A 2015 Teacher of the Year from St. Paul schools lost her spot on a new teacher licensing board because she insulted President Donald Trump, using a raw expletive, in a social media post.

“He is not worthy, nor are his puppet masters, of human dignity,” reads the Jan. 12 Facebook post of Amy Hewett-Olatunde. “He is the s***hole and we should line up to take a dump on him.”

The comment was attached to a news article about remarks attributed to Trump earlier this year in which he questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “s***hole countries” in Africa.

State Sen. Paul Utke, R-Park Rapids, read the post on the Senate floor this past weekend as Hewett-Olatunde’s nomination for a spot on the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board was considered.

“That’s the kind of stuff that really bothered me,” Utke said, supporting a request by colleague Sen. Eric Pratt, R-Prior Lake, not to confirm Hewett-Olatunde.

Hewett-Olatunde said Tuesday that Trump’s comments have a painful impact on the students that she works with, all of whom are immigrants or English learners. She said she felt the need to publicly reject the president’s comments.

“I stand behind everything I have posted on Facebook,” Hewett-Olatunde said in a phone interview. “I’m not going to apologize for being passionate about something that is affecting my students every day.”

The scene played out on the legislative session’s final Sunday when lawmakers were working furiously to finish.

PARTISAN OPPOSITION?

Pratt, who chairs the Senate education policy committee, said the concerns about Hewett-Olatunde went beyond her social media posts. Pratt said she was also critical of the new teacher licensing law the board is tasked with implementing.

“When you look at the body of some of the things she’s said and done, I find it hard to believe that she in fact could execute the law as intended,” Pratt said.

Hewett-Olatunde teaches at St. Paul’s LEAP High School, which serves refugees, recent immigrants and other students learning English. She is Canadian by birth and her husband is from Nigeria, according to her biography on the school’s website.

After Trump’s comments made national news, Hewett-Olatunde said she felt a duty to stand up for her students because many of them come from the countries being criticized. She said Minnesota lawmakers who were offended took her comments out of context.

“I am going to be extremely protective and territorial of what they need,” Hewett-Olatunde said of her students. “(Some lawmakers) don’t have a real concept of the children we serve.”

Democrats in the Senate criticized Republican opposition to Hewett-Olatunde’s appointment as purely political. They said plenty of professionals can set their personal views aside and do their jobs.

“Do many teachers and professionals in education have partisan views? Sure, on both sides of the aisle,” said Sen. Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury. “Yet, they are able to do their jobs.”

Education Minnesota, the state teachers union, also condemned the opposition to Hewett-Olatunde’s appointment, saying her 19 years working with students learning English uniquely qualified her.

“If this is the sort of person who can be denied an opportunity to volunteer her time because of an intemperate post on Facebook, we should all worry about the future of our state, and start campaigning against the lawmakers who led the petty charge against her,” Denise Specht, the teachers union president, said in a statement.

Pratt responded to claims of partisanship by saying that other nominees for the board also made social media posts critical of the president. But those members still received support from the committee.

“What sets this candidate apart are the degrading attacks. The dehumanization,” Pratt said.

TWO VOTES NEEDED

At first, Hewett-Olatunde was confirmed to the board with a narrow 34-33 vote, with nearly all GOP senators in opposition.

State Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, who chairs the Senate education finance committee, was the lone Republican to support Hewett-Olatunde’s nomination.

It wouldn’t last. Nelson later told her colleagues that her vote was a mistake because she was distracted.

Nelson asked the Senate to reconsider the confirmation, something senators on the winning side of a vote can do. Hewett-Olatunde’s nomination was then defeated 33-34.

LATEST STUMBLE FOR LICENSING OVERHAUL?

The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board was created by the Legislature last year as a fix to the state’s often criticized teacher licensing system.

Since its creation, the new board has had an administrative law judge rule it needed to start from scratch creating licensing rules even though its predecessor had done a lot of work on the new regulations.

Board members then had to plead with lawmakers for more time to write the new rules. At first, they were rejected, but eventually they were given a few more months to get the new licensing process in place.

The board also was unable to agree on an executive director earlier this year and had to reopen their search. They eventually settled on Alex Liuzzi, who’s led the agency on an interim basis since last year.

Minnesota overhauled its teacher licensing process because the past system was accused of having inconsistent standards and unfairly treating educators trained out-of-state and in alternative ways.

The state faces a shortage of teachers in key specialties and also needs to diversify its educator workforce as the demographics of the state change.