(JTA) — A Florida public school has launched an investigation into a teacher who reportedly hosted a white supremacist podcast and shared anti-Semitic and Islamophobic content on social media.
Dayanna Volitich, a teacher at Crystal River Middle School in the western part of the state, has been removed from her classroom as the Citrus County School District looks into the podcast she hosted under a pseudonym.
The probe started Friday, after HuffPost reported that using the name Tiana Dalichov, the teacher bragged about secretly injecting her beliefs into the classroom. She reportedly bashed diversity, said Muslims should be eradicated “from the face of the Earth” and praised the work of Kevin MacDonald, a retired psychology professor who holds anti-Semitic views. MacDonald has said Jews are genetically programmed to destroy Western societies, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The district said Volitich would not be teaching until its investigation was complete, HuffPost reported.
Volitich denied subscribing to racist views and said in a Sunday statement to WFLA News Channel 8 that her podcast was satire.
“None of the statements released about my being a white nationalist or white supremacist have any truth to them, nor are my political beliefs injected into my teaching of social studies curriculum,” Volitich said in the statement. “While operating under the Russian pseudonym ‘Tiana Dalichov’ on social media and the Unapologetic Podcast, I 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.”
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