Teachers union halts support for LAUSD candidate, who has more online posts to explain
The influential Los Angeles teachers union has suspended its campaign on behalf of school board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim amid rising criticism over his social media posts and likes that expressed antisemitism, glamorized guns and celebrated pornographic images, officials announced early Friday morning.
United Teachers Los Angeles acted after an emergency leadership meeting Thursday night. The suspension represents a blow to Al-Alim’s campaign for the District 1 Board of Education seat that represents much of South Los Angeles and southwest L.A. The teachers union has poured more than $650,000 into an independent campaign supporting Al-Alim and had organized fieldworkers on his behalf.
“Upon becoming aware of the offensive and antisemitic content on Kahllid Al-Alim’s social media pages, UTLA called an emergency meeting of its Board of Directors,” a union statement said. The directors “voted to immediately suspend any campaign activities in Board District 1.”
On Friday afternoon, the L.A. County Federation of Labor also suspended campaign activities on behalf of Al-Alim. The labor federation has reported spending no funds in this campaign, but its action — on behalf of the county’s union movement — is symbolically notable.
“In a world where our most vulnerable communities are experiencing increased instances of hate and violence, we expect our endorsed candidates to embody values that promote equity and diversity,” the federation stated in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
An Al-Alim post on X that drew particular criticism was his praise of an antisemitic publication from the Nation of Islam organization titled “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews: How Jews gained control of the Black American economy.” In an October 2022 post, Al-Alim said the book should be mandatory reading in L.A. schools: “We not Burning or Banning Our Future! We Not Playing,” he wrote.
School board front-runner Kahllid Al-Alim, seeking a seat that represents much of south and southwest L.A., has expressed regret over the social media posts.
He’d also liked posts in support of basketball star Kyrie Irving and rapper Kanye West when they were under fire for antisemitic posts or comments.
In a statement Tuesday, Al-Alim, 56, acknowledged all or most of the social media posts and likes, for which he expressed regret.
“I have spent my life fighting against antisemitism, anti-Arab hate, Islamophobia, and all forms of oppression,” Al-Alim said. “I have spent my life fighting for the equality of all people.” He also appeared to acknowledge the pornographic and gun-related likes, adding: “I also apologize for my likes on social media of graphic content. It was inappropriate. I will never do that again.”
Al-Alim’s own campaign — which is separate from UTLA’s effort — was dealing Friday with the emergence of two purported reposts from 2015, this time from his personal Facebook account.
One repost shows a false conspiracy theory claim that three large-scale deadly attacks were fake: the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut and the Aurora movie theater shooting in Colorado, both in 2012, and the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. The second repost is of material claiming to link vaccinations to autism.
Al-Alim did not write comments on any of the reposts.
“Kahllid denies supporting the content of these articles,” his campaign manager Erica Huerta said. “He is not a conspiracy theorist or anti-vaccine. He reads a lot of online articles and may have inadvertently ‘reposted’ articles he had read. That is all. He is clearly being attacked and his reputation should speak louder than a deep dive going back nearly 10 years of his social media likes.”
In an interview, Huerta said Al-Alim firmly believes that the two mass shootings and the bombing were real.
She added that the campaign has been aware that some of Al-Alim’s past social media activity could pose problems for the candidate, but that she has no knowledge that teachers union leaders were aware of the issue until the posts and likes began circulating publicly.
Al-Alim emerged with UTLA’s endorsement after a months-long process. He already was well known to many union leaders as an energetic education and community activist who could be relied on to side with the union on policy matters, including opposition to charter school expansion.
Like other District 1 candidates, he especially advocated for Black students. Unlike some, he supports the union’s call to eliminate the school Police Department. Al-Alim was a founding member of Reclaim Our Schools L.A., a coalition of parents, students, educators and labor and community organizations closely allied with UTLA.
UTLA leaders did not rescind the endorsement; they concluded that union rules require a formal multi-step process that will be expedited but will take days, brushing up against the March 5 primary.
On Tuesday, the union will convene its 100-member expanded endorsement team. The next day there will be area meetings across the vast school system. On Thursday, the union’s Political Action Council of Educators, a body that is especially focused on politics, will meet.
On March 4, the board of directors, a 50-member body, will gather on Zoom from 5 to 6 p.m. After that will be
Seven candidates are vying for the District 1 seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.
Withdrawing an endorsement requires a vote by the union’s 250-member House, which has the authority to rescind the endorsement.
Similarly, the county labor federation indicated that its endorsement process “comprises multiple governing bodies” and the status of the official endorsement remains in play.
After weeks of union-financed campaigning and mail-in balloting already underway, Al-Alim still could make it into the runoff. His own campaign had raised $24,302 as of the last reporting period.
Based on campaign spending totals, another leading candidate would be educator Didi Watts, whom the union seems unlikely to support because a substantial portion of her career has been associated with charter schools.
Before Al-Alim’s problems arose, this race looked like a classic high-cost face-off between a teachers-union-backed candidate and one backed by allies of charter schools, which also are public schools, though they are privately managed.
In the seven-candidate field, however, there are others who could carry the teachers union banner, or make a strong showing on their own if they are able to get their message out.
In addition to Watts — an administrator with experience in public, charter and private schools — the other candidates are:
- John Aaron Brasfield, a longtime special education assistant and athletics coach.
- Rina Tambor, a tutor and former teacher who managed sleep-away camps in the Northeast.
- DeWayne Davis, a former L.A. Unified teacher and principal who held senior school district administrative positions in other school systems.
- Sherlett Hendy Newbill, a Dorsey High teacher, dean, department head and coach. She was endorsed by UTLA in a past election and is backed by current District 1 board member George McKenna, who is retiring and whose office she joined as an advisor.
- Christian Flagg, who directs training for advocacy work at Community Coalition, a South L.A. nonprofit. His policy views, such as eliminating school police, align closely with those of UTLA.
But teachers union support can’t reach other candidates in time to help push them into the November runoff between the top two finishers.
Outside of UTLA, the next-largest independent funding effort has been $280,515 on behalf of Watts, by a Sacramento-based political action committee called Kids First. The contributors to this campaign are shielded from immediate disclosure because they did not contribute directly to the campaign on Watts’ behalf.
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