School Board Member Carrabino Accused Again of Racial Slurs

SACRAMENTO — State Board of Education member Joseph D. Carrabino, who faces a Senate confirmation hearing July 1, has again been accused of making racially insensitive remarks.

James Thrasher, a 42-year-old African-American high school teacher in Modesto, said Carrabino repeatedly refers to him as boy at meetings, despite Thrasher’s requests that he not do so.

Thrasher, who serves as a liaison between the California Teachers Assn. and the state board, said Carrabino commented: “My, you’re a big boy” to the 6-foot-2, 240-pound teacher when they met during a planning session in Sacramento last month.

“I said: ‘Pardon me, sir, I’m not a boy, “ Thrasher said. “I’m a man and where I come from, boy is a negative term. He said: ‘Well, where I come from it’s not a negative term.’ ”

Carrabino lived for many years in Brooklyn, N.Y., before moving west to study, and later teach, at UCLA.

Thrasher complained to the teachers union, which sent a letter protesting the incidents to the Senate Rules Committee, before which Carrabino is scheduled to appear.

Carrabino denied Thrasher’s charges.

“I don’t even know the guy,” the former management professor said. “I don’t ever remember meeting him. . . . I don’t know who’s motivating all this. It’s ridiculous.”

Earlier, Carrabino was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks to the former chairwoman of the state Curriculum Commission and of denigrating minority students. He also denied those accusations.

The Carrabino confirmation hearing has been rescheduled several times after he requested postponements because of eye surgery and stress.

Senate sources do not believe that Carrabino has the three votes he needs to be approved by the committee.