Two days after the board of Edgewood Independent School District censured a trustee and called on her to resign, three elected state officials issued their own calls for Dina Serrano to step down.
State Sen. José Menéndez, State Rep. Ina Minjarez, and State Board of Education Member Marisa Perez-Diaz, a former Edgewood ISD employee, released statements this week calling for Serrano’s resignation after she posted a photo of her husband in a noose over Father’s Day weekend.
References to hangings and nooses often carry racist connotations because of their connections to lynchings.
Serrano removed the post and apologized, but said after Monday’s board meeting that she would not resign.
“My naivety in thinking this was an innocent, fun picture was interpreted as malicious, insensitive, and racist,” Serrano wrote on Twitter last week. “I get it, being a Latina woman from the barrio, I understand how hurtful my actions were. I am sorry.”
In separate statements released Tuesday and Wedneday, the three elected officials admonished Serrano for her actions.
Menéndez described the photo as disturbing, calling a noose a hateful and racist symbol.
Minjarez expressed disappointment that Serrano’s actions had overshadowed the progress the school district has made in the last year.
“Throughout its history, Edgewood ISD has never ceased its battle against racism and inequality in the public school system,” Minjarez said. “Dina Serrano’s actions have proven to be the antithesis of Edgewood ISD’s values, and will continue to tarnish its progress moving forward if gone unchecked.”
Perez-Diaz criticized the posting of the photo amid a health crisis that has disproportionately impacted communities of color and a renewed awareness of systemic racism.
“It is for these reasons that I find the distasteful and tone-deaf social media post by [EISD] trustee Mrs. Dina Serrano, inappropriate and unbecoming of any elected official, but especially one who represents a district with a population that is 98.5 percent Black and Brown youth,” Perez-Diaz stated.
Serrano, who was censured by Edgewood ISD’s board and removed as its vice president, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
