Tennessee school board member charged after calling teenage girl ‘hot’

Key points

• An east Tennessee school board member who told a teenage girl, “God – you’re hot,” on video at a public meeting in April has been charged with assault.
• State prosecutors on 18 May charged 59-year-old Keith Ervin under a Tennessee statute that outlaws “intentionally or knowingly [causing] physical contact with another [that] a reasonable person would regard …
• as extremely offensive or provocative”.
• Tennessee considers that offense a class B misdemeanor, which upon conviction can carry up to six months in jail and a maximum $500 fine.
• Ervin’s charge came after his participation in a 2 April meeting of the Washington county school board to which he was first elected in 2006. At that gathering, in plain view of a camera capturing video for the public board’s YouTube channel, Ervin gazed at a female student seated next to him, placed his left hand on her right shoulder, and said, “God...