{"id":654003,"date":"2026-05-20T07:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/654003\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T07:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:59:10","slug":"school-board-member-who-hugged-teen-and-called-her-hot-is-charged-with-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/654003\/","title":{"rendered":"School board member who hugged teen and called her \u2018hot\u2019 is charged with assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tennessee school board member who hugged a teenage girl and called her \u201chot\u201d at a public meeting last month has been charged with assault, court records show.<\/p>\n

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The charge of assault \u2014 physical contact stems from an incident on April 2, when Keith Ervin put his arm around the girl, a student member of the board, hugged her from the side and told her, \u201cGod, you\u2019re hot,\u201d after she had just wrapped up asking questions about career and technical education.<\/p>\n

A lawyer who could speak on Ervin\u2019s behalf was not listed in Washington County court records, and Ervin did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday night. <\/p>\n

During the public comment part of a May 7 meeting, the student called the adult members of the school board \u201ccowards\u201d for what she characterized as their \u201cfailure to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo begin, I want to address Ervin\u2019s actions, which were not only unwelcome, but sexist and derogatory,\u201d she said, standing at a podium in front of the members, including Ervin, who sat with his arms crossed as she spoke. \u201cI know this because he has not behaved this way with any of our male members, nor do I believe that he ever would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following public outcry, Ervin apologized for his actions. At an April 8 meeting, he said his calling the girl \u201chot\u201d was intended to mean \u201cshe was on a roll\u201d and had nothing to do with her appearance. <\/p>\n

The board censured <\/a>Ervin, a member since 2006, at that meeting. In a statement Tuesday to NBC affiliate WCYB of Bristol<\/a>, it said that because Tennessee law dictates school board members are independently elected officials, it does not have the authority to remove them, including Ervin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Board reiterates that Mr. Ervin\u2019s actions do not reflect the standards, policies, or values of the school district,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe Board will defer to law enforcement and the judicial system for the resolution of these charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her public comments, the teen told the board members that she does not accept \u201cyour fake apologies used to protect yourselves. I do not believe that you deserve that peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The members did not respond to her and moved on to other meeting agenda items.<\/p>\n

Ervin\u2019s first court appearance is scheduled for August. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tennessee school board member who hugged a teenage girl and called her \u201chot\u201d at a public meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-654003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}