Amid calls for her immediate resignation, Fresno Unified trustee Keshia Thomas has apologized for fraudulently claiming that a former high school football coach called her son the n-word.
The coach, Don Arax, a former football coach and educator at Bullard High School, filed a defamation lawsuit against Thomas and the Fresno Unified School District.
Despite Thomas’ apology, that suit remains active, The Fresno Bee reports.
Thomas originally made the racial accusation against Arax during a podcast recording in 2022.
That accusation, however, was based on a lie, according to Thomas’ son, Albert Alford Jr.
The accusations stem from 2013, when Alford Jr. was a middle schooler attending a football camp and hoping to play for Arax one day. Alford Jr. alleged that Arax used a racial slur against him and relayed that information to his mother.
In a statement before the media last week, Alford Jr. said that he did not tell the truth about the racial slur, the Bee reports.
Also, in a sworn statement in July, Alford Jr., now an adult, says that he never told anyone – his mother included – that Arax used a racial slur against him.
That disclosure prompted calls from the Fresno Teachers Association for Thomas to resign, citing a fracturing of the public trust.
“Mr. Arax, I sincerely apologize to you and your family,” Thomas wrote in her apology to the former coach. “I believed the information I had at the time, but I have since learned that the information I relied upon was not accurate. Had I known then what I know today, I would not have made those statements. I cannot undo what I said, but I can acknowledge what I know today, take responsibility for the words I spoke, and offer you the apology you deserve.”
She added, “My concern was not only for my son, but for every child entrusted to our schools.”
Those words, in the view of Arax’s attorney, Brian Whelan, do not constitute genuine contrition.
“This is not an apology. It is the latest version of a story that finally ran out of places to go,” Whelan said.
Specifically, the lawyer cites Thomas’ statement as failing to include the words “I falsely accused Don Arax.”
Whelan continued, “Instead, she shifts responsibility to her own son, whose sworn declaration directly contradicts what she testified he told her.” “That is not contrition. It is public relations.”
The attorney followed up by saying he would welcome a genuine statement of contrition from Thomas at trial.