Tennessee school board member charged after calling teenage girl ‘hot’

An east Tennessee school board member who told a teenage girl, “God – you’re hot,” on video at a public meeting in April has been charged with assault.

State prosecutors on 18 May charged 59-year-old Keith Ervin under a Tennessee statute that outlaws “intentionally or knowingly [causing] physical contact with another [that] a reasonable person would regard … as extremely offensive or provocative”.

Tennessee considers that offense a class B misdemeanor, which upon conviction can carry up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine.

Ervin’s charge came after his participation in a 2 April meeting of the Washington county school board to which he was first elected in 2006. At that gathering, in plain view of a camera capturing video for the public board’s YouTube channel, Ervin gazed at a female student seated next to him, placed his left hand on her right shoulder, and said, “God – you’re hot. Did you know that? Damn.”

She laughed uncomfortably as he leaned in and wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, continuing, “Where do you go to school at?” She provided the name of her school, and he rejoined, “All right.”

Other people in the room could be heard laughing at the end of the exchange. And the Washington school district’s superintendent, Jerry Boyd, visibly smiled while on the other side of the student.

Local media reports describe the girl as a high school senior and a student representative on the board. Her father later went on social media and criticized Ervin’s behavior as “disturbing and inappropriate”.

In that statement, reported by Tennessee news outlet WJHL, the girl’s father said neither he nor her mother believed Ervin “should be anywhere near students” – and he expressed incredulity that the moment passed “without immediate accountability”.

Ervin provided his own statement to WJHL in which he contended he was not “always good with words”. He also maintained that he would not purposefully offend anyone, though he acknowledged the video of him and the girl looked bad.

A Change.org petition almost immediately calling for the dismissals of Boyd and Ervin from their roles has since gathered more than 7,400 signatures. Ervin’s fellow school board members voted to censure him during a special meeting called on 8 April as outrage surrounding his filmed remarks spread beyond Washington county.