About 30 flyers with antisemitic propaganda targeting Fairfax County school board members were found Wednesday in Fairfax Station, Virginia, police said.
The flyers say that they were distributed by the Loyal White Knights, which are a part of the Ku Klux Klan, and addressed the board members as “Jew-inspired, communist, queer-loving sex fiends.”
Members of the school board spoke out about the flyers during the school board’s meeting Thursday night.
“Those messages were targeted to all of us up here on this dais,” Springfield District representative Laura Jane Cohen said. “No matter where we come from, no matter what we look like, the hate was equally distributed to every one of us up here tonight.”
Providence District representative Karl Frisch said he remembered the first time he was called a homophobic slur as a child, and talked about how the board should up its commitment to LGBTQIA students.
“Together we can take affirmative steps to meet the needs of this community, and show that we are not going to back down when anyone — hate groups, members of the public, here or in neighboring counties — says otherwise,” Frisch said.
In a statement, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay called the flyers “disgusting and alarming.”
Guila Franklin Siegel, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, issued a statement condemning the flyers:
“Yesterday homes in the Springfield and Sully districts of Fairfax County were targeted with hateful, anti-Semitic, homophobic flyers attacking the Fairfax County Public Schools Board. We are horrified at this expression of hate and at the targeting of elected officials. We note the particular insidiousness of targeting a district that is represented by a Jewish school board member who has been subjected to anti-Semitic rhetoric on previous occasions. Our leaders should not have to endure threats of this kind and such virulent hate has no place in our community. The JCRC is committed to addressing the root causes of hatred and fighting for equity throughout our region.”
Fairfax County police spokesman James Curry said a community member notified the Sully Police District of the flyers.
Curry said the department’s criminal intelligence unit is investigating, and there are no known threats to the school board members.
Anyone who has received a flyer, or has any more information about them, is asked to call the police at 703-691-2131.
