Yet another voice is calling for East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Connie Bernard to resign, with prominent businessman Richard Lipsey posting on his Put Louisiana First website that Bernard’s “conduct has gotten in the way of tackling real issues.”Â
Lipsey’s post comes after Baton Rouge received a week’s worth of national media attention over a viral video showing local activist Gary Chambers criticizing Bernard at a June school board meeting. The video and fallout led multiple local officials—including Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and four of Bernard’s fellow school board members—to also call for her resignation.Â
In the video, Bernard appears to be shopping online amid discussion of the history of Robert E. Lee during the public comments portion regarding the renaming of Lee High Magnet School. But her conduct during that meeting is not the only reason she’s been under scrutiny over the past month.Â
Bernard, who says she won’t resign, is being called to court on July 27 for a status conference relating to a 2018 incident in which she allegedly choked a student at a private party near her home. Her court date comes nearly two years after a profanity-filled video surfaced of Bernard confronting a young partygoer at a Lakeside home in late summer 2018. In the video, she appears to place her hands on the neck of a young man, which some viewers have described as choking.
In his letter, Lipsey writes that, with a new superintendent on the way and students in Baton Rouge dealing with COVID-19, this should be a time of focus for the district’s leaders, which isn’t possible with Bernard around. Â
“The truth is that Connie acts without thinking, a disappointing and dangerous trait for someone in charge of our children’s education,” Lipsey writes, later saying that Bernard should be replaced with someone with similar political leanings, to make it “clear this isn’t about politics, but about getting down to business for the good of the kids and the school system.” See his post here.Â
