A Colorado school district is reportedly about to dismiss a teacher after she wrote several tweets calling a Kentucky student a member of the “Hitler Youth.”
Douglas County School District Superintendent Thomas Tucker requested that the school board fire Mountain Ridge Middle School teacher Michelle Grissom after she wrote several tweets accusing the Kentucky student of being in the misrepresented viral video showing an encounter between Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann and Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the March for Life in Washington, DC.
“I understand that many in the community have strong opinions regarding Ms. Grissom and the circumstances giving rise to my recommendation. The District respects those opinions. However, to ensure that the process complies with Colorado law, while the dismissal process is ongoing, Douglas County School District will not provide further comment,” Superintendent Thomas Tucker wrote in a statement obtained by KDVR Tuesday.
Tucker said Grissom has the right to request a hearing before the school formalizes its decision.
Grissom, whom the district has placed on administrative leave since January 20, penned a viral tweet misidentifying a student as Sandmann, calling him part of the “Hitler Youth.”
“His name is Jay Jackson. His twitter account is closed to non followers so we don’t interfere with his training in the #HitlerYouth,” Grissom said in a now-deleted tweet, according to Complete Colorado.
But the student in question turned out not to be in Washington, DC, at the time, as the 17-year-old boy’s father responded to Grissom, telling her that his son was at a varsity basketball game and not in D.C. on the school’s field trip.
“She finally apologized but has refused to take down her post and my son’s picture. My son was harassed and bullied as a result of this teacher’s rush to judgment…totally abhorrent behavior and inexcusable actions that need to have consequences,” the father later tweeted.
The March for Life incident on the Lincoln Memorial quickly went viral, prompting politicians, media outlets, celebrities, and others to accuse Sandmann of harassing Phillips and vilify him online.
Subsequent video clips which revealed more of the story showed that the Covington Catholic students, wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, were the ones being harassed before Phillips approached the group.
Another group, the Black Hebrew Israelites, was spotted in the footage verbally accosting the students with racial slurs.
Sandmann’s family has since retained legal counsel, which has prepared to take legal action against a large number of individuals and groups for libel and defamation.
Sandmann’s legal team has been preparing to send defamation suit warning letters to a laundry list of celebrities, individual journalists, media outlets, and several Catholic dioceses who falsely accused Sandmann and his classmates of harassing a Native American.
His lawyers also released a 15-minute video exposing “the truth” about what happened to Sandmann at the March for Life.