This week, a heated dispute over a board member’s social media activities turned a Redlands, California, school board meeting into a Nazi analogy and name-calling.
According to pictures gathered by a group of parents, Candy Olson, a member of the board’s conservative-leaning majority, has hit likes on Instagram carousels of photographs that contain racist and antisemitic memes. As part of a campaign by a local activist group called Together for Redlands, more than 1,500 people have written to the board to demand Olson’s resignation.
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Samantha Trad, a parent and Together for Redlands organizer, stated, “She is liking and sharing the most horrifying content I’ve seen in a long time, instead of focusing on the real problems in our district.” That kind of person is not suitable to work for the district.
Olson, who turned down demands for an interview, stated that she unfollowed the account because she disagreed with the more provocative photos it shared and that she had planned to like some of the more apolitical photos in the Instagram carousels instead, such as a meme of a chicken wearing high heels. She liked a meme that seemed to make fun of hitting an LGBTQ Pride parade with a car, an image of Ned Flanders, a character from The Simpsons, wearing a Nazi uniform, and a photo of Adolf Hitler and Jesus seemingly expressing sympathy for Jews.
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At the conclusion of Tuesday night’s board meeting, Olson stated that just because I enjoy one slide out of a deck of eighteen does not indicate I enjoy all of them. All of this occurred, she said, because the extreme progressives in this town disagree with the policies I’m pursuing.
Years after the initial backlash to mask mandates and so-called critical race theory turned school boards into battlegrounds, the divisions in Redlands go beyond one board member’s social media activity, demonstrating how political disagreements about what children should learn are still causing havoc in communities.
During the first few months of the Trump administration, many California districts and Democratic state leaders have defended the kinds of programs the president has criticized, including those that assist transgender children. These opinions, however, are far from universal, and recent conflicts in Redlands and a number of other California communities demonstrate how educational culture wars continue to simmer and occasionally flare up locally.
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In May, hundreds of demonstrators spoke in favor of and against policies that accommodate transgender children at a board meeting in Lucia Mar, on the Central Coast. A contract for teacher training on promoting racial ideals and civil discourse in the U.S. educational system has sparked intense debate at board meetings in the Pajaro Valley, south of the Bay Area. Protests and lawsuits over ethnic studies graduation requirements occurred in a number of districts.
The five-member board in Redlands is now more conservative after Olson and an ally were elected last autumn. They immediately got to work implementing their plan for the Redlands Unified School District, which has 19,000 kids, most of whom are Latino. The middle-class neighborhood is in San Bernardino County, which is typically thought of as dependably Republican, despite only supporting Donald Trump by two percentage points last fall over Kamala Harris.
Meetings this year were more heated and frequently lasted late into the evening as the newly elected Redlands school board members suggested amending the district’s anti-racism resolution and implementing a new procedure to remove blasphemous library books from the shelf. A resolution opposing transgender athletes competing on teams that reflect their gender identity was voted by the board in April during a six-hour meeting; however, no regulations were altered. Critics interpreted the board’s July ban on all flags from classrooms—aside from the American, California, and military flags—as an assault on LGBTQ pride banners.
Local right-wing groups, such as the Inland Empire Family PAC, which has supported school board candidates in other California districts, sponsored the conservative slate for the Redlands school board. Last year, the group hosted a fundraiser that was attended by President Trump’s son, Eric Trump; FBI Director Kash Patel; and former personal lawyer for Donald Trump, Alina Habba, who is currently the acting U.S. Attorney in New Jersey.
The Redlands board should focus on concerns like dwindling enrollment and funding cuts, according to critics of the board’s new approach, who see the emphasis on culture war issues as a diversion. The California Department of Justice is also keeping a close eye on the district due to its poor handling of instances involving sexual abuse and misbehavior.
In a statement, a district representative noted that as school board members are elected officials, they are exempt from the rules and guidelines that apply to district employees.
Since Together for Redlands published screenshots of Olson’s social media behavior two weeks ago, the debate surrounding it has intensified both online and offline. She was accused of supporting Nazi hate speech in posts on Instagram and Reddit.
Olson described the campaign as a “hit job” by a group that “has lost much local credibility” in an email to NBC News. She also stated that she would not “cater to the LGBTQ group demands to elevate them above all others.”
“I’m a Christian who supports Israel with Jewish friends and family, yet somehow I m claimed to be a Nazi,” she stated. “It never makes sense.”
Some of the dozen or so people who took part in Tuesday night’s public comment sessions supported Olson, while others added inflammatory remarks.
People who want her to step down should go to Europe, where you may be as gay or transgender as you want until a Muslim immigrant throws you from a roof and burns you alive, according to a man wearing a Trump hat.
Arthur Schaper, an organizer with the far-right activist group MassResistance, stated that parents who were opposing Olson were acting in a manner similar to how Nazis treated their political rivals before they began putting people in ovens. Schaper expressed his pride in the conservative board members. In an email, Schaper stated that parents in the district asked him to speak at the meeting because they wanted support in opposing the bullying and cancel cultural initiatives of these LGBT activists in the neighborhood and beyond.
According to a district spokeswoman, the presiding officer—in this case, the president of the board—is responsible for handling any offensive, threatening, or disruptive speech during public comments.
After months of the board enacting regulations they didn’t agree with, the overwhelming majority of teachers, parents, and children who spoke during the meeting felt Olson’s social media statements were only the most recent insult. Another woman called Olson a racist, hateful person, while another called her garbage before blowing kisses and yelling at her. She liked neo-Nazi posters on 4chan and acted like a 16-year-old, according to a young man.
District teacher Pat Molnar addressed the conservative board members directly.
“You guys are pushing pretty hard the other way right now, but history won’t judge you kindly because the moral universe’s arc is bending towards justice,” Molnar remarked. You people are a disgrace.
Requests for comment were not answered by Michele Rendler, the president of the Redlands school board, who typically votes with Olson and another conservative member.
Quinn, a 13-year-old district student who uses the pronouns they/them, has frequently opposed the conservative agenda at board meetings and joined others who called on Olson to step down on Tuesday night.
In an interview afterwards, Quinn stated, “She needs to get off that board.” For everything she has done against the LGBTQ+ community and children, she doesn’t even need to have any connection to the district.
