Mayor Brandon Johnson mentioned Wednesday his newly appointed Chicago Board of Schooling president is “looking for atonement” for making antisemitic feedback however didn’t name for his elimination as requested by simply over half of the Metropolis Council.
The mayor’s feedback got here lower than a day after Jewish Insider reported that Board President Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson crafted greater than a dozen Fb posts with antisemitic statements following Hamas’ assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the loss of life of at the least 1,200 Israelis, in response to Reuters. Israel has since launched a full scale offensive on Gaza, ensuing within the loss of life of 45,000 Palestinians, Reuters reported.
“I do know Rev. Mitchell Johnson has labored laborious as a religion chief in his interfaith work,” the mayor instructed reporters Wednesday after a Metropolis Council assembly. “I do know he has since come forth and has apologized for his feedback and the way dangerous that they’ve been to the folks of the Jewish group.”
The mayor continued: “These are usually not sentiments that I subscribe to and I do recognize Rev. Johnson being keen to be held accountable for statements that he has made that has induced hurt.”
The mayor appointed Johnson as board president final month after your complete Board of Schooling resigned. He has presided over one Board of Schooling assembly, and the physique is ready to satisfy once more for its first common assembly on Friday, Nov. 1.
In a ready assertion, Rev. Johnson issued an apology “to the Jewish group” for his remarks, and mentioned he has fought antisemitism all through his profession.
“The remarks I posted have been reactive and insensitive, and I’m deeply sorry for not being extra exact and deliberate in my feedback posted final yr,” Rev. Johnson wrote. “Since then, I’ve requested for and obtained suggestions from my Jewish associates and colleagues, who helped me be extra considerate in the best way I deal with these delicate issues.”
He added that he’s “dedicated to creating certain that antisemitism and hate of any sort haven’t any place in Chicago Public Colleges.”
Because the Oct. 7 assaults, posts from Rev. Johnson — who is just not associated to the mayor — have ranged in extremity. A number of of his posts shared assist for Palestinians and known as for a ceasefire in Gaza, which the Chicago Metropolis Council has additionally formally finished as a part of a narrowly handed decision earlier this yr.
In December 2023, he shared a video of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, stating, “And, like him, I consider that Israel has a proper to exist simply because the Palestinians have a proper to exist. Additional, Israel should retreat to the unique land border which was illegally granted to them by the United Nations.”
Different posts have gone far additional. On Feb. 20, Johnson wrote, “The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by the Zionist Jews.” In an obvious assist for Hamas, Johnson additionally wrote that “folks have an absolute proper to assault their oppressors by any means obligatory!!!”
Jewish Insider reviews that posts Johnson reshared got here from anti-Israel and Russian propaganda accounts, in addition to a conspiracy theorist.
On Wednesday, the mayor declined to instantly say whether or not he knew about Johnson’s Fb posts when he picked him for varsity board.
Elected officers, at the least one college board candidate, and a few political teams known as for the board president to step down Wednesday, together with 27 alderpeople — simply over half of the Metropolis Council.
Requested concerning the feedback, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who’s Jewish, mentioned he didn’t condone the remarks, and that correct vetting “doesn’t appear to have occurred right here,” as reported by Capitol Fax.
“Look, are you able to miss issues in peoples’ vets? Certain. Nevertheless it seems like Fb posts are fairly simple to search out,” Pritzker mentioned.
The board president has additionally confronted questions on separate controversies. NBC Chicago reported earlier this month that Johnson was disbarred as a lawyer within the Nineteen Nineties and that he had a lien positioned on his house, partly for not paying little one assist.
Requested final week about these findings, Board President Johnson instructed reporters, “The reality is, I used to be prompt for this place due to my management capability and my capability to get issues finished. That’s the reality. The excellent news is I wasn’t employed to be an accountant and I wasn’t employed to be a lawyer.”
College Board candidate Ellen Rosenfeld, who’s working for District 4 on the north lakefront, mentioned the “gorgeous lack of vetting” across the board president reveals “simply how far [the mayor] is keen to go to push his agenda on the expense of scholars and lecturers.”
Chicago Democrats for Schooling, a political group that opposes the Chicago Academics Union and is backing college board candidates, mentioned Rev. Johnson’s remarks “increase severe considerations concerning the security and well-being of Jewish college students and households in our metropolis.”
Reema Amin is a reporter overlaying Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
