That Denver Public School board member always demanding transparency from others is now being sued in federal court for refusing to be transparent with his own constituents whom he’s blocked from his social media accounts for years.
Of course it’s PeakNation’s favorite manchild, Auon’tai “Tay” Anderson.
Anderson was blocking constituents even before the Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a law this year allowing politicians to ban constituents from seeing their social media accounts.
The constitutionality of the legislature’s action is questionable and could be decided this term by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anderson is being sued by a DPS parent who says Anderson violated her First Amendment rights by blocking her from posting on his Facebook page.
Ironically, the post that got her banned was when Anderson demanded transparency about the firing of Kurt Dennis, McAuliffe International School principal, and posted his demands on Facebook, reports KDVR.
“But in a democratic society, it is not just the responsibility of those in office to ensure transparency, it is also the duty of the public to demand it,” Anderson wrote.
In response to the Facebook post, Eve Chen, a parent of a Denver Public Schools student, commented, “Where can I email to ask for an unrelated investigation report against you as a taxpayer? As a taxpayer, I think I am entitled to read that too.”
Boom! Off she went into ban land, with the likes of us.
To no one’s surprise, Anderson played the race card, followed up with the age card, and then added a new category of victim: politician.
“Since my election to the Denver School Board, which marked me as the youngest African American to assume public office, my family and I have been subjected to harassment and death threats via social media platforms,” Anderson said. “This is why I closely monitor my social media presence.”
The problem is, Anderson is hiding posts containing information of interest to parents, like the firing of Dennis.
After a school shooting earlier this spring, Anderson was also posting official information on his private Twitter page, instead of his official page, from which we are still blocked.
Anderson’s pages may not be the property of the school district, but he is still using it as an official public forum and his constituents are being denied access, and yes, their freedom of speech is being denied.
Read more about it in the Denver Post, which sounds to us like a solid case.