Teacher Who Hosted White Nationalist Podcast Removed From School
Once again Florida reminds why it is such an awesome place. This weekend news broke of a Dayanna Volitich, a Florida middle school teacher being removed from her class because she ran a white nationalist podcast.
Volitich is has not been fired as of this article, but is currently not teaching classes. Parents expressed concerns about the teacher sharing her views with their children in the classroom. One parent stated her daughter was disturbed by the teacher suggesting that segregation may be okay.
On her podcast Volitich stated she lied to her principal when faced with questions about her racist views.
If you’re wondering why she hasn’t been fired yet, there is some gray area to look into here. Volitich is employed by a public school and there are First Amendment concerns here. In a private school they may have acted much more quickly, but as a government entity the school has to make sure they are not violating her 1st Amendment rights by firing her because she publicly shares her white nationalist views on a podcast.
My opinion is that the school will use a code of conduct violation and point to her lying to the principal as a reason to terminate her.
While it is good that she’s been exposed and doesn’t have access to students, this is a dangerous situation. The school district is 90% white and there was a great deal of potential for her to do a great deal of damage by spreading a message of hate and racism.
A Florida school district has removed a middle school teacher from her classroom after it was revealed she secretly hosted a white nationalist podcast, sparking concerns she may have exposed her students to such ideology.
Dayanna Volitich, 25, remains a social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School in Crystal River. The Citrus County School District said Sunday that it was initially contacted by HuffPost about Volitich’s ties to the podcast “Unapologetic,” which spurred it to notify human resources and launch a review. HuffPost first reported on the allegations Saturday.
In a statement also released Sunday by Volitich’s attorney, the teacher did not deny operating the podcast, which she said she did so under the Russian name Tiana Dalichov. But she maintained that she “employed political satire and exaggeration, mainly to the end of attracting listeners and followers, and generating conversation about the content discussed between myself and my guests.”
Volitich, however, said the statements made about her alleged white nationalist views don’t “have any truth to them” and that she never injected her political beliefs into her classes.
“The views ‘Tiana Dalichov’ espouses do not pervade my professional career,” she added. “As an adult, my decisions are my own, and my family has nothing whatsoever to do with my social media accounts or my podcast. From them, I humbly ask for forgiveness, as it was never my intention to cause them grief while engaging in a hobby on my personal time.”
The educator ran the podcast and a related Twitter account — since taken down — that expressed racially charged messages and white nationalist views, HuffPost reported.
One tweet posted by @TianaDalichov said in February: “It isn’t supremacist or hateful to prefer your own people over others.”
“And she believed me,” Volitich said with a laugh.
The conversation between Lokteff and Volitich circled around numerous topics, including teaching white nationalist ideology to children, how Volitich felt constrained by her school’s administration and the need for private schools in which white nationalist views could be taught outright. “Hit me up when you’re ready,” Volitich said.
They also commented on how some races are better than others.
“This is science though,” Volitich added. “So many other researchers have already looked into this. That’s just the way it is. There are races that have higher IQs than others.”
Crystal River Middle School is nearly 90 percent white, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The community is about 80 miles north of Tampa.
A mother of a student in Volitich’s social studies class told NBC News that her daughter recounted at least one troubling conversation.
“They were talking about segregation in a civil rights type of capacity, and the teacher somewhat alluded that segregation might possibly be OK in her opinion,” said parent Meredith Bleakley.
Steve
Steve is an affordable multifamily housing professional that is also the co-founder of Whiskey Congress. Steve has written for national publications such as The National Marijuana News and other outlets as a guest blogger on topics covering sports, politics, and cannabis. Steve loves whiskey, cigars, and uses powerlifting as an outlet to deal with the fact that no one listens to his brilliant ideas.
