A Cincinnati-area school board voted to order the removal of a “Hate Has No Home Here” sign, with one board member citing Jesus and objecting to “all those different rainbow things.”
The Little Miami Board of Education in Warren County voted 4-1 to remove the poster, saying it violated rules against displays “relating to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The Feb. 25 vote came at a raucous meeting at which the board’s president David Wallace ordered an audience member removed and barred from future meetings.
The poster, hung in a social studies classroom at Little Miami High School, depicted a group of hands holding heart-shaped flags, including the transgender pride flag, the American flag, a peace sign flag and the LGBTQ+ pride flag.
Wallace said during board discussion that, per guidance under new law director Omar Tarazi, it may be best to remove displays “relating to sexual orientation or gender identity” if the board wanted to avoid having to notify parents under the district’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights” policy.
Little Miami adopted the policy in October 2025 to adhere to the state’s House Bill 8, which requires schools to notify parents of “instructional materials with sexuality content.” The poster’s removal avoids “logistical challenges” associated with notifying parents, Wallace said during the meeting, quoting a message he said he received from Tarazi.
“If similar wording were displayed over a neutral image, such as the American flag, or a generic student image, it would not ordinarily implicate the Parents’ Bill of Rights procedures,” Wallace said when reciting Tarazi’s guidance.
Tarazi was hired by Little Miami in a contentious 3-2 board vote last month. He has previously been under fire for charging hefty service fees in a suburban Columbus district and his alignment with conservative groups like the pro-universal school voucher Make Liberty Win PAC.
Tarazi told The Enquirer he “did not recommend one way or the other” regarding the decision on the poster.
“The email (Wallace) referenced was me re-articulating the standard, and it’s ultimately the board’s call for (interpreting) which side of the line the standard (is),” Tarazi said.
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the poster, the question is, ‘Does it trigger an obligation to notify parents and have them opt out?'” Tarazi said, adding that the poster could still be up today if parents had been given the chance pull their child from that class.
Wallace and newly elected board members Mandy Bullock and Dan Smith, all of whom were previously endorsed by conservative group Ohio Value Voters, and Diane Horvath provided the votes in favor of removing the poster. Wayne Siebert voted no.
“We understand this issue has generated strong opinions in our community. Little Miami Schools remains committed to providing a safe, respectful, and supportive learning environment for all students,” the district’s communications director Brad Underwood said in a statement Feb. 26.
The Cincinnati-area district last made headlines for its discussion of LGBTQ+ messaging in January 2025, when it voted down a policy that would have required teachers to take down displays not directly related to their class curriculum, like LGBTQ+ pride flags. Wallace was that policy’s main supporter, The Enquirer previously reported.
Little Miami board members reference Jesus, want to review lesson plans
The board’s discussion about removing the poster was peppered with remarks from the crowd condemning members. Particular uproar occurred when Wallace told Little Miami Superintendent Regina Morgan that he’d like to review the lessons taught in the classroom wherein the poster was hung.
“That is not your job to review lesson plans!” one audience member, whom The Enquirer could not identify, yelled from the back of the room.
The issue was introduced when Morgan said she wanted to clarify to the board that the poster was not used for instructional purposes but rather as a “peacekeeper” in the classroom.
Morgan said, “as an example” of the poster’s purpose, “If (the teacher is) talking about World War II and we’re talking about concentration camps and there’s somebody who is of Jewish faith in that room, this is … representing (that).”
After questioning why there’s no symbol of Jewish faith on the poster, Wallace said to the superintendent, “It’s probably not the time for you and I to have this discussion, but I would like to see the lesson plan.”
Wallace did not respond to The Enquirer’s request for comment on his statements at the meeting.
Smith’s reasoning for removing the poster, in which he invoked Christian teachings, also caused concern among some audience members.
“I think when you label certain people, even Christians, as hating you because we disagree with that lifestyle, that’s a hate on your part,” Smith said. “We love people, Jesus loved people … but he didn’t love sin.”
“But he told them to go and sin no more. He didn’t condemn them, he loved them. But he didn’t leave them as they were because (of) their lifestyle,” Smith continued. “So when you label all those different rainbow things there and the trans things, you’re identifying with that and you expect us to love that and to even like it, but we don’t.”
Julie Perelman, a longtime resident of the district and mother to three Little Miami graduates, said Smith’s statements were the “most distressing” to her.
“To literally sit and preach to the audience about Jesus … (he) came so close to just saying that if you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans, you’re a sinner and we can’t support sinners,” Perelman, who spoke during the meeting’s public comment portion, told The Enquirer. “I think my jaw was on the floor.”
“Apparently we’ve completely forgotten about separation of church and state,” she added.
A mixture of beliefs was expressed during the board’s initial public comment, with some arguing the poster is merely a message of inclusion and not of sex and others equating it to progressive “propaganda.”
“In recent years, it’s been the trendy, popular thing to support sexual sins and the sexual confusion of our children, which should have no place in education,” parent Jackie Mason said during public comment. “And it has not been the sexually confused and sexually influenced kids who have been bullied. It’s quite the opposite. All of my children were bullied in this district for standing up and stating what is right and what is true.”
Who made the initial complaint against ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ poster?
Siebert told The Enquirer that a parent expressed they were offended by the “Hate Has No Home Here” poster.
That complaint then followed the district’s “chain of command,” Siebert said, from the teacher, to the high school’s principal, Kevin Harleman, to the superintendent.
The board was then made aware of the complaint through Tarazi, Siebert said.
Both the principal and the superintendent determined the primary purpose of the poster was not to promote sexuality content, Tarazi said, adding that Wallace then placed the issue on the Feb. 25 agenda for board discussion.
Siebert, the board member opposed to the poster’s removal, said implementing the district’s “Parents’ Bill of Rights” policy puts Little Miami at risk of being sued.
“A Title IX lawsuit is $100,000 or more,” Siebert said at Wednesday night’s meeting. “This is a setup, I’m telling you.”
Board president threatens to bar audience member from meetings
Immediately after the board voted 4-1 in removing the poster, a man and woman sitting in the front row of the audience stood up and began to exit the meeting. While exiting, the man pointed toward the board and said, “You guys are on the wrong side of history.”
Wallace ordered the two Hamilton Township police officers present to have the man removed.
“Have him removed. Get his name too, officer,” Wallace said, eliciting verbal discontent from several members of the audience.
“He’s not coming back to the next meetings if he’s going to behave like this,” Wallace continued. “We need to have decorum.”
“This is a public meeting. You are allowed to observe it, we let you participate, we’re going to do board business. The interruption and the rudeness is going to stop. This isn’t Facebook. This is a Little Miami school board meeting,” Wallace exclaimed to the audience.
Ohio Sunshine Laws for public meetings indicate a school board may remove a person for disruptive behavior, but it does not grant authority to ban someone permanently from meetings.
Ultimately, no one was escorted out of the meeting and no names were taken, Hamilton Township police told The Enquirer.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: School board removes ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ sign from classroom
Reporting by Grace Tucker, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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