Ann Hsu should stay on the School Board

Her comments were offensive, but when is an apology never enough?

And you thought the San Francisco recalls were over.

In the last year there have been two successful recall campaigns in the the city. Three School Board members were recalled by lopsided margins in a February vote. And that was followed in June by the decisive recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

We can debate the merits and philosophy of the results, but I’d continue to insist that there was a single major factor in both results.

Those individuals were wildly unpopular personally.

The School Board members, particularly Vice-President Alison Collins and her racially insensitive Tweets, espoused some deeply unacceptable positions.

Boudin, meanwhile, seemed to fail to see how his public comments were landing, particularly with Asian voters. His tone-deaf dismissal of a man shoving an elderly Asian man, killing him, as experiencing a “temper tantrum,” will be cited among SF Politicos for years to come.

All of which brings us to Ann Hsu, a School Board member appointed to fill seats after the recall.

Hsu — and there’s no getting around this — said a really dumb thing on a candidate questionnaire for the upcoming November election.

First she said something that makes sense.

“I see one of the biggest challenges as being the lack of family support for . . . students,” she responded. “Unstable family environments caused by housing and food insecurity along with lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning cause children to not be able to focus on or value learning.”

That’s undeniably true. Kids in unstable family environments are likely to struggle at school, at social interactions and — let’s be honest — at life.

Unfortunately, Hsu prefaced those words with “especially in the black and brown community.”

There is layer upon layer of inappropriateness to those unfortunate words. Unstable families are not defined by race or ethnic group, Singling out “black and brown” families implies that members of those groups are not good parents. There’s also an unpleasant undercurrent to suggest that those groups don’t care as much.

Her comments were insensitive, hurtful and clueless.

And she knew it.

She posted an eight-part Twitter thread that tried to explain her thinking. She re-affirmed that she believes “generational poverty, food insecurity . . . and housing insecurity . . . makes it harder for children to learn.”

But, she said, “In trying to convey my thoughts on this subject, I misspoke. My statements reflected my own limited experiences and inherent biases. I made a mistake, and I am deeply sorry.”

Not good enough, her critics said. Supervisor Shamann Walton led the charge, saying “Yeah, sure, thank you for the apology, but at the end of the day this is probably how this person feels.”

So Hsu apologized again. She met with the members of the board of the San Francisco NAACP.

It didn’t help. There’s been a drumbeat of calls for resignation since. Supervisor Dean Preston joined in. The San Francisco Teacher’s Union too. And, on Sunday, the SFNAACP officially called for her resignation.

So apparently, that’s the deal. If you say something stupid — and don’t tell me you never have — you’re done. You can apologize, and people can thank you for it — the NAACP even said they accepted Hsu’s apology — but that doesn’t matter.

Mis-speak and you’re out.

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Clearly these groups who are advocating to get rid of Hsu don’t think she handled the controversy correctly.

Apparently, here’s what she should have done:

Refused to apologize. Claim that she is being made a political victim. Seek legal recourse.

That, you’ll recall, is how Collins handled it when Tweets re-appeared showing her making demeaning and racist insults to Asians. She never apologized. She refused to resign. She called the recall effort, definitely a move “toward mayoral control and less local control … for parents who are immigrants who can vote.”

And, for the cherry on the top, she filed a nonsensical $87 million lawsuit.

And how did the groups who are now haranguing Hsu react to that?

With Support.

As eager as they are to force Hsu to resign now, they had no problem with Collins’ offensive language then.

Preston was the only member of the Board of Supervisors to back Collins all the way. (Walton, to be fair, did not.) The SF Teachers’ Union issued a statement urging voters to reject the recall.

And the NAACP “urgently” called on voters to reject the recall in a statement in December of 2021. In it, the organization singles out Collins in particular, saying the movement to oust her was based on “a false narrative.”

And Collins held on to the bitter end. She didn’t say she was sorry. She refused to listen to those who said she should resign.

And if the voters of San Francisco hadn’t voted her out, she’d still be there.

So there’s your template if you support Hsu. Even after her repeated apologies, opponents are trying to shame her into quitting.

The problem is, shame left the building some time ago.

Hsu said she was sorry. She committed to learning from the experience. She should stay for now.

And if she messes up again, there’s an election in a little over three months.

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In other news, just a quick take on Brooke Jenkins taking over as District Attorney.

One of the first things she’s done is fire 15 people who were part of the Chesa Boudin staff.

This development has been met with abject astonishment in some quarters. Some terminated staffers absolutely cannot believe it.

One of those dismissed, Ryan Khojasteh, wrote an editorial with the headline, “Brooke Jenkins just fired me and 14 others. I have no idea how the D.A.’s office will run without us.”

Really? Well they’ll probably get along about as well as Boudin’s office when he fired seven prosecutors in his first two days in office. (Some of them by phone BTW.) But then, as Boudin supporter and law professor at USF Lara Bazelon said at the time:

“It is common to fire people who are in management at the top level who are not going to be enthusiastic about the new agenda.”

Also, some of the complaints seem a little disconnected with reality. For instance, Khojasteh firmly believes, as Boudin did, that there are no circumstances under which a juvenile should be prosecuted as an adult.

Jenkins has given an interview saying she’d like to have the “discretion” to make those adult charges.

Khojasteh calls that idea “dangerous and ineffective.”

OK, and that would be a great debate topic some day. But the reality is there is a new D.A. People voted for change. That’s how she wants to handle it. Sorry if your feelings are hurt.

And finally, after the firings, the ousted attorneys have worked to undercut her, including leaking unflattering descriptions of Jenkins’ first few days in office. Speaking anonymously, they described her as “icy,” and called her first meeting “horrible.”

In other words, they sound exactly like people who are, as Bazelon said after the Boudin purge, “not going to be enthusiastic about the new agenda.”

They’ve confirmed the reason they had to go.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Twitter: @cwnevius