A college student in upstate New York is running to unseat the school board member who called her out by name during a debate over an LGBTQ+ club when she was still in high school.

17-year-old Elizabeth Lewis, who will turn 18 next month, is challenging Rotterdam-Mohonasen school board vice president Chad McFarland in May’s election, the Albany Times Union reports. She told the outlet that her history with McFarland is only part of why she hopes to take his job.

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Last year, Lewis’s parents filed a complaint with the New York State Education Department asking for McFarland to be removed from the Mohonasen school board after he singled her out during a school board meeting.

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The year before, McFarland faced community backlash for comments he made at a March 2023 meeting in which he objected to a request to start a Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) club at a local middle school. McFarland had likened the club to NAMBLA, a pedophilia advocacy organization that works to abolish age-of-consent laws in the U.S.  

“If some students came and said, ‘We want to have a club, a NAMBLA-understanding club,’” McFarland reportedly said, “If we had an intersex student pole dancing instruction club, we wouldn’t allow that, right? There is some subject matter that is inappropriate for the kids. The adults can say, ‘Maybe we should look at this a little more.’”

Following months of criticism from teachers and students, McFarland refused to apologize for his comments at a September 2023 board meeting. He denied comparing GSA to NAMBLA, and thus said he “didn’t feel compelled that I needed somehow to sacrifice my integrity to apologize for something I didn’t do.”

He went on to address Lewis by name, according to her parents’ complaint, as though she were the sole source of the backlash against his prior comments. Lewis, who uses crutches to walk and had already been bullied over LGBTQ+ issues, faced increased bullying at school and was left anxious and afraid after McFarland’s September 2023 tirade, according to the Times Union.

Lewis’s complaint against McFarland under the district’s Dignity for All Students Act was repeatedly denied by high school principal Craig Chandler, superintendent Shannon Shine, and school board president Wade Abbott. The district reportedly spent $14,157.00 defending McFarland, who was ultimately given an official admonishment by the state Education Department commissioner Betty Rosa.

He retained his board position, however, and is currently running for a fourth term.

“It’s unfortunate that a single remark taken so far out of context has been so misconstrued,” he recently told the Times Union of his NAMBLA comment.

Lewis, meanwhile, says she’s running against McFarland in the hopes of changing the district’s anti-inclusion climate, which she says is costing it good teachers.

“The school climate, it’s very tense,” she told the Time Union. “It’s to a level that makes people feel afraid. Marginalized communities can really feel it within the school.”

“The school board is a very important part of the school community,” she added. “If the school board is supportive, people will know they’re backed up. Respect is just really important.”

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