Hours after the Long Beach Post reported that Long Beach City College’s Trustee Uduak-Joe Ntuk said that Trustee Virginia Baxter “traffics in QAnon conspiracies and misinformation,” Trustee Sunny Zia told The Viking the claims against her colleague were “preposterous.”
Meanwhile, Ntuk doubled down on his statement in a call with The Viking Wednesday evening but declined to elaborate and give the claims basis.
Ntuk also told the Long Beach Post in an email that trustee Virgina Baxter “has contributed to disfunction (sic) on the board.”
“In my opinion, on multiple occasions Virgina Baxter has made comments about QAnon conspiracies, including replacement theory, vaccine skepticism, and our ethic studies/critical race theory courses are bad for LBCC students,” he told the Long Beach Post.
Although Ntuck did not elaborate on his accusation of Baxter being a QAnon supporter he did explain why he believes Baxter has created dysfunction on the board.
“She pushes the idea that ethnic studies classes corrupt students when really they’re quite helpful and should be a graduation requirement. These classes do quite the opposite of what she pushes,” Ntuk told The Viking.
Ethnic studies will soon be a graduation requirement for CSU’s starting in the 2024 academic school year, according to AB1460, which was signed into law in August of 2020.
“It’s unfortunate that he is fabricating such posterous claims and it’s absolutely false and bereft of veracity,” said Zia in a voicemail sent to The Viking.
The Viking attempted to reach out to Baxter as well as the other trustees Wednesday evening but could only get a hold of Zia and Ntuk at the time of writing.
“I can validate that doctor Baxter has never spread any conspiracies, I don’t even think she knows what Q-Anon is,” said Zia in a voicemail after The Viking reached out for comment.
Zia went on to describe her as, “wonderful and kind” and a person who is also fighting for the students best interest.
“She’s been a great partner and the two of us have been great partners on fighting for student success and that’s what really matters the most,” added Zia
The Viking will be adding updates to the story as they come.