At a hastily-called press conference Wednesday afternoon, state Rep. JoAnne Favors decried Hamilton County School Board member Rhonda Thurman for remarks she deemed as racist, and said that if she were in her shoes, she would resign.
Standing in front of supporters from the African American community that included school board member George Ricks and county Commissioner Warren Mackey, Favors read a prepared statement in which she called Thurman "out of control" and "ineffective as a school board member."
Favors cited a recent Times Free Press article, in which Thurman claimed that the amount of money being funneled into urban schools was unfair to rural institutions, and had yielded few positive results.
"What do they want? I don't think suburban students have been treated fairly," Thurman was quoted as saying. "Poor people learn. Slaves learned to read. I don't know why poor people can't learn to read or write. I have a lot of poor people in my family, but they are all still expected to learn."
Favors said that upon reading Thurman's remarks, she, along with thousands of people from the region, were "astonished" at what they saw.
"Her comment that "a slave could learn to read" was extremely demeaning, and can only be described as blatant racism in its most potent form," she said. "This is evidence of her profound lack of sensitivity and historical awareness."
Favors later went on to suggest that Thurman resign, and said that her current resume would not be able to get her beyond "being a greeter in the employment world."
"If I were Rhonda Thurman and felt the way she does, and made comments the way she does about certain populations, I would have not run in the first place," Favors said.
Thurman, who was not present at the press conference, later said that she had no plans to resign or apologize, and that Favors had misquoted her in her statement.
"I said 'slaves learned to read,' not 'a slave could learn to read,'" Thurman said. " JoAnne is purposely misquoting what I said, which is a historical fact. Slaves risked their lives to read, they knew that education was the only way to get out of the situation they were in, and I think that's something to be celebrated."
The announcement from Favors came one day before a highly divided school board is set to vote on the appointment of a permanent superintendent, who is widely expected to be Rick Smith.
Favors took the time to state her belief that Smith, who is currently serving as interim-superintendent, was not qualified to hold the permanent position because he does not hold a doctoral degree.
"If I wanted to be over the nursing school where I worked for ten years as an associate professor of nursing, but I knew I needed a doctorate in order to move up as director, I would not have expected to have that requirement be waived," she said.
A recent vote by the school board eliminated a requirement for the board to undergo a formal search process, as well as a strong encouragement that candidates be in possession of a Ph.D., an action that cleared the way for Smith's impending appointment.
Favors continued to express her dissatisfaction with tomorrow's almost certain vote, saying that fairness had been "abandoned" during the process set in motion by a "good old boy network."
"I'm going to pray for him (Smith), because he's not going to be able to satisfy them (school board)," Favors said. "They're going to want him to be hiring their friends and buddies and neighbors and children, but he doesn't know what he's getting into. He'll be the next one to haul off."
Thurman, who has unabashedly expressed her support of Smith in the past, said that she took offense to Favors' remarks regarding people without higher education degrees.
"How arrogant is she, to insult what people do for a living?" she said. "There are honest people everywhere, working to make a living. Someone needs to fix her wig. She's a state representative, big dad gum deal."
George Ricks and Jeffrey Wilson, the only two school board members present at the press conference, both said that they did not think that Favors' comments would affect tomorrow's vote, which is scheduled to take place at the Department of Education at 5 p.m.
"The five votes is up," Ricks said. "We will support whoever they decide to appoint, but we want that person to understand that it's not about having the support of the five individuals who appointed you, it's about having the support of the whole board. And the whole board will be supporting whoever is elected to represent us."
Wilson said that overall, he saw the situation as being "unfortunate."
"You don't need this kind of thing in the community," he said. "It's very emotional and inflamed right now, and you hate to see it get to this point. They'll vote how they vote tomorrow, but we got a ways to go."
