Oppose County Executive Bob Cassilly’s Extremist Board of Education Nominees

Harford's Board of Education is no place for radical ideologues.

In his slate of nominees to the Board of Education, County Executive Bob Cassilly has now shown where his true allegiance lies - with the radical fringe of his party.  None of the nominees have backgrounds in education, but that’s not the most alarming thing about his nominees. 

Mrs. Strauss has allied herself with a candidate affiliated with Moms for Liberty (MFL), an organization that has promoted book banning in school libraries, anti-LGBTQ policies across the nation, has disrupted board meetings nationwide, and counts among its local members those who disrupted one such meeting here in Harford County in August of 2021.  Sometimes you judge people by the company they keep. 

But one of Mr. Cassilly’s nominees rises spectacularly to the top of the list of radicals - Mr. Aaron Sean Poynton, who has held leadership positions on Florida Governor and education disruptor Ron Desantis’ national effort, and who has affiliations with the Council for National Policy (CNP), an outfit that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “a shadowy and intensely secretive group [which] has operated behind the scenes, providing a venue…for powerful American politicians and others on the right to meet privately to build the conservative movement.” While promoting conservative ideals may seem relatively innocuous, a closer view of its membership - and the causes they promote - reveals a darker side of homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia and religious fundamentalism.

CNP membership has included Michael Peroutka, who also was on the board of a neo-Confederate hate group; Mat Staver, leader of the Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBT legal organization; Steve Bannon, architect of the previous administration’s infamously cruel child-separation policy; several prominent Islamophobes, and the DeVos family, which has bankrolled the voucher movement which aims to undermine public education.  CNP convened a meeting in November 2020 to discuss how to challenge electoral results.  Sometimes it is fair to assess people by the company they keep, and by the organizations with which they affiliate.  Mr. Poynter’s affiliations paint him as a hyperpartisan, right-wing ideologue who is unfit to steward the institution with which we entrust our children’s education.  

Collectively, Mr. Cassilly’s nominees are likely to promote a backward-looking agenda that undermines our public schools, disparages our teachers, further marginalizes vulnerable members of our communities, and fails Harford County students, who will increasingly compete for college admissions and jobs with students hailing from more forward-looking and inclusive districts.  We do not wish for our students to emerge from Harford’s schools shackled by the myopic, pseudo-theocratic worldview that organizations like the CNP and the DeSantis campaign promote.  

I urge the citizens of Harford County to call or email their council representatives to oppose these nominees for Board of Education, to testify during the public comment period at the County Council meeting on the 7th of February at 7:30 pm, and to demand that he return to his rich pool of applicants in search of less polarizing individuals.

Henry S. Gibbons

Chair

Harford County Democratic Central Committee