Diversity group calls for Oregon GOP House leader to resign over son’s Nazi salute photo

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The Central Oregon Diversity Project has called for the resignation of Republican state Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson over a photo of her son giving a Nazi salute while posing by a WWII German airplane.

The Diversity Project said in a Saturday Facebook post that it was demanding Breese-Iverson’s immediate resignation over the photo posted on social media, KTVZ-TV reported. The son, whose name and age have not been released, was on a school field trip in Madras, Oregon, when the photo was taken.

The group, which is dedicated to providing solidarity and opportunity to Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and all people of color in central Oregon, also claimed Crook County school officials “avoided handing down discipline.” The group said they “have reason to believe that the student wasn’t disciplined because of his mother and ‘who’ she is.”

Breese-Iverson, who lives in Prineville and is the House minority leader, posted on Facebook an apology “to anyone impacted by this image” and criticized her son’s “extremely poor judgment.”

She said she and her husband had contacted school officials “about enforcing adequate consequences for his actions, both at school and at home.”

Breese-Iverson’s post included a photo of her son’s handwritten apology, in which he said posing for a photo that a friend took and posted online “was a dumb mistake. I really get that now. Doing something bad in the moment without thinking can cause harm.”

Six million Jews and people from other groups were murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen during the Holocaust in the 1940s.

Antisemitism increased in the U.S. in 2022, researchers said in a report released in April.