School board member Darbi Boddy posted a pornographic link to her official Facebook campaign page. Photo / WKRC
School board member Darbi Boddy posted a pornographic link to her official Facebook campaign page. Photo / WKRC
A US school board voted during an emergency meeting to censure a member who said she accidentally posted a link to a pornography site on her campaign's Facebook page.
The board for the Lakota Local School District in Liberty Township in Ohio also asked Darbi Boddy, 41, to resign following the X-rated incident.
She refused.
"Absolutely not. I would never resign," said Boddy. "That's what people want. They don't want someone to play politics. I am here to protect the community and protect the children, and that's what I am doing. That's what I was elected to do, and many people support what I am doing."
The link she intended to post, she said, was a site about sexual education for teens. The post has since been removed.
Boddy, accompanied by her young daughter, left the meeting after the censure vote saying, "I will not be part of this political ruse."
However, a room full of angry parents and staff thinks she did the opposite of protecting their children when she posted a pornographic website to her public Facebook page.
"So then I clicked on it, and it indeed was porn. And I was just blown away by it. Like, why is this on a school district page?" said Heather Cameron, a mother of two children in the district. "We are ready for her to be held accountable for her actions."
Although every board member voted for Boddy to resign, they cannot force her to step down.
School board member Darbi Boddy posted a pornographic link to her official Facebook campaign page. Photo / WKRC
"Just her inability to accept responsibility and say, like, 'Hey, I messed up. It was a typo. I shouldn't have done that.' For her to double down on something like that is completely expected but just as absurd as I knew it would be," said Cameron.
Attempts by AP to reach Boddy by telephone on Thursday were unsuccessful.
In another Facebook post that also has been removed, Boddy said that while the link was a "typo", it is "representative of the disgusting material that is being put in front of our children".
"One of the pornographic sites that was put in my communication as part of my list of what to look for in our schools, was a typo and although it was not meant to be part of my communication, it is still representative of the disgusting material that is being put in front of our children. If a typo brings more attention to this problem so be it."
Boddy was elected in November on a platform opposing the teaching of mask mandates, critical race theory, Black Lives Matter and the 1619 Project, the New York Times Magazine issue which centres on slavery in American history and was subsequently published as a book.
"The way the terms inclusion, diversity, equity, and tolerance are used on social media and in our schools is dividing our children into groups of oppressed and oppressors," Boddy said on her website.
Boddy has repeatedly clashed with Lakota Local School Board president Lynda O'Connor since taking office in January. O'Connor that even if the pornography website was posted accidentally, Boddy had demonstrated "gross negligence" and "reckless conduct".
"To post pornographic content on an official, public-facing school board member account that can be accessed by many of our own students is absolutely unacceptable," O'Connor said.
"Furthermore, to make a public accusation that our curriculum contains such pornographic material is deplorable."
