The Palo Alto school board will be asked Tuesday to strip a board member Rowena Chiu of her committee assignments because she reposted a social media comment that allegedly caused a school administrator to be harassed.
Chiu reposted a message from an account called Asians Against Wokeness on Jan. 27 that called out Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Danae Reynolds.
Because of the post, Reynolds was subject to “racist comments and threats” against Reynolds, according to a resolution written by school board president Shana Segal. Chiu told the Post yesterday that the reposting was a “lapse in judgment” and she would have never intentionally put another woman of color at risk.
Segal on Tuesday will ask the rest of the board to approve a resolution that urges Chiu to meet with district employees through their unions and remove her from vamous committee assignments. Segal says in her resolution that the committee reassignments are to “safeguard Trustee Chiu from involuntary interactions with teachers or administrators that may exacerbate her safety concerns.”
Punishment
“The resolution makes it sound like this is for my protection,” Chiu said. “But I think we understand that it’s punitive.”
Board members are commonly assigned to meet with various committees and serve as liaisons in many instances. Chiu said that as a new member, she hasn’t even met with some of these committees yet. Chiu was elected in November along with Josh Salcman and Alison Kahmi.
Segal’s resolution is aimed at restoring “trust in board governance,” and reiterates past statements the board has made condemning racism against both black and Asian people.
The X post
Chiu’s post on X, formerly Twitter, came after a five-hour meeting on Jan. 23 over whether all freshmen should be required to take ethnic studies. At the meeting, members of the crowd jeered and laughed when Chiu asked a question about offering ethnic studies as an elective. Teacher Benjamin Bolanos interrupted to say Chiu was getting it wrong.
Chiu said three times she felt unsafe in the meeting. “I am attempting to maintain an open mindset, but the feedback that I’ve had from the community so far has made me feel very unsafe,” she said.
Samantha Fan, a student board representative from Gunn High School, asked Chiu 45 minutes later what she was afraid of regarding ethnic studies. Chiu said it’s complicated, and she was sticking her neck out by answering Fan’s question on behalf of other community members.
“I think that the fear is based on an ideological framework around oppressor-oppressed that will make some students in this school district feel unsafe,” Chiu said.
That’s when Reynolds jumped in to suggest that Chiu was uncomfortable, but not unsafe.
“I worry about the word ‘safe’ as a person who has to worry about my husband driving and coming home if he gets pulled over,” Reynolds said. “I know that we have members in our community who may be worried about the terms ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed.’ I completely understand that. But as a person who comes from a community that has and continues to be oppressed, I have to live with that every day. And our students of color in our district live with that every day.”
The X post by Asians Against Wokeness said Reynolds “lectured (Chiu) about how the word ‘unsafe’ is essentially inappropriate for people of Asian background because Asians are not truly oppressed.”
Chiu reposted the post from Asians Against Wokeness invoking her history as a Harvey Weinstein survivor.
“In 1998, Weinstein told me, as he attempted to rape me, that he ‘liked Chinese girls, because they’re discreet.’ In 2025, as an elected official, I spoke up about Asian oppression, and I was suppressed yet again,” Chiu wrote.
Dauber gets involved
A group of 14 former school board members, led by Ken Dauber, said in a letter that Chiu “villainized” Reynolds by her repost.
Both of the major PAUSD unions have denounced Chiu’s post. The Palo Alto Management Association union, which includes Reynolds, 35 principals and assistant principals, called on Chiu to resign.
I’m sure this next board meeting will be as much as a sham as the last one. The anti-Asian crowd will get all of the seats, the speakers will be decided in advance. Each will have their little script. The administrators will lecture any board members who get out of line. Meanwhile, Ken and Michelle Dauber will be above the board, pulling on their strings. None of the puppets will fight their master. Especially Josh, who almost went against the puppet masters last time but became afraid and got back in line to save himself. Can’t have independent thinking on this board! If there’s anything you learn in PAUSD, it’s conformity. No wonder our test scores crashed last year.
The hearing on ethnic studies was a painful and divisive matter. Sometimes issues where strongly held views clash create such feelings.
For Segal to now go forward with this censure motion because her supporters have been urging this on is inexplicable. Can anyone with common sense possibly agree that this follow up action will “restore trust in board governance”? Or that she wants to remove Chu from interaction with faculty and staff is being done for Chu’s sake?
