What Actually Happened

On Tuesday, May 26, 2026, Deer Valley Unified School District board member Kimberly Fisher closed out a contentious board meeting by raising her right arm in a Sieg Heil salute and shouting "Heil, heil" at board president Paul Carver Jr.

It is on video. The livestream of the DVUSD Governing Board meeting shows it clearly, according to 12News and KJZZ.

Fisher had been arguing with Carver over the scheduled start time of a community work session — specifically, a 4:30 p.m. slot she argued would shut out parents, teachers, and board members who couldn't attend mid-afternoon. Carver moved to adjourn. Fisher responded with a Nazi salute.

Fisher's Defense: "All I Could Think of Was Hitler"

Fisher went on Facebook Live hours after the meeting. According to 12News, she said: "All I could think of tonight was Hitler. So I said, Heil, or whatever. I'm so tired of this."

She called Carver a "dictator" and did not apologize. She defended the gesture as frustration with what she sees as Carver shutting out community input.

Fisher has served on the board since 2021 and has been a parent in the district for 24 years, according to the NY Post. She clearly feels she has standing to push back on Carver's leadership. That is a legitimate debate to have.

Invoking Nazi imagery to make it is not.

Who Is Paul Carver?

Carver is a Marine veteran who has served as DVUSD board president since 2023. He is currently running in the Republican primary for Arizona House District 2, according to the NY Post.

He condemned Fisher's actions in an interview with 12News: "I just need the community, and indeed the world, to know that those words and that motion that was made does not reflect the community of Deer Valley, the Deer Valley School District, myself, anybody, as far as I can tell, except apparently the person that did it."

Carver said the district has received emails from Jewish communities around the world expressing concern and outrage.

The Fallout

The DVUSD district issued a statement distancing itself from Fisher. "The District does not condone, support or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation or violence in any form," the statement read, shared by Carver and reported by the NY Post.

The district also noted the obvious: Fisher is an elected official. They can't just fire her.

State Rep. Stephanie Simacek (D-Phoenix), who also serves on the DVUSD board, called for the board to censure Fisher, according to KJZZ. "What happened in that room was not a joke. It was not a political statement or an expression of frustration. It was a deliberate invocation of one of the most evil ideologies in human history on display in a building where our children come to learn."

The Deer Valley Education Association, the district's teachers union, went further and called for Fisher's resignation, calling the gesture "horrifying and disgusting" and stating: "Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service," according to AZFamily.

The First Amendment Question

Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, told AZFamily that punishing an elected official over speech alone sets a dangerous precedent.

"It's not the most professional behavior," Leslie said. "It's just the kind of thing that we have to protect and we have to tolerate it."

He went further: "If the government actually took action to remove her from office, I think she'd have a civil rights suit against the body that removed her."

That is not a defense of what Fisher did. It is a legal reality: removing an elected official for speech — even repugnant speech — is constitutionally fraught. The mechanism to remove her is the ballot box, not a board vote.

Censure is different. Censure is the board expressing formal condemnation. That is appropriate and entirely constitutional.

What's Missing From Coverage

Most outlets are treating this as straightforward: bad person does bad thing, calls for accountability. That framing misses several things.

First, the underlying dispute — whether a 4:30 p.m. work session genuinely shuts out community participation — is a real governance question. Fisher's concern was not manufactured. Her method of expressing it was indefensible, but the issue itself deserves a straight answer.

Second, the First Amendment complexity is being almost completely ignored. Removing an elected official for speech is legally complicated, and outlets are letting calls for resignation dominate without explaining why it probably won't — and legally shouldn't — happen that way.

Third, nobody is asking why Fisher thought this was acceptable. She has been on this board since 2021. This level of dysfunction does not emerge from nowhere.

What Happens Next

Kimberly Fisher represented 33,000 students and their families when she stood up and did a Nazi salute in a public school building.

She wasn't making a subtle rhetorical point. She said, on video, that Hitler was literally what came to mind. Then she went on Facebook and defended it.

Resignation is the right move. If she won't go voluntarily, the voters of northern Maricopa County will have their say when her seat comes up. That is how it works.

The board can censure her. It should.