San Francisco’s Alison Collins refuses to resign after racist tweets against Asian-Americans

As alarm grows around the country about the prejudice faced by some Asian-Americans, the shocking past statements of a senior education official in San Francisco have come back to haunt her.

Leaders both in the city and beyond, including Mayor London Breed, are joining the call for San Francisco Unified School District Board vice president Alison Collins to resign due to a series of racist tweets she made a few years back.

During a San Francisco Unified School District board meeting in 2016, before Collins was a commissioner, she seemed to reference the basis for her now-controversial tweets as she reads a speech to the board written by her daughter. “Last year at my school, I heard some kids joking about the KKK and sending kids back to Mexico,” Collins tweeted.

In another, referring to Asian American teachers, students and parents, she wrote “They use White supremacist thinking to assimilate and get ahead”.  Collins also called Asians “House N*****s”.

Most of these racist tweets have since been deleted, but twelve of them were saved and published by the recently formed Recall SF School Board group, founded by two SFUSD parents who have launched a campaign to suspend Collins along with two other board commissioners.

In the Twitter thread, she said the kids making the jokes were Asian. Collins goes on to mention white supremacy and racism and alleges some in the AAPI community often benefit from so-called “model minority” perceptions to the detriment of other groups. “Talk to many Lowell parents and you will hear praise of tiger moms and disparagement of Black and brown ‘culture’,” Collins’ tweet read.

“It kind of seemed to be judging Asian Americans for wanting to like study hard and work and give the kids an education,” said Siva Raj about the tweets.

Raj co-founded the group with Autumn Looijen. The tweets were republished on their website as part of a slideshow titled ’30 Reasons to Recall the SF School Board’.

The tweets that were published by Collins in December 2016 resurfaced amid an increase of high-profile anti-Asian attacks and hate crimes that have been reported across the country, sparking a national social justice movement.

Facing a growing furor about her comments, Collins issued a statement on Saturday to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“A number of tweets and social media posts I made in 2016 have recently been highlighted,” she said in the statement. “They have been taken out of context, both of that specific moment and the nuance of the conversation that took place. I acknowledge that right now, in this moment my words taken out of context can be causing more pain for those who are already suffering. For the pain my words may have caused I am sorry, and I apologize unreservedly.”

In a statement released Saturday, nearly two dozen officials including State Assembly members David Chiu and Phil Ting and San Francisco Supervisors Connie Chan and Gordon Mar joined the growing chorus in calling for Collins resignation.

“We are outraged and sickened by the racist, anti-Asian statements tweeted by School Board Vice President Alison Collins that recently came to light,” the statement read. “No matter the time, no matter the place, and no matter how long ago the tweets were written, there is no place for an elected leader in San Francisco who is creating and/or created hate statements and speeches.”