KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Blue Valley School District’s Board of Education voted 5-2 Thursday morning to strip recently-elected board member Jim McMullen of his title of Vice President of the board.
The vote comes in response to a petition started last week calling for McMullen’s censure and removal after the discovery of tweets made by McMullen that were deemed transphobic.
A capacity crowd turned out at Thursday morning’s meeting, many in support of McMullen. At several points during the meeting, the crowd erupted in cheers in support of McMullen.
Screengrabs of McMullen’s tweets show the board member saying he’d “continue to speak out about poison that is gender ideology.”
While those tweets were later deleted, McMullen made the same points during remarks at Thursday’s meeting.
“It appears to be a modern version of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible,” McMullen said. “Gender ideology is designed to confuse kids and invites kids to hate their God-given bodies.”
KSHB 41 asked several of McMullen's supporters in attendance to speak on camera, but only one agreed to do so.
"I was here to support Jim, what happened was the Board stepped outside their bounds, it seems like as far as removing from the VP, obviously he’s a duly elected official," Dallas Guthrie said.
McMullen's fellow board members viewed the circumstances differently.
"All means all for all 23,000 of our kids, no matter the makeup," said board member Tom Mitchell.
"This is a really, really hard position that we've been put in. It's not something that we sought out," said board member Jodie Dietz.
Wendy Connelly, who spoke to KSHB 41 last week regarding her son Leo's journey, was in attendance at today's meeting.
"He does not need to be representing our kids when he’s making statements that parents are child abusers and supporting them is child abuse," Connelly said. "Leo has felt nothing but wild support from friends at school, from the community, just a ton of support."
Although McMullen was stripped of his Vice President title by Thursday’s vote, he will remain on the board.
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