Norwin school board votes to censure director for social media post

A Norwin school board director was censured for posting a social media meme of a Halloween costume that used offensive language.

Channel 11 news partner the Tribune-Review reported five school board members voted Monday to censure Alex Detschelt.

Two members along with Detschelt opposed the motion. One member was absent.

The motion called for Detschelt to apologize for “both his offensive comments and his disrespectful comments made to members of the public.” The censure calls for him to make it clear that he made those statements on his own and not on behalf of the school board.

In response to the call for him to apologize, Detschelt said in a statement that “nobody can force anyone to speak, especially providing an apology, as that would be forced speech.”

Detschelt said he later removed the post because a parent of a special needs child told him how the word used in the meme was hurtful to her child. Detschelt did not apologize for using the meme, saying that he never typed those words and they were never directed at anyone, “let alone a child.”

In a prepared statement, Detschelt said the meme is protected political speech and was made in response to other political speech, the Trib reports.

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