‘SLUSH FUND’

SF School District Spent $525K Earmarked for Spruce-Up on Racist Mural Fight

The money had been set aside for school facility refurbishment in the district, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

More than half a million dollars that was set aside for facility improvements in the San Francisco Unified School District was instead funnelled into a fierce battle over a high school’s controversial mural, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The district used $525,000 in voter-approved bonds as a “slush fund,” according to the interim chair of an oversight committee conducting a review. District officials have said that the use of the money to cover attorney fees was appropriate given that the mural was in a school building and causing “psychological harm to students,” the Chronicle reported. The 1,600-square-foot painting, “Life of Washington,” has been on display in George Washington High School’s entryway since 1936. The depiction of enslaved Black people and Native Americans on two of its 13 panels has been the subject of decades of controversy and a torturous three-year legal fight between the district, which was trying to remove the mural, and Washington’s alumni association.