The community is already divided. Segal seems to think that out of the frying pan, into the fire is her way to solve things.
The purpose of Ethnic Studies is to get kids to believe they’re victims and they should be protesting. Whitey is the oppressor and the rest of the kids are the oppressed.
No. You are incorrect. It is malpractice to not study our history no matter how painful.
Palo Alto school board will be the best national news laughingstock since SFs Eric Mar screached at the disabled Batkid.
The entire episode is a full-page, four-color ad for private schools.
This is deep state ethnic cleansing.
It would behoove the Board and all of the past Board members who are trying to pull strings to listen to Josh Becker and his recent posts on X.
This just prolongs the controversy, sowing more division. So much maneuvering to try to get a newly elected first-place candidate to step down so the last place candidate, cherry picked by old, white, Palo Alto, can take her place. Very anti democratic and doing all this over a single retweet that was quickly taken down once the bad comments were pointed out (when nothing was wrong with the content of the retweet itself – it was true or at least a perfectly valid opinion!). This is a pretense to undo the election. Where was this same crew demanding that Julie Lythcott-Holmes step down? Oh wait, they were busy liking her politics so it was crickets then. Julie can just apologize for her seriously egregious and immoral abuse of power, but Rowena’s apology has to be rejected and she should be forced out two board meetings into her elected term. Trump-level disregard for democratic institutions.
This just prolongs the controversy, sowing more division. So much maneuvering to try to get a newly elected first-place candidate to step down so the last place candidate, cherry picked by old, white, Palo Alto, can take her place. Very anti democratic and doing all this over a single retweet that was quickly taken down once the bad comments were pointed out (when nothing was wrong with the content of the retweet itself – it was true or at least a perfectly valid opinion!). This is a pretense to undo the election. Where was this same crew demanding that Julie Lythcott-Holmes step down? Oh wait, they were busy liking her politics so it was crickets then. Julie can just apologize for her seriously egregious and immoral abuse of power, but Rowena’s apology has to be rejected and she should be forced out two board meetings into her elected term. Trump-level disregard for democratic institutions.
This attempt to punish Chiu is hideous. I hope it is denounced by all Palo Altans. The former board members who are part of this witch hunt should be ashamed.
Recall these wokeoholists out of their chair! Get them out of our school system and away of influencing our children!
Ethnic studies is a brainwash and a bootcamp of victimhood. Even if it was a golden scoop of valuable history (it’s NOT!), it would still be a waste of the kids time since it DISPLACES other studies.
There are only so many hours in the school day. If we push nonsense on one end, good stuff falls off from the other end. It’s zero sum. So we should choose wisely what we feed into the mind of our kids. We want highly nutritional education, not this victimhood poison.
Seems perfectly rational to offer Chiu more safety, as she requested. As per PAUSD RESOLUTION NO. 2019-20.12: “WHEREAS, in Santa Clara County, one of the first minority-majority counties in the nation,Asians have been the largest racial group since 2014, and currently, Asians make up nearly 38 percent of the county’s population; and WHEREAS, the PAUSD Board of Education wishes to affirm its commitment to the well-being and safety of Asian American community members and ensure they know they are not alone and that they can speak out to help stop the spread of bigotry;
Rowena Chiu got more votes in the last election than any other school board candidate in recent memory. Her biggest critic is Ken Dauber, who never got as many votes as Chiu. Ken’s supporters ought to keep that in mind. Rowena is in tune with more residents than Ken ever was!
November 2024
Rowena Chiu 19,904 23%
Alison Kamhi 17,498 21%
Josh Salcman 16,420 20%
Nicole Chiu-Wang 15,137 19%
Chris Colohan 11,565 14%
Mazhar Hussain 1,990 2%
November 2018
Ken Dauber 14,474
November 2014
Ken Dauber 10,709
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as MLK has famously said. So if the headline in this article is true, then this is truly a tremendous injustice. And it is likely only to stoke continued divisiveness in our community.
Board members Mr. Dharap and Ms. Segal penned an opinion piece that aimed criticism in the wrong direction, at Ms. Chiu. The lack of self-awareness of Mr. Dharap and Ms. Segal is truly breathtaking. They write that the public expects good governance, transparency, and accountability. This is absolutely true. But they failed to even come close to meeting these expectations at the Jan. 23 Board meeting. If Mr. Dharap and Ms. Segal had the time to invest in writing an opinion piece, I would have expected them to have offered an apology to our community for their failure to meet the standards they claim to hold. Rather than distracting the public with a hit piece against a fellow Board member, they should have addressed the deep concerns of our community about this new Ethnic Studies course.
