School Board’s Horton Blasts Corporate ‘Looting’ of Country

A teacher and a principal were sworn in as the newest members of the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education on Monday, but it was one of the panel’s two returning members who drew the most attention.

Board member Jeff Horton, reelected in April after a bruising campaign against two conservative candidates, elicited gasps and applause from the audience when he began his second term by lashing out at prejudice.

Horton, the board’s first and only openly gay member, blamed the “steady march of American society away from the commitment to equality and justice” not on “angry white heterosexual men” but instead on “their white brothers who own and run our corporate giants and who have looted this country as they . . . take advantage of cheap foreign labor.”

New members David Tokofsky, a teacher, and George Kiriyama, an adult school principal, both gave more standard acceptance speeches, talking about the need to improve such areas as student achievement and campus security.

And beginning her second term, Barbara Boudreaux--known for angry flare-ups during board meetings--brought olive branches to symbolize the need for board harmony.