Some board members of the Temecula Valley Unified School District in California were worried that the program’s supplementary material included Harvey Milk, a former San Francisco supervisor, and homosexual rights leader who was slain in 1978, and so decided to reject the curriculum. Some board members complained that parents were not given sufficient input into curricular decisions.
Consequently, the conservative school board banned any books approved by the state that reference Harvey Milk.
Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom threatened the conservative board members with steep penalties and referred to them as “extremists.”
Newsom stated last week that if extreme school board members refused to fulfill their jobs, the state would step in and penalize them.
After Newsom threatened to hammer them with a $1.5 million punishment, the school board in Southern California buckled and accepted a curriculum that names a homosexual rights activist who sexually molested a teen boy.
One of the teenage rape victims of Milk committed suicide.
Newsom made good on his threats and imposed a $1.5 million punishment on the Temecula Valley Unified School District. After a 24-hour delay, the school board finally approved to put Harvey Milk in the curriculum.
Joseph Komrosky, president of the board, claimed he called an emergency meeting on Friday night to adopt the curriculum so the district wouldn’t be sued.
If the district were to reject the curriculum, it would be forced to adopt a textbook from 2006. A State Legislation passed in 2011 mandates that students learn about the achievements of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans, but those textbooks don’t reflect that.
The district had no choice in order to circumvent the $1.5 million fine imposed by Newsom, the Democrat who has frequently sparred with Republicans in other places over banning books.
