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Voters oust San Francisco school board members in historic race that galvanized AAPIs

The city’s first Pacific Islander elected leader was one of three officials recalled in Tuesday’s high-stakes special election, which featured a surge in AAPI activism.
Controversies at Lowell High School are in the spotlight amid the contentious school board recall election. Photo by Dan Hu for The Yappie.
Controversies at Lowell High School are in the spotlight amid the contentious school board recall election. Photo by Dan Hu for The Yappie.

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San Franciscans voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to oust three education officials, including the city’s only Pacific Islander elected leader, after a contentious $1.9 million campaign that became a flashpoint in the debate over racial and pandemic-related education measures.

Parents first launched the aggressive recall campaign against San Francisco school board members Gabriela López, Faauuga Moliga, and Alison Collins in February last year, citing frustration with COVID-19 restrictions and furor over a controversial plan to rename schools. The other four school board members were not eligible for recall, as they had not yet completed a full year of their current terms.

Wednesday data from the San Francisco Department of Elections showed more than 70% of voters supported the recall effort.

Tuesday’s special election, which marks the first attempt to recall a city official in nearly 40 years, featured heightened AAPI advocacy on both sides. The backdrop of rising anti-Asian violence had fueled widespread voter discontent, according to the Associated Press, while the race’s galvanization of Chinese Americans encapsulated the clashes over diversity and selective school admissions playing out across the country.

At Lowell High School, where Asian Americans make up around half of the student body, an increasingly vocal group of Chinese American parents have decried its newly implemented lottery-based admissions system as discriminatory. Well-funded recall proponents courted voters via Mandarin and Cantonese ads focused on the school board’s efforts to end the merit-based admission policy at Lowell. The changes were ultimately blocked by a California court in November 2021, but remained a key motivator ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Asian American voters also pushed for Collins’ recall after a series of her old tweets resurfaced. In a Twitter thread from 2016, the school board vice president, who is Black, used racist language and tropes to criticize anti-Blackness in Asian communities, comparing some Asian American parents “tiger moms” and “house [n-word]s.” She also accused Asian Americans of “[using] white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’” Though she later apologized for the tweets, several San Francisco politicians, including Moliga, called for her to resign.

Top Asian American public officials, however, were at odds with Chinese American organizers over the timing of the recall, which took place just months before regularly scheduled elections.

On the eve of election day, combined contributions around the recall had topped $2 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, with just over $1.9 million going towards recall supporters. A little more than half of the $84,136 donated to recall opponents went towards defending Moliga, the city’s first and only Pacific Islander elected leader.

Several Pacific Islander advocacy groups wrote an open letter in September 2021 opposing the recall. “Recalling him would be contributing to the extinction of our beautiful Pacific Islander community and many San Francisco Natives,” the letter read. “Under his leadership we finally have accurate data on the number of Pacific Islander students enrolled in San Francisco's public schools … [O]ur existence as proud Pacific Islanders has been recognized because we finally have someone that is about what is right and fair, and it has been a blessing for us that he is a Pacific Islander.”

After results were announced Tuesday, Moliga thanked the Pacific Islander community for “standing up and taking on this challenge.”

“We fought hard and ran a great campaign,” he added in the statement on Facebook. “[I]t has been an honor!”

Mayor London Breed (D), who endorsed the recall and will appoint the board members’ replacements, applauded the parents “who tirelessly organized and advocated.”

“The voters of this City have delivered a clear message that the School Board must focus on the essentials of delivering a well-run school system above all else,” she said. “It's time we refocus our efforts on the basics of providing quality education for all students, while more broadly improving how this City delivers support for children and families.”

The Republican National Committee also applauded Tuesday's special election results, seeking to nationalize the local race.

"Last night's decisive results in the San Francisco school board election prove that Asian American families reject the radical Democrat agenda of school closures, forced masking, and renaming schools to appease woke activists," Nainoa Johsens, the RNC's Director of Asian Pacific American Media, said in a statement to The Yappie. "Just like in Virginia's gubernatorial election, Asian American parents in San Francisco stood up to Democrat politicians who put radical ideology and scoring political points ahead of their kids. Even in deep blue San Francisco, Democrats are proving they are out of touch."

Asian Americans make up 34.4% of San Francisco’s population while Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders comprise 0.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Note: This story was updated 3:19pm ET on Wednesday to include updated results from the San Francisco Department of Elections, along with a statement from the RNC.


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