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A weeklong independent investigation did not conclude whether Denver school board Vice President Monica Hunter allegedly used antisemitic language. Instead, the investigator wrote that the accusations “boil down to a ‘she said, she said, he said,’” according to the report.
The seven-page report was delivered to the board on Thursday, hours before members were set to discuss the findings and possibly vote to censure Hunter at a meeting that afternoon.
The report says that the only documentation the investigator found about Hunter’s alleged language was a note made by Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero after he met one-on-one with Hunter on January 27.
Marrero told the investigator that Hunter warned him not to trust board member Amy Klein Molk because she was a “Zionist bitch,” the report says. Hunter has denied that accusation.
“The Superintendent’s notes, taken contemporaneously with this meeting include an entry, ‘Vice President Hunter referred to Director Klein Molk as a ‘Zionist b...’ and said she did not want to sit next to her. She also told me she had previously expressed that sentiment to Board President Xóchitl Gaytán,’” the report says.
Hunter told the investigator “there is no such version where that is true,” according to the report. She said the allegations are “retaliation for what some perceive as her initiating conversations about the Superintendent’s continued employment.” Hunter also questioned why it took so long “after she tried to fire him” for the accusations to surface, the report says.
The allegation that Hunter used antisemitic language was the most serious of a slew of accusations that Gaytán levied last month against Hunter and board member DJ Torres, who resigned last week, saying the board spent too much time on “internal conflict.”
The board voted on Oct. 1 to hire an outside investigator to look into the antisemitism allegation, with a report due back in seven days. A proposal to limit the investigation’s scope to interviews with just Hunter, Gaytán, Marrero, and Klein Molk was expanded at Hunter’s request to include interviews with “any witnesses necessary.”
That didn’t happen. The report says that due to the tight timeline, “interviewing other individuals was not feasible.” The interviews were conducted by Denise Maes of Maes Solutions LLC, who was hired by the board’s outside legal counsel, Holland & Knight, the report says.
The Denver school board has long struggled with infighting and personality clashes. This marks the third time the board has investigated one of its members in the past five years.
Hunter, Gaytán disagree on key allegations
According to the report, Marrero said he called Gaytán after his meeting with Hunter on January 27 but didn’t reach her. Marrero said he told Gaytán about Hunter’s alleged comments the next day when he saw Gaytán at a fundraising lunch. He told the investigator that “it is not his role to file complaints against board members. That rests solely with the board,” the report says.
Gaytán previously claimed in a written statement that Hunter, upon learning in December she was to be seated next to Klein Molk during meetings, said something to the effect of, “I’m not sitting next to that racist Zionist bitch.”
The investigator’s report says something slightly different. It says Gaytán told the investigator that Hunter said, “I’m not sitting next to that racist bitch,” and separately said she wouldn’t vote for Klein Molk to be a board officer because Klein Molk “said she’s a Zionist,” the report says.
Asked why she didn’t come forward with the allegations sooner, Gaytán told the investigator that “she wanted to ignore and ‘not give into this bad behavior,’” the report says. It says Gaytán later told Klein Molk that she regrets not saying something sooner.
Hunter disputed Gaytán’s account. Hunter told the investigator that the reason she didn’t support Klein Molk for an officer position had “nothing to do with ‘her [Klein Molk’s] Jewishness or whiteness,’” the report says.
Hunter also denied calling Klein Molk a racist, the report says. Hunter told the investigator that she never talked to Gaytán about seating arrangements and was in the hospital when Gaytán called about it. The report says Gaytán has no record of that call and said it may have taken place over the encrypted Signal app.
“In my interview with Gaytan, I asked for further detail about what Hunter said with regard to the proposed seating arrangements,” the report says. “Gaytan asked, ‘what she told me or staff? Because she told staff and the Superintendent she didn’t want to sit by Amy.’”
The investigator said she would have interviewed those staff members “if given time.”
Hunter ‘fixated’ on Zionism and Klein Molk, report says
Klein Molk, who is the only Jewish member of the board, told the investigator that Hunter asked her in early December whether she identified as a Zionist.
Klein Molk said she “expressed her belief in an Israeli state and that she was a proud Jew,” the report says. Klein Molk said Hunter “expressed the inability to understand how Klein Molk or Jewish people generally could be ‘okay with the killing of innocent babies,’” it says.
When the investigator asked Hunter about that December conversation with Klein Molk, “Hunter said many things that are somewhat difficult to discern,” the report says.
The report quotes Hunter as telling the investigator, in part, “I can’t justify in the belief, in like what’s happening right now, like genocide. Zionism is, a lot of it is rooted in from what I understand, rooted in the belief, I don’t know. Like that’s also the thing. A lot of people have a different understanding of it.”
The investigator’s report concludes that Hunter is “fixated” on Zionism and Klein Molk.
“What remains unclear in the investigation is whether Hunter’s concern or prejudice lie with Zionism and whether she equates that with Judaism for purposes of rendering those alleged statements as antisemitic,” the report says.
The investigator concluded that it will be up to the board to determine who is telling the truth and whether terms like “racist” and “bitch” or Hunter’s “problems or fixation with Klein Molk and Zionism” are inappropriate and merit a censure.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
