A school board member in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, who said that she would not vote for a “cis white male” to serve as president, has resigned, according to a statement from the school district.
The Upper Moreland School District issued the statement on Monday after reports broke that board member Jennifer Solot said in a recent meeting that she would not for Greg D’Elia, one of the two candidates for president of the board, because he is a “cis white male” and that it would send the “wrong message” to the community.
In the statement, the school district noted that Solot decided to resign following the backlash to her remarks:
On Tuesday, December 6, Board Director Jennifer Solot made comments at the board’s reorganization meeting that many in our community took offense to. The comments were in relation to the election of a president for the Board of School Directors.
As a result of this incident, Ms. Solot has decided to resign from the board effective January 2, 2023. She wishes to apologize for her poorly chosen words and does not want to be a distraction from the great things happening in our schools on a daily basis. The district thanks Ms. Solot for her five years of service to the Upper Moreland community as a board member.
The comments made by Ms. Solot at the board reorganization meeting were solely hers and were not intended to represent the opinion of the entire UMSD Board of Directors or the district as a whole. Indeed, Board Director Greg D’Elia, who was the subject of her comments, says that he “supports diversity, but these comments did not further diversity and reflected poorly on our community.”
The statement, shared in full on Twitter, was penned by April Stainback, the school board president, and Dr. Susan Elliot, the school superintendent.
Upper Moreland Township School District Issues Statement: https://t.co/YLTBINiyXK
— Upper Moreland Township School District (@UpperMorelandSD) December 12, 2022
Townhall covered this week that Solot said D’Elia would make an “excellent” president, but his race and sex were her reasons to vote for Stainback.
“I believe that Mr. D’Elia would make an excellent president,” Solot said. “However, I feel that electing the only cis white male on this board president of this district sends the wrong message to our community: a message that is contrary to what we as a board have been trying to accomplish.”
🚨 @UpperMorelandSD Board member, Jennifer Solot, says she is against electing the only, “cis white male on this board,” as president of the district because it, “sends the wrong message to our community.”
— Megan Brock (@MegEBrock) December 10, 2022
Wow. Saying the quiet part out loud. pic.twitter.com/stEMoeUExS
“I think that it’s important that we practice what we preach and that our words have strength when they are spoken, whether we speak them from the neighborhood sidewalks or from behind these tables,” she added.