Regarding governance, the meeting was structured so poorly that I can’t believe this happened in Palo Alto. From providing the wrong, misleading materials on the curriculum as pre-reading, to having the room stacked with those in favor of the mandate, this was hardly an example of good governance.
Regarding transparency, when parents and other Board members asked for details on the curriculum, rather than providing this transparency they were told to “trust the teachers”. It was this failure of the two long time Board members to manage this process effectively that exposed the teachers to criticism.
Regarding accountability, I expect Board members to understand what they’re voting on. Rowena Chiu was the only Board member to ask the probing questions needed to provide sufficient clarity to enable the Board to make an informed decision. Sadly, the answers she received were deficient. Mr. Dharap and Ms. Segal seemed more interested in forcing the approval of a mandate for this highly controversial course than in understanding what they are actually mandating.
It is Mr. Dharap and Ms. Segal that have broken the trust with the community. I fear it is so badly broken and they seem to be so unaware and filled with hubris, that they may not be able to rebuild it. That’s sad, as it means we’re stuck with a dysfunctional Board until they both rotate off. Our community deserves better, much better.
Would anyone like to file a motion to recall both Segal and Dahrap? We just need 10 signatures to get it started. Since Segal has said she does not intend to run for another term, and Dahrap is already in his last term, this is the only way to electorally prevent them from doing further damage to our school system, or at least send them a message. I have a feeling it should not be hard after all this. Here is more info from another article about how to get this started. I do not want to have to put up with 4 more years of these two.
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To begin a recall, residents need to circulate a “notice of intention to circulate recall petition” giving the reasons why they want the office holder removed. Once they get 10 signatures, they submit the notice to the Registrar of Voters in San Jose.
The Registrar will review the notice and, once approved, the recallers will have between 120 and 160 days to obtain the signatures of 15% of the registered voters in their school district. The number of days is based on the size of the district, with recallers in Cupertino and Fremont getting 160 days and 120 in the other two districts.
Dauber?? Out of the shadow? The epitome of bias and hypocrisy? The one that initiated the anti-Asian family shaming and blaming campaign at PAUSD. That promoted conspiracy theories against families and pushed school policies to limit access for AP/honors courses at pausd to protect “wellness” when his own son was accelerated years ahead in a private school. Dauber that harmed thousands of students. Palo Alto is *finally* ready to move forward by electing Rowena. Dauber is doing his best to drag us back.
I’d like to know why anyone thinks it’s appropriate that an administrator, Danae Reynolds, has the right during a school board meeting to correct Rowena Chiu about the word she was using to express her feelings in the board room. Reynolds told Chiu that instead of saying she felt “unsafe,” she should say she was “uncomfortable” and that the word “unsafe” should be reserved for situations like when Reynolds’ husband drives at night in his Mercedes. Reynolds doesn’t have the right to correct Chiu. Moreover, as an administrator, Reynolds works for the board — not the other way around.
And as for the claim Chiu “doxed” Reynolds, all the information she disclosed on X could be easily found on the PAUSD website. No personal information was revealed. Those who claim otherwise, like Ken Dauber, are just trying to fabricate a case against Chiu.
Superintendent Don Austin should have advised Reynolds to keep her comments to herself, that she doesn’t have the right to correct or lecture board members.
And as for Dauber, it’s become a repetitive story. He’s always pulling stunts like this to push his agenda. This time, the message is clear to Asian parents in the school district — don’t challenge the old guard, us old white guys are still in charge.
If a recall of the other four board members ends up on the ballot I’ll vote for it. And I’ll be pleased if they fire Austin and any others who believe it’s appropriate to harass board members who hold different views. And, as for Ken Dauber, please go away!
You think it would have been smart for Don Austin, a white man, to tell Danae Reynolds, a black woman, to keep her comments to herself? After seeing what happened to Reynolds for telling Rowena Chiu, an Asian woman to change her wording? That’s hilarious. He would have been crucified if he said that. He should let the board sort it out for themselves. They are all adults.