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‘They think that Black people are in a subordinate position’

After over a dozen Kentucky state legislators called for the resignation of a school district’s “chief equity officer,” a University of Louisville professor responded by calling the lawmakers “white supremacists.”

A week after Election Day, Jefferson County Public Schools Chief Equity Officer John Marshall told “Black professionals & students” via his personal social media that “THE MAJORITY of whites could care less about you & have no issues harming you or yours,” the Kentucky Lantern reports.

“Strategy. Count the number in your presence & divide by at least half. That’s where you start,” Marshall had added.

Fourteen GOP state legislators (all of whom are white) subsequently demanded Marshall resign for the remarks: “As an officer of the government, speaking in an official capacity at taxpayer expense, such reckless speech inciting hatred based on skin color should be grounds for immediate termination.”

But University of Louisville professor Ricky Jones (pictured, right), head of the Pan African Studies Department, said the lawmakers are the ones who should resign citing their “lack respect for the First and 14th amendments.”

Jones said the legislators’ demand was “another brazen example of white supremacy in Kentucky,” and that they “thought not only was [the demand] OK, but thought it would go unchallenged, because they think that Black people are in a subordinate position, that they’re powerless and that they fear them.”

This past week, Jones was inducted into the Jefferson County Public Schools “Equity Hall of Fame” (Marshall, pictured at left, introduced the HoF members), and he referenced the state lawmakers in his speech, WDRB reports.

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The “greatest threat you face right now is white supremacy, which is in disguise as the anti-DEI movement in this state,” Jones said. “That’s what it is. So when you see people attack our dear brother, John Marshall, like last week, you understand what they’re doing.”

“These are white supremacists,” Jones said of the Republicans. “These legislators and others will return to attack you and your children with anti-DEI legislation — which is really the maintenance of white supremacy legislation in this state at this time in the 21st century.”

Jones specifically named each state representative and senator who signed on to the letter demanding that Marshall resign.

Ricky Jones, a professor at @uofl in KY called a group of Kentucky legislators “white supremacists” because they called for the resignation of John Marshall, the Chief Equity Officer for @JCPSKY who told Black students that White people could “care less about you” and “have no… pic.twitter.com/7vKiBxeZwS

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 20, 2024

In addition to Jones, the group Kentuckians For the Commonwealth put up a petition in support of Marshall which called the KY lawmakers’ resignation demand “misguided and disingenuous.” It also claimed the issue of Marshall’s remarks is being “stirred” by those “newly empowered by recent election results.”

Former Louisville Urban League President and CEO Sadiqa Reynolds accused the lawmakers of “attacking us and attacking our people,” adding that “we are only at the beginning of that.”

In early 2020, Professor Jones was reprimanded for making a threat against a student: “Come to one of my classes with that. I will drag your (behind) into my class, me and my 50-some-odd students will stomp you, beat you within an inch of your life, then drag you out of the room and deny that we did it.” (He later claimed he made the remarks “in jest.”)

The year before, Jones referred to members of the local GOP as “nasty, nasty, [and] naughty,” and claimed they “pimp God” by “turning Her into a callous, homophobic, supremacist, gun-toting bigot to justify [their] nastiness” (emphasis added).

And in 2015, Jones urged U. Louisville not to hire so-called “safe” blacks and Hispanics as they’re “no good for diversity”: “All this colorblind foolishness is just that — foolishness,” he said.

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IMAGES: Libs of TikTok/X

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