A Florida professor who instructed his students to “stomp on Jesus” for a class assignment is running for an elected position.
Deandre Poole, 32, is running in 2020 to become the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
He is running for the position vacated by Susan Bucher, who was suspended and later asked to resign by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2018 for failing to report the election results on time.
Poole gained infamy as a professor at Florida Atlantic University in 2013 when he asked his students to write J-E-S-U-S on a sheet of paper and step on it.
The professor of politics and communications, who was vice chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, was asked to go on paid leave after word got out.
Poole told Fox News that the exercise was not his own but from another professor, who said the lesson was meant to teach students how symbolism and words matter.
The assignment not only backfired on him at school, it also caused a university-wide investigation and attention from then-Gov. Rick Scott.
“Some people rushed to judgment based on lots of misinformation and few facts,” Poole explained. “I never used the word ‘stomp,’ and the assignment was not anti-religion. It was an exercise that was misinterpreted.”
“If I could do it over again, I would have been more vocal and given more interviews to explain what happened. It was a lesson on the impact of words and symbolism,” he added.
After the investigation was complete, the university cleared Poole of the charges against him.