The San Francisco school board member caught calling Asian American students “house n****r” and accusing them of using “white supremacist thinking” was removed from her board committee posts.
Now she’s suing the other board members for $87 million, claiming, among other things, she has suffered “spiritual injury to her soul.”
Alison Collins claims her other damages include “pain, inconvenience, severe mental distress, several emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation, harm to self-image, injury to career … fear, discomfort, misery, anxiety, and suffering.”
The complaint is in a federal lawsuit Collins has filed in San Francisco against the other members of the board and the school district, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
She wants general damages of $72 million from the district and five other board members, plus $3 million in punitive damages from each of the board members, the report said.
She also wants a court to order that she be restored to the title of board vice president.
In a series of tweets in December, she said Asian Americans had used “white supremacist thinking” to assimilate and “get ahead.”
“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump? Don’t Asian Americans know they’re on his list as well?” she wrote.
Using asterisks in references to the racial epithet, Collins continued: “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n****r is still being a n****r. You’re still considered ‘the help.'”
The remarks were not racist, she insisted in the lawsuit.
Multiple city officials have called on her to resign, and the board, in a 5-2 vote, removed her from her committee assignments.
Collins now is targeting board members Jenny Lam, Mark Sanchez, Faauuga Moliga, Kevine Boggess and Matt Alexander.
Charles Bonner, Collins’ lawyer, said, “The false narrative and assertion that Ms. Collins’ comments imploring Asian Americans to resist oppression as ‘racist’ has generated this ongoing and intensifying hostility, (causing) threats and damage to Ms. Collins reputation and threatening her and her family’s physical well-being.”
The Chronicle reported a constitutional law professor said such claims against public officials face long odds, because of the First Amendment.
In fact many Asian American Ts, Ss, and Ps actively promote these myths. They use white supremacist thinking to assimilate and “get ahead”.
— Alison Collins 高勵思 (@AliMCollins) December 4, 2016
Collins has contended her statements were taken out of context and were not racist.
“A number of tweets and social media posts I made in 2016 have recently been highlighted,” she said. “They have been taken out of context, both of that specific moment and the nuance of the conversation that took place.”
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