated with the dignity and respect afforded to them by virtue of their humanity. Yes, we will have differences. Sometimes we will not agree. In some cases, we will never agree, and in the end, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Differences are not something to be feared, or used as leverage for sowing discord, as much as they are a pathway for understanding others’ perspectives … if we allow them to be.

A young man has since been arrested and is believed to be responsible for the threats, the Warrington Township Police Department said.

Here are some recent key headlines from Central Bucks:

• Central Bucks Spotlighted In NYT 'School Board Wars' Series
• Central Bucks Mask Mandate Remains As Tensions Mount
• Central Bucks Superintendent Sends Message Of Unity After Threats

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said that a board member drew connections between organized crime and the Jewish community. This was incorrect; these comments were made by speaker Art Larson. The record has been corrected and Patch regrets the error.

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