George Washington Murals Backstory and Prospective

School Board broke state law and ignored the will of the public, writes Judge

Early last week, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ann-Christine Massullo ruled in favor of the petitioners George Washington High School Alumni Association over the Respondents the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and the San Francisco Board of Education (SFBoE) in the matter of the failure to follow California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) prior to their decision to destroy or remove historic and controversial murals at the school. “Political actors at every level are tempted to circumvent what they consider to be inconvenient legal requirements in order to advance parochial political agendas,” wrote the Judge.

In simple terms, the SFBoE and the SFUSD violated state law to get the result they wanted. “The Ruling confirms our position that the entire process was pre-rigged/predetermined and that the SFUSD Board violated CEQA laws,” wrote George Washington High School Alumni Association (GWHSAA) Vice President and Reflection and Action Committee member Lope Yap, Jr. in an email interview.

The backstory of the innumerable Board and District actions to achieve their desired goal, as described in the judge’s ruling is worthwhile recounting in detail as such processes would be subsequently repeated in the School Renaming Committee and the current Equity Audit & Action Planning Committee.

We are in charge and we know what’s best

“Finally we had a majority on the Board that was actually listening,” explained then Board Vice President Mark Sanchez to the host Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid in a 2020 Teachers 4 Social Justice online panel discussion about the 2016-2018 concerns of some Native Americans to depictions in the Victor Arnautoff Public Works Administration Life of Washington murals at the inside stairway entrance to George Washington High School. In the same video, Mary Travis-Allen, member of the Reflection and Action Committee, confessed that instead of using the committee meetings for engaging in public commentary, “We used it as an opportunity to educate and sensitize these people that had their mind set on just preserving that mural.”

Then Board President Stevon Cook and Vice President Sanchez even twice admitted in writing that they ignored public feedback. “The prepondence of email we’ve received at this time, indeed, speaks to the desire to keep the mural as is,” wrote the pair in a New York Times letter to the editor on July 12, 2019 and a subsequent publication. They instead sought to act based on voices of certain self-selected Native-Americans and African-Americans voices that they chose to amplify.

Lucky for those voices, their end goal was preordained. Why listen to the public or have a scientific poll? Why consider alternatives? Why seek compromise? And why follow inconvenient state CEQA law?

Bubbling to the top

Apparently, there is an Indian Education Program Parents Advisory Committee. It has unclear origins, but likely branched from the Indian Education Program, Title VII. There are no records of meetings or minutes of this group online. Further the SFBoE did not follow Board Policy 1220, as there is no record of any appointments to this Advisory Committee. Regardless, the group reported a number of concerns to the Board, including in 2016, 2017, and 2018 the depiction of Native Americans on the Washington murals.

How did this murals item bubble up to the top? In 2016 then Board President Matt Haney (and current San Francisco Supervisor) brought up the item but nothing happened further. Contemporary articles in the media in 2018 and 2019 tie the story to the first freshman school days at Washington High School of a child of parent Amy Anderson. The cause now had a student’s experience. And there were the sympathetic board members, as Sanchez remarked. Meanwhile other priorities that could improve Native American student outcomes were ignored.

So-called Reflection and Action Committee

Next was an effort to appear to engage the public, as Travis-Allen explained. This Reflection and Action Working Group had a quiet and unusual start. There was no resolution, no public discussion. In November 2018 the SFUSD acted on its own to assemble individuals according to some criteria, and give it a charge, however that was decided.

“SFUSD has sought individuals for a ‘Reflection and Action Group’ who are committed to examining the mural, learning about Native American and Native Californian history; art history; artistic interventions related to controversial depictions of non-dominant peoples; developing options for addressing the impact of the mural; and making recommendations to the SFUSD Superintendent and Board of Education.

The ‘Reflection and Action Working Group’ is composed of members of the local Native American community, students, school representatives, district representatives, and local artists.” (SFUSD document obtained by the author by public access request.)

Chief Academic Officer Brent Stephens said he solicited people for the committee but no information about the selection process was provided upon records request. In the end, 4 of the original 11 Committee members were from the Indian American Parent Advisory Council, including parent Amy Anderson and Travis-Allen. So District staff in some back room set the terms and chose the team. Committee member Yap was about to be steamrolled.

Committee Meetings

Four 2-hour Committee meetings were scheduled between December 2018 and late February 2019. Slide 4 of the 77 slides in the first meeting made clear that this Committee was not an exercise in democracy. Two major items in the agenda “5:40-6:30 Overview of Colonization, California History and Federal and State Indian Policies. 6:30-6:50 Part I of a Discussion of Contemporary Issues Related to Native American Student Experiences (Historical Trauma, Erasure and Cultural Appropriation, Institutional Racism, Micro Aggression and Lateral Oppression)” as led by Co-Facilitator Nicole Myers-Lim, Executive Director of the California Indian Museum & Cultural Center, were explicit in direction.

The bias in the District was reflected in the person of the co-facilitator: Chief Stephens. As Yap described, “They NEVER responded to any requests/suggestions/communications from the GWHSAA” (emphasis from Yap). In a summary report to Superintendent Matthews on March 14, 2019, Chief Stephens reported unsurprisingly that 10 of the now 13 committee members voted to paint over the murals by the first day of school 2019-2020 and to create a new committee to decide on its replacement. (Selection method of this proposed committee was unstated.)

New Board members and funding CEQA

January 2019 brought the swearing in of newly elected SFBoE members Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez, and Faauuga Moliga, as well as Mayor-appointed Jenny Lam, replacing newly elected Supervisor Matt Haney. One of the first major actions of this Board was to approve a $40 million draw from the Rainy Day Reserve by a 5-0 vote without questions or comments at a Regular Board Meeting on May 28, 2019.

The clear and consistent desire of the Board Commissioners to destroy or paint over the murals was covered in detail by the judge’s recent ruling. One thing worth highlighting is the lack of consideration to pursue Commissioner Rachel Norton’s alternate suggestion to move the murals. What is also of import is the discussion around funding.

In a Special Board Meeting on June 18, 2019, Chief Facilities Officer Dawn Kamalanathan presented 3 paths of action with costs ranging from $375,000 to $825,000, all including CEQA review time and expenses. When Board President Cook asked at the June 25th Board Meeting about potential sources of funds, Chief Kamalanathan outlined the options: deferred maintenance funds, general obligation bond facility funds, the general fund. Vice President Sanchez opined that the cost factor was not insurmountable and Superintendent Matthews said he would spend whatever it took to remove or destroy the murals.

Prospective

So here we are today with the Judge ordering the two sides of the lawsuit to get together to make a path for Environmental Impact Review as part of the CEQA process, now without a predetermined outcome. Whether or not the parties come to agreement by September, the District will need to find the source of funds for this review.

When asked how to describe the SFBoE subsequent to his time on the Reflection and Action Committee, Yap responded, “Consistently dysfunctional - lack of leadership - vision. Education and needs of students is not their first priorities.”

But what this SFBoE and SFUSD have done well is to execute a path to get what they want, no matter the feedback. Pick a cause, find student experiences, cherry pick history, choose an outcome ahead of time out of proportion of the purported concern, ignore facts and laws, select the committee, create the scope and terms, do some public show, brook no compromise, consider no alternatives, attack and mischaracterize the opposition, ignore the costs, vote as a bloc. Application of these steps to the Schools Renaming Committee and the presently forming Equity Audit and Action Planning Committee will be described here shortly.