Gilbert hired to fire Lewis

How was Joey Gilbert going to succeed against the American Civil Liberties Union when he couldn’t even outlitigate the local talent arrayed against him?

One of the arguments in favor of hiring Gilbert last summer was that the ACLU was coming to force the schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms or play sports.

But at the last school board meeting he said the actual reason he was hired out loud, perhaps inadvertently.

“I was brought in specifically… to remove Keith Lewis,” he said.

Anyone who has reviewed the texts and emails included with the records lawsuit filed against the four school board trustees would recognize the truth of that statement.

Why would the three newly elected trustees seek Lewis’ firing before they’d even attended a single school board meeting?

Well, for one thing, Lewis was not shy about calling them out on several of their erroneous assertions about the schools. In a Sept. 14, 2022, letter published by The Record-Courier, Lewis took particular issue with the claim that students with emotional issues were allowed to dress up as dogs and cats.

To be clear, the only person dressed as a cat we’ve ever seen at Douglas High School is Mr. Bojangles, the school mascot, and then only at special events.

David Burns, the present school board president, wouldn’t even participate in a primary debate conducted at the high school because he claimed it was a hostile venue.

Lewis was a target for the three new trustees from the beginning of their term and Gilbert was someone they sought to bring on board to ensure their success.

But one of the dangers of winning a controversial hand is that you have to lay your cards on the table.

We won’t know whether that revelation will have any impact on the school board until November, but it has certainly given the opponents to the current majority plenty of ammunition.