A high school English teacher from Texas has been fired after she sent a number of tweets to president Donald Trump which she thought were private.
In the tweets, the teacher reportedly asked the president to get rid of the undocumented immigrants in her school.
Georgia Clark, who taught in Fort Worth, was fired from her position after the board of the Fort Worth Independent School District unanimously voted in favour of terminating her contract with the school.
According to Fox 4 News, 18 people signed up to speak at Clark’s board meeting. Out of the 16 who turned up, 14 spoke against the teacher’s employment.
While the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports Clark, who had been teaching at the school district since 1998, admitted the tweets were hers.
One of the messages allegedly read: ‘Mr. President, Fort Worth Independent School District is loaded with illegal students from Mexico… Carter-Riverside High School has been taken over by them.’
According to a school district review, obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the former teacher posted ‘several racially intolerant and/or insensitive messages on a public social media account as well as made similar comment in her classroom toward students.’
One witness speaking against Clark said, when one student had asked to go to the bathroom, the teacher allegedly responded by saying: ‘Show me your papers that are saying you are legal.’ Though Clark denies making statements about the immigration status of students.
One tweet to Trump, presented in the district review, read:
Anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth would be greatly appreciated.
Clark apparently followed up with another message to Trump, saying:
I really do need a contact here in Fort Worth who should be actively investigating and removing the illegals that are in public school system.
According to the review, Clark had been disciplined for insensitive behaviour in 2013, after she reportedly referred to a group of students as ‘little Mexico’ and another as ‘white bread.’
School officials were already investigating allegations made against Clark before the tweets came to light, after two students reported what they believed were racist incidents with the teacher.
The review said Clark had violated the school board’s policies on social media and ethical conduct.
It said:
An employee shall be held to the same professional standards in his or her public use of electronic media as for any other public conduct.
Some members of the board said the teacher’s firing should’ve come sooner. Ms Clark has 15 days to appeal the board’s decision.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.