Lisa McClain reprimands Michigan school board for targeting suspended members

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., reprimanded the school board in Richmond, Michigan, after some of its members tried to remove a conservative colleague for missing meetings during a military deployment to the Middle East.

Ray Steir, who received an American flag and a copy of the Congressional Record from McClain on Thursday in recognition of his work, had been deployed, attending board meetings remotely, but eventually lost visual access.

It was then that the board said that he should be removed from the position, citing the “injustice” caused by his absence.

“One of the members of the board was speaking on social media, putting false information about me and my wife and about false things, which ended up with me resigning and causing others to come to the district to call me to be reinstated,” Steir said.

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The moment is the latest in a spat between Republicans and school boards over policies that, in their view, are policing schools against diversity of thought and accountability.

“I think education is very important and very important,” McClain told Fox News Digital.

“And teachers and administrators need to teach children how to think, not what to think. It’s time that administrators begin to answer for their actions. Good actions and bad actions.”

McClain’s meeting with Steir comes after a congressional hearing last week in which he spoke with the Virginia superintendent about student privacy policies, investigating whether those policies were being applied equally in favor of transgender students.

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Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., leaves the House Republican Conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club on Feb. 28, 2023. (Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

“The victims received a 10-day suspension and the woman who made the film was suspended for one day,” said McClain, referring to the incident at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County where students were reprimanded for filming in the locker room.

“How does that sound?”

In the case of Steir, McClain asked if the board was targeting Steir simply because he was assigned overseas. Steir clashed with the board after hearing that some of the district’s bathroom policies would allow fourth-graders to share the same bathroom with transgender eighth-graders.

“Before he filled the seat, the seat was open for two months,” McClain noted. So that logical argument doesn’t really do it for me; it doesn’t really hold much water.”

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House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., left, pictured next to Richmond, Michigan school board member Ray Steir, right. (Office of Lisa McClain)

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For his part, Steir believes his case will focus renewed attention on the school board and its membership.

“My goal is to continue being a public advocate, one of the good things that I think has come out of this is that it has been looked at so much that some members of the public were not aware of the changes that could be made,” said Steir.