The Fresno Teachers Association is calling on Fresno Unified School District Trustee Keshia Thomas to resign after she withdrew her defense in the defamation lawsuit filed against her.
The union issued a statement saying the community can no longer trust Thomas in her role with the district and urged the Board of Education to shed light on what the district knew regarding the defamation lawsuit.
The backstory: Former Bullard High School Head Football Coach Don Arax sued Thomas for defamation after she claimed on a GV Wire podcast in 2022 that he called her son the N-word.
“Then my son, my middle son, goes to football practice, where he has Arax calling him a n_____ and he decides he’s not playing for Bullard anymore,” Thomas said on the podcast. “OK, and he ends up playing at Edison.”
Arax was fired from Fresno Unified in 2023, and the district declined to say why he was removed at the time. He was later hired by Central Valley Christian Schools to coach football, where he remains today.
Details stemming from the lawsuit continued to change over time, including a declaration from Thomas last year where she claimed she never said Arax used the N-word.
Driving the news: Last week, Thomas withdrew her defense that her comments about Arax were truthful.
Following her move, her son, Albert Alford Jr., released a statement to the media saying he lied to Thomas when he claimed Arax used the N-word.
“While at the camp, another player told me that Coach Arax used the N-word and so I decided I didn’t want to play football at Bullard,” Alford Jr. said. “When I got home from the camp, I told my mom that I heard Coach Arax use the N-word, not about me, just that I’d heard him say it, even though that wasn’t true.”
Alford Jr. said he recently told the truth about what happened in 2013 and apologized to Thomas.
“It was never my intention to cause anyone any problems,” Alford Jr. said. “I was 14 years old when I told my mom the story in 2013, and was really bothered by what I heard about Coach Arax. I recognize I should have come clean sooner, and I sincerely apologize for not doing so.”
Contradictions abound: The statement from Alford Jr. contradicts a sworn declaration filed in court last month saying he never told Thomas that Arax used a racial slur against him.
“At no time did Coach Don Arax ever call me the word ‘n_____,’ ‘n____,’ the ‘N-word,’ or any other racial slur,” he said in the declaration. “I never heard Coach Arax use any racial slur or make any derogatory or racially offensive remark about me,” Alford’s declaration states. “At no time did I ever tell anyone, including Keshia Thomas, that Coach Arax used a racial slur against me.”
FTA reacts: “The Fresno Teachers Association is calling on Fresno Unified Trustee Keshia Thomas to resign,” the union wrote in a post on Facebook. “The developments of the last several days make clear that this is no longer simply about a lawsuit. It is about whether the community can continue to trust an elected official.”
The FTA said the public deserves to know what Fresno Unified knew about the case, when it discovered pertinent information, how much the lawsuit has cost and how much the district could be on the hook for in the future.
“This is not a moment for other Fresno Unified trustees to stay silent,” the union said. “The Board should take a clear public stand, demand answers, insist on a full accounting of taxpayer dollars, and show the community where it stands on accountability and public trust. The community should expect no less. Trust is the foundation of public leadership. When an elected official loses the trust of the community, the responsible choice is to step aside.”
What we’re watching: Fresno Unified had been covering Thomas’ legal expenses up to this point but had not indemnified her, meaning it will not have to pay potential damages.
The district said the Board of Education will meet to reconsider covering Thomas’ legal fees as the lawsuit moves to mediation later this month with a trial that is scheduled to start in December.