No, it’s not feisty attendees, it’s a Board member, and geez. I really hope he’s prosecuted.

Tennessee student stands up to school board with fiery speech after a member called her ‘hot’

“I believe that you are all cowards.”

An April 2 Washington County School Board meeting in Tennessee took an uncomfortable turn after high school student Hannah Campbell finished delivering her remarks. Seated with the board and directly next to the superintendent, Campbell confidently participated in a discussion with members after presenting research she had conducted on other schools.

That’s when the board member seated next to her, Keith Ervin, reached over, put his arm around her, and said, “God, you’re hot, you know that? Where do you go to school at?”

What happened next

The comment is not a baseless allegation. The interaction was caught on video. A few people in the room laughed, Campbell herself quickly brushed off the comment, and the meeting continued as scheduled. Any viewer watching the meeting in person or on YouTube could clearly see what happened.

To many, it was clear that a line had been crossed, and the mood in the room was tense afterward.

The board chair, Annette Buchanan, called an emergency meeting the following week, where members voted to censure Ervin—a public rebuke meant to show that they did not support his comments. But otherwise, as an elected official, Ervin would keep his position on the board.

For his part, Ervin issued a statement apologizing for the incident but insisting that he had not meant any harm.

“I understand why people are reacting the way they are. But that’s not the full conversation, not even close,” he wrote. “When I mentioned she was hot, I meant she was on a roll. It was nothing to do with her appearance.”

The board’s response was not good enough for Campbell, who was also unconvinced by the apology statement.

Student boldly appears at another board meeting to speak up for herself

Campbell refused to shrink or hide. Instead, she returned to a school board meeting on May 7 and confronted not just Ervin, but the entire board, in a courageous four-minute speech.

“I do not forgive you,” she said to Ervin, adding, “The failure to act on the board’s behalf was and is equivalent to his actions, and it has hurt me just as much. To watch the chairperson be so quick to bang her gavel, to control the public, yet not use it once to control her own peer was disgusting … I believe that you are all cowards.”

She sarcastically thanked the board at the end of her speech for showing her that she would do well not to trust adults and authority figures to stand up for her—that she would have to do it herself.

The student’s brave stand earned the support of the community

Campbell was wrong about one thing: There were others in the community who were willing to stand up for her.

One irate father vowed to raise enough money to oust every single board member should they fail to act. “Would you want your kid around that guy without a camera around? I wouldn’t,” he said.

Meanwhile, an online petition calling for Ervin’s removal from the board, along with Superintendent Jerry Boyd’s, has collected nearly 7,000 signatures.

Even more enraging to parents, students, and community members is the fact that Ervin has been accused of inappropriate conduct before. According to WCYB-TV, records show that in 2009, Ervin made a “lewd, juvenile gesture of a sexual nature” in front of students and teachers at a school. He was censured then and barred from school property unless accompanied.

Campbell’s willingness to use her voice may be the difference between a censure and something that makes a real difference for all the students who come before the board after her.