Dozens of students, parents, and members of the LGBTQ community appeared at a Florida school board meeting Tuesday to once more demand the resignation of its most controversial member: Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler.
For close to three hours, the public comment period of the Sarasota County School Board meeting focused on Ziegler and her refusal to step down amid the hypocrisy exposed by her and her husband’s three-way sex scandal.
Several students spoke of the way her anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has made an impact on them and others in the district, with one teenager at the podium saying it was their “lifeline” to pretend to be straight, so they wouldn’t face harassment and hate speech.
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Another 12-year-old student, who identified as queer and binary, said they were terrified the board, under Ziegler, would continue to pass policies making it harder for them to learn “because of who I am.”
More than a few residents also took aim at Ziegler’s anti-LGBTQ views and opposition to policies supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“If this is your approach to education, then you are unfit to serve on any board,” John Smeallie, a retired deputy superintendent of Maryland schools, told Ziegler, before adding that she’s failed as a leader by “belittling” and “marginalizing” people who are LGBTQ-plus and “creating fear among students and staff who are part of this community.”
Smeallie then called Ziegler “a hypocrite of the worst order.”
“Despite your attacks on the LGTBQ-plus community, it would appear that you are a part of it. Certainly a B, maybe a plus,” Smeallie said to laughter.
One Sarasota resident, Sarah Kessler, read aloud the lyrics to Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” after fuming that Ziegler remained on the school board, “making it about yourself.”
Tuesday’s meeting was the second time parents and advocates confronted Ziegler at a public forum in the wake of her husband Christian’s criminal rape probe.
Sarasota cops launched an investigation into Christian Ziegler after a female friend claimed he raped her at her apartment in October—on a day they were scheduled for a ménage à trois with his wife. The woman told police that she’d previously had a threesome with Christian and Bridget, but Bridget backed out on the day of the assault.
“Sorry I was mostly in for her,” the accuser texted Christian while canceling their plans. She alleges Christian showed up to her home anyway and assaulted her.
Detectives are also investigating Christian for video voyeurism after he recorded footage of his accuser. He denies any wrongdoing and says the encounter was consensual.
But despite the Sarasota community’s impassioned pleas, Bridget Ziegler refused to acknowledge them or even allude to the scandal at all.
For Ziegler, who appeared unmoved by the scores of people who showed up to protest her, it was business as usual. Laughing and smiling, she used her comment period to discuss school lunches, curriculum on slavery and civil rights, teacher retention, and other items.
At the school board’s Dec. 12 meeting, the panel passed a resolution asking Ziegler to step down; she has refused to do so.
Only Gov. Ron DeSantis has the power to suspend Ziegler for alleged violations such as malfeasance or neglect of duty. If he did, the state Senate would then vote on ousting Ziegler, whose replacement would be appointed by the governor.
While board member Tom Edwards proposed the board send a letter to DeSantis asking for Ziegler’s removal, the rest of the right-leaning panel opposed this.
Many speakers on Tuesday chided board chair Karen Rose and members Timothy Enos and Robyn Marinelli for failing to act in the district’s best interest.
“Mrs. Ziegler isn’t the only one who lacks self-reflection,” said Paulina Testerman of Support Our Schools. “After the Ziegler sex scandal made headline news, Mrs. Rose, you announced that you would be formally calling for Mrs. Ziegler’s resignation due to her being quote, ‘an irreparably harmful distraction to the school board’ … But when Mrs. Ziegler refused to step down, Mrs. Rose, you simply surrendered.”
Testerman asked why the board wouldn’t do everything it could to oust Ziegler.
“The answer is disappointing but simple. It’s because you’re placating us. You don’t actually want Mrs. Ziegler removed. You just want to make it look like you do, and you think we’re too dumb to notice.”
Meanwhile, Joyce Peralta pointed out that Rose is up for re-election in August. “This board wastes our money while promoting hate,” Peralta said. “This is not who we are.”
Jennifer Bowles, a parent of three who, like Testerman, also took to the podium last month, said she “underestimated” Ziegler’s “commitment to political theater.”
“You can’t possibly enjoy having your personal life spread all over for the world to see and for the media to report on,” Bowles said. “I think you won’t resign because your job of destroying public education isn’t done.”
“It may explain why you refuse to resign, because some people just aren’t satisfied until they can watch the world burn.”
One speaker who spoke in support of Ziegler did so while spewing homophobia.
Larry Wilson, of Venice, said, “the leftist activists in this county continue to agitate for the control of the schools through promotion of LGBTQ plus lifestyles, in the media, and in the school system” before adding, “They act as a mob.”
“They have targeted our most conservative board member hoping to drive her out,” Wilson said. “I hope she does not give in. We need her. She is the only one who has put children first.”
Wilson then said “LGBTQ practices are an abomination to normalcy.”
India Miller, a transgender resident, shared some of her own backstory before telling fellow LGBTQ audience members to persist in spite of some of the hateful speech before the board.
Her church performed an “exorcism” on her, her family disowned her and she became homeless. In 2015, she was attacked by a man who had killed transgender women.
“It was hard. But what’s harder for me is living here. That we’re doing this. We’re pretending there’s something wrong with people with how they’re born,” Miller said.
Miller said she didn’t want to be speaking in public but felt forced to because of Ziegler.
“Why are you here? Everyone here asked you to leave,” Miller said to Ziegler. She later added: “Are you that invaluable? Really? You know you’re not. You have a political agenda and you’re trying to make money and you’re doing it off the backs of students, human beings like me.”
“I don’t have a lifestyle,” Miller continued. “The only thing I groom is my eyebrows. But I’m here, I’ve survived all of this, and I have a fantastic life. So if you’re out there and you’re trans, LGBT or whatever, ignore these hateful people.”
The Ziegler scandal has besmirched the conservative power couple's reputation, leading the Florida GOP to boot Christian from his $120,000-a-year job as party chair and the Leadership Institute to cut ties with Bridget, who was earning six figures leading a program to train right-leaning school board candidates. Moms for Liberty co-founders issued a statement distancing themselves from Bridget too, after initially decrying the news on X as an effort to “ruin the reputation of a strong woman fighting for America.”
While DeSantis pushed for Christian Ziegler to resign as chair of the Florida GOP, he hasn’t weighed in on Bridget. Last year, he placed her on the oversight board he created to punish Walt Disney for its opposition to his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.
According to a search warrant affidavit, Bridget “confirmed” to investigators “that she knew the victim through her husband” and had “a sexual encounter with the victim and Christian over a year ago” but “that it only happened one time.” As part of their probe, police have reportedly recovered a sex tape of Bridget Ziegler and another woman.
