‘Heil!’: Deer Valley school board member gives Nazi salute during scheduling dispute

A Deer Valley Unified School District board member with a history of controversy is facing calls to resign after she gave a Nazi salute during the board’s meeting on Tuesday. 

“Heil! Heil!” board member Kimberly Fisher said as she raised her arm outstretched in the same manner as the infamous salute used by the Nazi party of World War II Germany. 

In a Facebook live video posted after the meeting, Fisher acknowledged the salute and defended its use saying she was criticizing the board’s president, Paul Carver, who she claimed was acting like a “dictator” during a scheduling dispute. 

“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so I said ‘heil’ or whatever,” Fisher said. 

Fisher unleashed her Nazi salute in the final moments of the May 26 governing board meeting as her colleagues voted on a motion to adjourn for the day. Immediately before that vote, she had been arguing with Carver about the time and date of an upcoming study session to consider changing the district’s boundaries. 

During the meeting, Fisher objected to the plan to hold that study session prior to a regularly scheduled board meeting. She said it should be held on a Saturday, which would be a time that was “better for our community.” 

“I’m just going to be a little ornery with you for just a minute, Mrs. Fisher,” Carver said in response. “Everybody has been making this request nonstop, and everybody knows the policy: two people make the request, we get 60 days to work it in. At no point in time, with everybody’s requests, did anybody ever say, ‘I’d really like to see it on this date’…everybody wants things but nobody has given specifics, and then when we give it out there, everybody is like, ‘Well, that doesn’t work for me.’ Ok. That doesn’t work for you. Good.” 

Fisher retorted that Carver was throwing a “tantrum.” 

“The tantrum will be 10 minutes later out in that parking lot on Facebook,” Carver shot back, quickly asking if there was a motion to adjourn as Fisher continued to argue with him. “Is there a motion to adjourn or are we just going to do this for a while?” 

After Carver asked who all was in favor of the motion Fisher made a Nazi salute and said, “Heil! Heil!” 

One of her fellow board members says Fisher demonstrated she has no business being on the board and should resign.

“I think she needs to resign and I think that what we have seen from her over the past four years I’ve been serving as a school board member is unacceptable,” Rep. Stephanie Simacek, D-Phoenix, who also serves on the board, told the Arizona Mirror.

Simacek added that this “ is not unusual behavior” from Fisher and added that the Nazi salute is just the latest example of Fisher’s inappropriate actions as a governing board member. 

Fisher was found in violation of the state’s open meeting law last year after she shared information from an executive session with a member of the public. 

She’s also already been censured by the board. 

“Of course they sanctioned me, or censured me — I don’t know what the hell they did, ’cause it doesn’t really have any meaning,” said in her Facebook video. 

The district said Fisher’s actions are not a representation of DVUSD. 

“The District does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” DVUSD said in a statement to the Mirror. “As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently. Her views and actions do not reflect and should not be attributed to other Board members, staff, other members of the school community or the District.” 

ADL Desert, the chapter of the Anti Defamation League that covers Arizona and Nevada, posted on Instagram that it was “appalled” by Fisher’s actions and called on her to apologize.

“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” ADL Desert wrote in its post.

The Deer Valley Education Association, the teachers union that represents educators in the district, wrote on Facebook that it was “horrified and disgusted” at Fisher’s use of a Nazi salute.

“That salute is an appalling endorsement of an ideology that was responsible for the murder of six million Jews and millions of other innocent souls,” the local union wrote. “Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior. Kimberly Fisher should resign before she does more harm to our students and the community at large.”

Likewise, the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, called on Fisher to resign for her “despicable” behavior.

Fisher did not respond to the Mirror’s request for comment for this story. 

In her Facebook livestream after the meeting, she said that she believes the board has been operating as a “dictatorship.” 

A review of Fisher’s old Twitter account, which has been suspended, shows she posted frequently claiming that the election of President Joe Biden was “fraudulent” and anti-vaccine sentiments. She also made Islamophobic comments. 

Fisher’s husband has been connected to a white nationalist espousing online account, and she has posted pro-Confederacy beliefs online, as well. 

“The salute and what it represents has no place in public meetings. Free speech or not, it is unacceptable,” Simacek told the Mirror. “We will not normalize this behavior.”

***UPDATE: This story has been updated with additional comments