A former Google executive and president of a San Francisco Bay Area school board has resigned following his wife’s racist tweets on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The offensive comments caused an outrage among parents of several school children.
Jon Venverloh announced earlier this week that he was stepping down as board president of the Las Lomitas Elementary School District in Menlo Park stating he needed to focus on his family. His wife, Mehridith Venverloh, had taken to Twitter to question Harris’s qualifications for office, adding “all she needs to be qualified is a black p***y! No brain needed!”
Reports said Mehridith posted many such comments, prompting a demand for her husband’s resignation. She has since deleted the tweets and her account, but the screenshots of the same have been widely shared.
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Venverloh announced his resignation soon after and clarified that he did not agree with his wife’s “reprehensible views”. He accepted that his “continued service would be a distraction from the work that needs to be done”. The former Google director was elected to the school board in 2018. His term still had two years left.
The Las Lomitas Elementary School District said in a statement that district staff condemns “any and all racist statements made by anybody”.
Mehridith, meanwhile, issued an apology on Facebook, citing a change in her medications as the cause of her behaviour and the post.
“I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” she said, adding that she suffers from a “debilitating neurological disease” and has been taking “various medications”.
“Over the past several days I have been weaning off of my meds to prepare for a hospitalization that is scheduled to start tomorrow (Nov. 9). I believe that the change in my medication reduced my judgment between right and wrong when I made the posts. There is no excuse for what I wrote, but I ask for your understanding that my state of mind was far from normal last night,” she added.
Her husband said that Mehridith is “not a racist in the least”, citing the work she has done for underprivileged communities.
“In this case I believe she was trying to be humorous and sarcastic and completely missed the mark, possibly because of the situation with the meds. Her remarks are atrocious and unacceptable nonetheless, and she is now devastated, broken and deeply sorry,” he added.
