The head of a political action committee helping elect school board candidates who oppose critical race theory had a very simple – but profane – promise for someone on social media who wanted him to stay out of local elections.
“Fuck you, we’re taking over school boards whether you like it or not,” Ryan Girdusky posted on Twitter early Thursday morning.
Girdusky, who is leading the 1776 Project PAC, was responding to a tweet from an anonymous account – “Alternative Straight” – telling him to keep out of local school board elections.
“Hey Ryan, you’re a huge piece of shit. Stay out of our school board elections, you don’t even live in our district.”
The post from “Alternative Straight” had been deleted by Thursday evening.
“That for some reason ticked me off because I’ve been getting, like, waves of bullshit from people. So I responded to my 90,000 followers,” Girdusky said in an interview.
Girdusky said he’s getting blowback from the “same 75 people who absolutely hate me” who complain about him on Facebook.
“They also make claims that I’m racist and I’m doing this and I’m doing that,” Girdusky said. “I’ve never given an interview where I’ve ever talked about race in any great detail. …
“These elections are so small. I don’t see how I said something on Twitter, so therefore it’s going to change the fabric of the election,” he said.
“The candidates didn’t say it, I did,” Girdusky said of his Tweet.
Girdusky is leading a federal political action committee that’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on school board races nationally, including 13 in Kansas.
The 1776 Project PAC is supporting school board candidates who oppose teaching critical race theory or anything about the 1619 Project, a New York Times initiative detailing the history of slavery and the role it played in shaping the country.
The PAC has been criticized for trying to influence the outcome of local school board races as part of a larger agenda to attack public schools.
The PAC has raised about $437,000 for the campaign.
It’s not the only PAC that is playing in school board races.
The Democratic-leaning Bluestem Fund PAC is reportedly active in Wichita School Board races.
The Bluestem PAC was once chaired by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and is now led by Topeka lawyer LJ Leatherman.
The PAC, which relies heavily on contributions from labor unions, started in 2021 with $117,000 in the bank.
