A Texas school-board committee leader who doxxed parents who sued to overturn the district’s mask mandate — and left a profanity-laced voicemail for one — resigned Wednesday, complaining that she had been forced out by “white supremacists.”
Norma Garcia-Lopez, co-chairperson of the Fort Worth School Board’s Racial Equity Committee, told the board in an e-mail that it had “become necessary for [her] to resign” from her various volunteer positions with the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD), including her spot on the equity panel.
“I cannot allow the vile and relentless attacks on me by white supremacists to distract from or overshadow the continued pursuit of equity,” she wrote.
Those “attacks” were in the form of “dozens of … messages” Garcia-Lopez received after her phone number, personal e-mail, and home address were posted online, reported the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The messages “included racist and fat-shaming statements toward her, demanding that she ‘go back to Mexico,’ calling her ‘a great candidate for a having a stroke’ and accusing her of being ‘owned by the filthy cartel.’ Some threatened her life and the safety of her family.”
While no one should be subjected to such harassment, Garcia-Lopez is hardly an innocent victim.
After four parents succeeded in getting a federal judge to issue an August injunction against FWISD’s student mask mandate — a decision that was upheld on two appeals — Garcia-Lopez tweeted: “It’s astounding what the ‘White Privilege’ power from Tanglewood has vs a whole diverse community that cares for the well being of others. These are their names: Jennifer Treger, Todd Daniel, Kerri Rehmeyer and a coward Jane Doe. Internet do your thang.”
In addition, Garcia-Lopez posted the phone numbers and addresses of the four families, as well as the name of Rehmeyer’s employer and her work e-mail address, on Facebook. When someone thanked her for doing so, she replied, “They definitely need to be called out.”
On top of all that, the not-so-innocent co-chair called one of the mothers and left this voicemail: “F— you, you stupid b—-. F— you with your white privilege, not caring about the well-being of others, f— you.”
The parents told Fox News about Garcia-Lopez’s actions. After Fox ran the story in November, she got a taste of her own medicine and found she didn’t like it at all.
Last week, in a defiant prepared statement, Garcia-Lopez accused the disaffected parents of sending “a lynch mob to attack me.”
She also argued that her posting the parents’ personal information on Facebook did not constitute doxxing because “it’s not doxxing when you expose someone who filed a public motion in a public court of law that impacts public school children.”
While she acknowledged leaving the foul-mouthed phone message, she said, “My message contained harsh language — no threats. Some people find my choice of words in that message offensive. But what’s really offensive is that four white parents could hold so much power.”
Rehmeyer took issue with Garcia-Lopez’s remarks.
Did the parents send a “lynch mob” after Garcia-Lopez? “No, we didn’t,” Rehmeyer told Fox News. “All we did was go to the media with what she had done to us.”
Rehmeyer said she did not release Garcia-Lopez’s personal information and condemned the racist and threatening messages Garcia-Lopez received, saying they were “totally uncalled-for.”
Moreover, reported Fox:
While Rehmeyer conceded that the names and addresses of the parents who sued the school district are available on legal documents, she noted that Garcia-Lopez “told people to go after us, said where I worked.”
“I received 17 voicemails at work from one person,” Rehmeyer said. She noted that some of the parents’ businesses have gotten negative reviews online from critics who “don’t even try to pretend that they were clients.”
“I had a previous client who said she hoped that I died,” the mother added.
Rehmeyer said she was “relieved” that Garcia-Lopez had resigned but “disappointed by the complete lack of action by the Board of Trustees,” which never did anything to rein her in.
Now that the school board is rid of Garcia-Lopez, they would do well to scrap the whole Racial Equity Committee, which exists to stir up precisely the kind of racial animosity in which she so infamously indulged.
