A private all-girls Catholic school in Maryland has fired a teacher/coach for his connection to the alt-right, including a number of racially charged social media posts.
What happened?
The teacher, Gregory Conte, apparently posts online under the name Gregory Ritter, according to The Hill. He is a member of white supremacist Richard Spencer’s security detail and works for his “policy” organization, the National Policy Institute.
He was identified as one of the attendees at the controversial Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrations last year that left one protester dead and many others injured.
Conte had been employed by the school as a substitute teacher and field hockey coach since 2014. According to The Hill, students discovered that Conte was posing online under a pseudonym, but it is not clear how they made this discovery.
According to Fox 5 D.C., among other things found on his Twitter feed was a tweet claiming that “Hitler committed no crimes,” along with links to white supremacist websites.
What did Conte say?
Conte did not offer an apology and said he has “no regrets” about his affiliation with the alt-right. He also said:
The school is just trying to protect its own position. I get why they are doing that. They are doing it because they are put in an awkward position where they have employed somebody with whom they had no problem and whose views did not at all adversely affect their school’s operations.
The school apparently fired Conte in October, but just notified the families of students last week. The school did not respond to a request for comment from Fox 5 as to why they waited so long to inform parents of the decision.