California Mom Says She Was Fired for Objecting to School’s Gender Lessons

A California woman says she lost her real estate job after speaking out against a new sex education curriculum at a school board meeting.

Janet Roberson, a mother of three, said she had spoken out at a meeting of the Benicia Unified School District’s board on April 20 to express her concerns about the program of study.

The curriculum encourages “gender confusion,” Roberson said during the meeting. She also said teaching children about puberty blockers was “completely unacceptable and evil.”

It comes as conservative lawmakers are working to restrict how public schools address issues including sexual orientation, gender identity and race, with many saying their goal is to allow parents more involvement in their children’s education. School board elections have become culture war battlegrounds, with conservative groups successfully electing candidates that promise to take action against teachings on sexuality and race.

Roberson said that after she spoke at the meeting in April, critics launched a campaign to get her fired from real estate broker Compass, according to a video posted on her website. The clip was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by the conservative Libs of TikTok account, where it has racked up more than 1.5 million views.

“So, because I voiced my concerns about things like 10-year-olds being told in school that they can take puberty blockers, and I challenged the new curriculum that teaches children that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, the bullies in Benicia decided I should be fired,” she said in the video.

“And you know what? Compass, a powerful national company who could have stood up for me and my American right to voice my opinion as a mom at a school board meeting caved to the bullies’ demands.”

On her website, Roberson said she was informed on May 1 that she could no longer do business as a Compass agent. “They confirmed it had nothing to do with my production and business success, but simply that they ‘decided to part ways,'” she wrote.

A Compass spokesperson told Newsweek that Roberson was “not an employee of Compass—she was an independent contractor who worked on an agent team—and the decision to disassociate her license was made at the request of her team’s owner in April 2023.”

Compass does not make decisions about agents’ affiliations with the company based on their personal, political or social beliefs, the spokesperson added.

“Agents are not employees, they’re independent contractors and we respect their own private views.”

Letters had been published in local newspapers that decried her as “anti-equity, anti-trans, anti-Black, anti-choice and a homophobe because I dared to disagree with the new school curriculum,” Roberson said. “They called me a hateful bigot, a Nazi, a daughter of Hitler, and repeatedly identified me as a Compass real estate agent although I never mentioned I was a real estate agent or that I worked for Compass.”

One of the letters, published in the Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper on April 27, said Roberson had delivered “a lengthy, bigoted diatribe denouncing the gender-inclusionary language” used by the school district.

It also pointed to a website and Facebook page created by Roberson that it said contained “racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-COVID safety and anti-COVID vaccine writings.”

It would be “bad enough if Janet Roberson was one lone bigoted parent with web design abilities who’s allowed to rant like a lunatic at school board meetings,” the letter’s author wrote. “However, Jan Roberson is also a local realtor whose unapologetic bigotry might well affect a marginalized person’s ability to purchase a home.”

Roberson said the treasurer of the Progressive Democrats of Benicia also contacted Compass and gave a May 1 deadline for answers to questions about Roberson’s conduct.

“Sure enough, like clockwork, Compass informed me that I could no longer be associated with them by her deadline date,” she said in her video.

“How can it be that in America, a mom who speaks at a school board meeting can be targeted and canceled, losing her livelihood?”

Kathy Kerridge, the chair of the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, said Roberson’s allegations that “the Progressive Democrats as an organization had anything to do with her firing are untrue.”

“As an organization, we did not write any letters or contact her employer. The letter that was written to a local paper was not written by a member.

“A letter to her employer was written by a member, but under her own name. We do not require our members to seek club approval before exercising their free speech rights and we do not control our members’ activities,” Kerridge told Newsweek.

“In short, the Progressive Democrats of Benicia had nothing to do with her being fired. Put simply: we did not fire this person, her employer did, using their own internal guidelines, which we did not seek to influence, nor do we even have access to.”

In a statement to Newsweek, the Benicia Unified School District said: “The Benicia Unified School District remains open to engaging our community in dialogue about our district and program.

“Our school board meetings have historically been and will remain a platform for the community to speak to topics during our public comment portion of the agenda. While we do not respond to public comment during the meeting, we hear and consider all voices in our decision-making process and we follow up on questions to our board or potential issues that may impact our students or staff. As an organization, we do not engage in matters outside the scope of our work.”

Roberson “is a parent of students within the BUSD and a member of our community,” the statement added. “We wish her and her family an outstanding school year.”

Newsweek has contacted Roberson for comment via email.

Update 08/17/23, 6:50 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add comments from Kathy Kerridge, the chair of the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, and a statement from Benicia Unified School District.