MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Who is Alison Collins? San Francisco school board VP ​who hurled N-word at Asian Americans refuses to quit

'Alison Collins needs to resign immediately to save whatever integrity the SF school board has left,' a user wrote

A growing list of state and local leaders are joining the call for San Francisco Unified School District Board vice president Alison Collins to resign due to a series of racist tweets she made a few years back.

During a San Francisco Unified School District board meeting in 2016, before Collins was a commissioner, she seemed to reference the basis for her now-controversial tweets as she reads a speech to the board written by her daughter. “Last year at my school, I heard some kids joking about the KKK and sending kids back to Mexico,” Collins tweeted.

RELATED ARTICLES

Who is John Patrick Holian? NY White headmaster makes Black boy, 11, kneel, says it's 'African way' to apologize

Is Purvis Middle School racist? Mississippi school with 80% White students given ‘slave letter writing’ task

In another, referring to Asian American teachers, students and parents, she wrote "They use White supremacist thinking to assimilate and get ahead". Most of these racist tweets have since been deleted, but twelve of them were saved and published by the recently formed Recall SF School Board group, founded by two SFUSD parents who have launched a campaign to suspend Collins along with two other board commissioners.

In the Twitter thread, she said the kids making the jokes were Asian. Collins goes on to mention white supremacy and racism and alleges some in the AAPI community often benefit from so-called "model minority" perceptions to the detriment of other groups. "Talk to many Lowell parents and you will hear praise of tiger moms and disparagement of Black and brown 'culture'," Collins' tweet read.

"It kind of seemed to be judging Asian Americans for wanting to like study hard and work and give the kids an education," said Siva Raj about the tweets. Raj co-founded the group with Autumn Looijen. The tweets were republished on their website as part of a slideshow titled '30 Reasons to Recall the SF School Board'.

The tweets that were published by Collins in December 2016 resurfaced amid an increase of high-profile anti-Asian attacks and hate crimes that have been reported across the country, sparking a national social justice movement.

Former San Francisco Supervisor Norman Yee said, "this is terrible, this is not acceptable to me," about Collins' tweets. On Saturday, March 20, Yee published an open letter calling for Collins to resign, which was co-signed by more than 20 other local and state officials. San Francisco Mayor London Breed also asked Collins to step down, tweeting "Our students and our API community deserve better."

Collins' posted an essay on Medium.com explaining her position, writing in part: "I acknowledge that right now, in this moment my words taken out of context can be causing more pain for those who are already suffering. For the pain my words have caused, I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly."

The public roared on social media for removing Collins from her position. One Internet user: "Allison Collins should stand before the SF School Board in her own struggle session. She should be made to read out all her tweets live to make sure they're not taken "out of context." Another one said: "Allison Collins needs to resign immediately to save whatever integrity the SF school board has left."

Action Network has come up with a petition to make Collins resign from the school board. The petition reads: "We are angered and disturbed to see that Alison Collins, VP of the SF Board of Education, has referred to Asian Americans as “house n****r[s]” in a 2016 tweet thread. Labeling our diverse API communities with such hateful language is racist and wrong. It is time to call out racism in our own City.

Her words dehumanize Asians — our students, parents and teachers are not allowed to feel safe, accepted, or valued in our own school district. As an elected official, she must be held accountable for her actions." 755 people have signed the petition, with the goal of getting it signed by 800.