A voting-rights activist said she was ejected from a San Antonio charter school’s career day last Thursday for questioning why the city’s police union was also invited to the event.
“Yes, the exchange may have been confrontational, but there were no raised voices,” said Valerie Reiffert, executive director of local nonprofit Radical Registrars, who accused the union of having her removed from campus. “There was no animosity or malice. It wasn’t done in front of students.”
However, a representative of charter school Jubilee San Antonio said its principal ejected Reiffert, one of the career fair’s invited presenters, for creating a “disturbance” it didn’t want students to witness.
Reiffert, a police-accountability advocate whose group registers marginalized people to vote, said her dismissal took place after she asked a representative of the San Antonio Police Officers Association (SAPOA) to explain why the group had a table at the fair.
The San Antonio Police Department was already represented at the event, Reiffert said, noting that the union is a political organization, not the force’s recruiting arm. What’s more, she added, SAPOA wasn’t displaying employment data such as salaries — something presenters were told to print out and have on hand.
Reiffert said she asked one of SAPOA’s presenters, Amanda L. Gonzalez — executive director of the the union’s Blue Cares nonprofit — to explain its presence. Gonzales told her SAPOA was there to discuss job opportunities at Blue Cares and educate students about nonprofit work.
Reiffert said she “got spicy” during the discussion but added that it took place during a break when no students were around. Cell phone video she supplied the Current appeared to show no children nearby around the time of the confrontation.
Later, Gonzalez approached Radical Registrars’ table and asked about the group’s voter-mobilization work, initiating a second conversation, according to Reiffert. Shortly after, Jubilee principal James Montano called Reiffert and a fellow Radical Registrars organizer into his office and asked the pair to leave.
Reiffert said Montano ultimately escorted them off school grounds, scolding them as they departed.
“He was literally chirping at us while we’re leaving,” she said.
In an emailed statement, Jubilee Marketing Director Jessica Pastrano said Reiffert and her associate were removed for creating a “disturbance” but declined to offer specifics about the incident.
“A decision was made to remove the party that initiated an inappropriate confrontation we did not want our students to be exposed to,” Pastrano added.
When contacted by the Current, SAPOA President Danny Diaz said he was at the career fair but didn’t overhear the conversations between Reiffert and Gonzalez. However, he said the Radical Registrars leader struck a confrontational tone and disparaged him in front of students.
“In front of kids, she told [Blue Cares’] executive director that she didn’t like me because I protect bad cops,” Diaz said. “If that’s her option, then that’s fine, but that wasn’t the right time or place to state that.”
Reiffert again disputed that she questioned Gonzalez in front of students. Further, she said she was dismissed from the career fair before she was able to visit with 11th and 12th grade students — those closest to voting age and most likely to be interested in her work.
“It’s offensive to me that if I use my voice as a Black woman it gets labeled as creating a ‘disturbance,'” Reiffert said.
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This article appears in Apr 20 – May 3, 2022.
