Newly appointed Chicago school board president resigns over controversial social media posts

CHICAGO (CN) — Just a week after he was sworn into office, Chicago's Public School Board President the Rev. Mitchell Johnson resigned on Thursday, after a flurry of problematic social media posts surfaced.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, no relation to the Rev. Mitchell Johnson, appointed a new board on Oct. 7, saying he was working to make Chicago's Public School Board more stable after the entire school board resigned at once — reportedly in response to growing pressures from the mayor's office to oust Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.

The posts, which many deemed as conspiratorial, antisemitic and misogynistic, capped prior calls for the reverend's resignation. Even before his controversial social media posts became public, many critics took issue with the reverend's appointment because they said he was not properly vetted particularly.

The site Jewish Insider initially reported on Tuesday that the reverend shared a litany of posts related to the Israel-Palestine conflict shortly after the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In one December Facebook post, Johnson wrote: "My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment."

Shortly after the social media posts were made public, Debra Silverstein, the lone Jewish member of the Chicago City Council, penned a letter Wednesday urging for Johnson's resignation. As of Thursday, the letter was signed by 43 other alderpeople, City Clerk Anna Valencia and City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin.

"The situation is a failure of leadership and judgment on the part of Mayor [Brandon] Johnson and his executive team," Silverstein wrote in the letter. "Earlier this month, Mayor Johnson told reporters his appointees would be thoroughly vetted before they were sworn in. It is clear that did not take place."

The reverend apologized to Jewish communities on Wednesday and called the posts "reactive and insensitive" in a Wednesday interview with Chicago's NPR affiliate, WBEZ, and the Chicago Sun-Times, but he maintained that he would not resign.

That is, until more of his old Facebook posts circulated on Thursday, some of which espoused conspiracy theories that the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job and outright misogyny about working women wanting families.

The Rev. Mitchell Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Joining calls from the mass of alders, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said on Thursday that it would be in the best interest of the schools and children for the reverend to resign.

“Any person charged with the stewardship of the Chicago Public School Board must exemplify focused, inclusive, and steady leadership. The views expressed in the current Chair’s posts — antisemitism, misogyny, fringe conspiracy theories — very clearly do not meet that standard," Pritzker said in a statement.

Shortly thereafter, the mayor's office issued the final nail in the reverend's coffin.

"Today, I asked Chicago School Board of Education (BOE) President Reverend Mitchell Johnson for his resignation, and he resigned, effective immediately," the mayor said in a statement. "Reverend Mitchell Johnson's statements were not only hurtful but deeply disturbing. I want to be clear: antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial statements are unacceptable."

Johnson said in his statement that his office is promptly working to find a replacement, but no one from the mayor's office responded to further requests for comment about that search or the reverend's resignation.

The school board is set to meet again on Friday, ahead of Tuesday's election where half of the board will be selected by Chicago voters for the first time.

The reverend's appointment and expeditious resignation is part of Mayor Johnson's ongoing fight with the Chicago Board of Education and with the Chicago Public Schools CEO, with whom the mayor had a public tussle over funding for Chicago Public Schools over the summer.

After the city's public school system faced a budgetary shortfall, the mayor proposed taking out a short-term loan while the new collective bargaining agreement for the Chicago Teachers' Union was finalized, which Martinez strongly opposed.

In late September, the Chicago Sun Times reported that there were growing pressures from the mayor for Martinez to resign. Martinez publicly declined to leave his post in an op-ed on September 24.

"I have chosen not to resign because doing so would risk creating a leadership vacuum and instability that could disrupt the strategic progress we’ve made to date. I am the seventh CPS CEO in the past decade," Martinez wrote in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. "A leadership change is extraordinarily disruptive to any school system, generating a domino effect of change among key positions that can stall progress and diminish opportunities for students."

All of the school board members also rebuked the mayor's pleas to oust Martinez, leading to the board's en masse resignation on Oct 4. The school board ultimately has final say on firing the district CEO, but thus far the mayor's newly appointed board has not any moves to do so.

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