York School Board vice chair’s comments on slaves highlight history of incendiary rhetoric online
YORK COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — Numerous past comments from York County School Board Vice Chair Kimberly Goodwin conflict with statements she made last week in response to an outpouring of concerns from the community.
Goodwin said at a Feb. 26 school board meeting that she doesn’t “condone slavery or anything that would even resemble it,” that she doesn’t “believe there is mass indoctrination happening in our school division,” and that “she’s as far-right as the Constitution.”
Goodwin, a mental health counselor and former school counselor, is part of a three-member, far-right contingent (Goodwin, Board Chair Lynda Fairman, and board member Zoran Pajevic) elected this past November in York County. The group, which has a 3-2 majority on the board, has faced a “tsunami of discontent” since taking office.
Students, school staff, community members and the two school members in the minority have spoken out, saying the new majority’s “toxic” behavior could lead to an “exodus” of district employees.
Dozens speak out over concerns with new York County School Board leadership
There were an array of concerns and accusations specifically against Fairman and Goodwin at last week’s board meeting (Pajevic wasn’t present).
One issue brought up multiple times involved Goodwin’s past statements on slaves, which were shared with WAVY. Goodwin did not respond to WAVY’s requests for comment on those statements and other controversial comments she’s made online.
Comments on slaves
“Can you provide me the research that proves that [slaves] ‘were not happy,'” Goodwin asked on Facebook. “What evidence do you have that contradicts this narrative besides the Leftist 1619 project that is based on false facts.”
Goodwin later adds: “I know that slavery was and is a horrible act and not one I would ever want to see repeated. I can’t say if slaves were happy or not because I was not there and I have never had the opportunity to talk to one personally.”
At the board meeting, York County resident Sam Ray called Goodwin’s comments “downright disrespectful to every African American student and citizen in York County.”
“It bothers me because this member has been asked about her statement and has chosen not to offer an apology for it. Using her mode of thinking, I’d like to know if she thinks Jews were persecuted or murdered during the Holocaust. If so, how does she know? Was George Washington the first president of our nation? If so, how does she know? Did she talk to any of those folks to verify those events took place?”
Ray also pointed to the greater reactionary movement in Virginia and nationwide in response to concerns over “critical race theory” and “divisive concepts,” including past textbooks in Texas referring to slaves as “workers” and “immigrants.”
“Now a member of this school board expects you to believe that folks who were kidnapped from their homeland, murdered at sea, robbed of their culture, beaten mercilessly, raped and had their children snatched up from them were somehow possible happy. We will not stand by and let that narrative live in York County.”
Ray asked the board to denounce Goodwin’s statements and remove her as vice chair, neither of which have happened.
“If this board does not denounce her statement, that will lead me to believe that you agree with and stand by her willful ignorance,” Ray said.
Local NAACP President Lawrence Gholson II also spoke at that Feb. 26 meeting alongside chapter vice presidents Liz Montgomery and Charles Gates. They stopped short of calling for Goodwin to resign or step down as vice chair, but pushed for accountability.
Gholson denounced Goodwin’s comments and asked for accurate teaching of U.S. history and policies “to ensure accountability of school employees whose actions or inactions contribute to racist school culture,” including cultural competency training for staff and school board members.
“Your private thoughts and beliefs when shared publicly no longer represent you as an individual only, they now reflect the entire school board.” Ghoulson said. “…we see you, we’re watching and we expect accountability.”
“Erasing the truth of our shared history is an attempt to erase us as African Americans. I’m not having it, school board members, I am not having it,” Montgomery said.
Other past comments
Goodwin’s comments on slavery are part of a string of incendiary and right-wing rhetoric shared in the media and on her public Facebook page.
Her claims of “indoctrination” appear to only be in line with right-wing talking points. In a November 2021 York Board of Supervisors meeting, Goodwin rails against “an ideology pushing divisive agendas” and “indoctrination” in urging the board to adopt a “parental rights” resolution.
Goodwin said on John Fredericks’ radio show in September 2023, that parents she talked to while campaigning “see the indoctrination happening, they are concerned about what their kids are learning … it’s actually woven in ways that are very subtle, some can be overt, but there’s a lot of subtlety too about how stuff is woven into the curriculum.”
That’s the same show where Goodwin, Pajevic and Fairman suggested they’d seek to oust York Superintendent Victor Shandor when elected, another concern for district staff and community members. Fairman has said the comments weren’t personal and it was just politics.
Meanwhile in a screenshotted post from “Keep York County Schools Open” from 2021 shared with WAVY, Goodwin ridicules a transgender student who was enrolled at a local school at the time.
She says she doesn’t want the student to use the girls bathroom, because “then you have the ‘boy’ who pretend he is a ‘girl’ to use the bathroom to rape the student.”
She cited at the time a highly-publicized case in Loudoun County in which a student was sexually assaulted in a bathroom, which was later found to have little to do with the student’s gender identity and the district’s transgender bathroom policies.
Goodwin’s also publicly supported Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin in 2020 and was later found not guilty.
She said she donated to the legal funds for Daniel Penny, the man charged with manslaughter for killing Jordan Neely in the New York subway last year, and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik, whose anti-LGBTQ “groomers” rhetoric has been linked to bomb threats and other violent intimidation, NBC News reported.
In September 2022, Goodwin called the widely-debunked election denial movie “2000 Mules” a “must see,” and said an event featuring the film and the anti-vaccination group Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance was “eye opening.”
In January 2023, she shared an article from The Federalist that encouraged “ordinary Americans” to “take over local institutions” to “take back their country from woke radicals” and said the author “nailed it.”
Goodwin made multiple posts in support of former President Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, including one post saying “everything the [media] and left is trying to tell you is a LIE.”
You can read more over WAVY’s recent coverage on the York County School Board and related issues below:
York County militia supporter’s request for info on district employees spurs policy change
Dozens speak out over concerns with new York County School Board leadership
Alleged militia actions in York County may lead to ‘democratic erosion,’ expert says
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