The board of Denver Public Schools, a district that educates about 90,000 students in nearly 200 schools, gave outside investigators just a week to examine an allegation that Monica Hunter, board vice president, called a fellow board member a “Zionist b****,” Chalkbeat reported.
The board voted Thursday—the same day a board member resigned—to restart the investigation and deliver its findings by Oct. 8, when the board is also expected to consider whether to censure Hunter.
Xóchitl Gaytán and Alex Marrero, board president and district superintendent, respectively, alleged that Hunter made the remark about Amy Klein Molk in separate conversations in December and January.
“I absolutely don’t talk like that and would never say that about her,” Hunter told Chalkbeat.
The board voted last month to investigate the allegation, but at the meeting on Oct. 1, the process reportedly restarted after several board members said they misunderstood a prior vote that also dismissed other allegations against Hunter.
Hunter requested that investigators be permitted to interview any relevant witnesses, rather than limiting the inquiry to Gaytán, Marrero, Klein Molk and Hunter. The board unanimously approved the expanded scope.
Klein Molk, the board’s only Jewish member, supported moving quickly on the probe.
“It has been my desire to do this in a way that brings people together and that stops dividing us,” she said, per Chalkbeat. “I ask that we move quickly and swiftly and that we do this with as much dignity and respect as humanly possible.”
The investigation will conclude shortly after the anniversary of Oct. 7.
One board member proposed moving the report deadline from Oct. 7 to Oct. 8, calling an Oct. 7 report related to alleged antisemitic remarks “a little tone deaf.”
