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This past March, Kansas State Rep. Carolyn Caiharr, a first-term Republican who also serves as a local mayor, visited Edwardsville Elementary in Wyandotte County as a guest judge for their “Read Across America” door decoration contest.
It’s not often that you get to see a politician face-to-face, and Barbara Williams, a paraprofessional staffer who worked in the building, was eager to see her because they’re on opposite sides of the political aisle.
As Caiharr (pronounced KAY-har) walked down the hallway to look at the doors, Williams came up to her and said “Trans rights are human rights” and that “diverting taxpayer [money] to private schools is not right.”
During a conversation we had last night, Williams told me that she did this before the official school day started and before she was contractually obligated to clock in. Caiharr, she added, never acknowledged what she said. No response. No nod. So as they walked down the hallway (in the direction of Williams’ office), she said it again: “Trans rights are human rights.” She said it once more, too. There was never any response from the state representative.
Those seem like fairly innocuous statements.
But according to a lawsuit that Williams filed against the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Unified School District last month—by herself because she doesn’t have a lawyer—she was fired later that day.
The Kansas City Star reports that Superintendent Richard Moulin “drafted up paperwork announcing that the district was putting Williams on administrative leave and would recommend that the board vote to fire her.”
The paperwork he formally filed (which I have now seen) said this about the incident:
On March 6, during a visit to the school building by a community guest who was present to judge the Read Across America door contest, you accessed the building as an employee and followed the guest down the hallway while expressing your personal opinions and disrupting the activity. The building principal addressed the situation and instructed you multiple times that it was not the appropriate time or place for such comments and directed you to return to your classroom. Despite these directives, you continued to follow the principal and the guest down the hallway and persisted in disrupting the activity. As an employee who was not involved in the activity, your actions were unprofessional and disruptive, particularly in the presence of a community guest.
…
Your decision to disregard direct instructions from your principal and continue the behavior in front of a district guest undermined the professional standards expected of all employees. Due to the seriousness of this conduct and its impact on the integrity and reputation of the district, you are being placed on administrative leave without pay effective immediately, pending a recommendation to the Board of Education for termination of your employment.
Not all heroes wear capes. What Williams did is what we call “good trouble.”
A few days after that paperwork was sent to her, Williams responded to Moulin by noting how he “mentioned the timing was wrong” but not “when the correct timing” would have been. Furthermore, she added, “I didn’t shout nor was I disruptive.”
She also says in her filing that “I was on school property but not on the clock. I was exercising my freedom of speech at a local [government] institution, which is legal.”
Williams is now asking for $50,000 in lost wages and punitive damages, in part so that “the defendants won’t do this again, especially when they allow folks who come into the school who do not have public schools as a priority in their session in the state legislature.”
She’s not wrong about Caiharr’s priorities.
In fact, it’s deeply ironic Caiharr was judging a celebration of reading when just a few years ago, she made headlines after calling for the punishment of school and library officials for giving kids books that contained “obscene” material. (While other cities had ordinances granting immunity to those professionals, the city of Edwardsville said librarians could be charged with a crime for alleged obscenity.) Obviously, we’re not talking about adults giving kids books with X-rated material. Conservatives have long argued that books with LGBTQ characters or even young adult novels that merely talk about sex are inappropriate for kids. Caiharr wanted to weaponize that irrational bigotry and take it out on librarians.
It hasn’t gotten any better since Caiharr got appointed to office. Earlier this year, she supported a bill to expand tax credits for private schools, though Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed it.
What about trans rights? Caiharr voted for a bill this year that would punish transgender people for using the “wrong” bathroom in public spaces and having driver’s licenses with the “wrong” gender identity. Gov. Kelly vetoed that one, too, but there were enough Republican votes to override it, and it has created chaos for trans residents.
So that’s why Williams made her comments about private schools and trans rights. It was an opportunity to tell an elected official how disgusted she was by that member’s votes. She told me she had no regrets about what she did and that she’d do it again.
The district has not yet responded to the lawsuit. Oddly enough, the Kansas City Star’s Sofi Zeman reported that the district “had only recently found out about the lawsuit.” But the lawsuit was filed over a month ago and there’s simply no way anyone involved is only now realizing it.
Will it be successful? That’s a harder question to answer. Besides the fact that Williams is fighting this battle on her own, one website noted that the lawsuit may hinge on whether the district can prove Williams’ actions were truly “disruptive.” They’ll have plenty of legal firepower to make that case even if Williams’ description of what she did is true.
Maybe the best thing happening right now is that this story is getting out there. The district invited an opponent of public schools as well as the freedom to read any book to judge a “Read Across America” contest without realizing the hypocrisy. That was bad enough. And when a staffer called her out on it—in the mildest way possible—they appear to have overreacted by getting rid of the staffer. It makes no sense.
We don’t need to wait for a judge’s decision to know that we’re all better off if more people speak out against bad politicians. Williams knew it was a risky move, but silence wasn’t an option for her.
Meanwhile, silence appears to be the only option for Caiharr. She issued a statement to the Star that basically amounted to I have nothing to do with this so ask the district about it. But for all the right-wing talk about free speech and cancel culture, it’s telling that she can’t even bring herself to say Williams had every right to speak her mind, that politicians aren’t afraid of hearing from members of the community, and that she doesn’t support the district’s overreaction.
Evidently, Republicans, and their natural allies the evangelicals, are the only people in America entitled to an opinion, and everything they disagree with is Communism. The Bill of Rights wouldn't last fifteen minutes left up to these people.
Caiharr wants to keep "obscene" material out of children's hands, does she? She going to go to war against adults reading the bible to children? That book is filled with obscenity.