Rockford, Michigan

The Rockford Board of Education in West Michigan voted at a special meeting Tuesday to censure Trustee Barbara Helms over an email the board called "offensive, unwelcome, and race-based." In the Aug. 9 email to a district staff member, Helms asked whether the employee had "an association with the Muslim Brotherhood," a transnational Sunni Islamist group whose Middle Eastern chapters have in part been designated terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.

Superintendent Steve Matthews said he learned of the email after the staff member forwarded it to him, prompting consultation with legal counsel and the Michigan Association of School Boards before the censure vote. Helms admitted sending the message but called the board's action "politically motivated." Her attorney, Stephen Grimm, said she sent it on behalf of a parent and denied any racist or discriminatory intent, arguing the censure could chill free speech. Helms, absent from the meeting, said she will not resign and will finish her term, which ends this year; she is not seeking reelection.