Parents, Educators Rally Behind 'Racist' Teacher

Calls for the resignation of a Minnesota superintendent grew on Monday, after a high school teacher was suspended for social media posts deemed racist by the Black Lives Matter activist group.

Theodore "Theo" Olson, a special education teacher at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minn., was placed on administrative leave March 9 over two posts he wrote on Facebook about student discipline in the school district.

The posts were deemed offensive by former school board candidate turned Black Lives Matter activist Rashad Turner who reportedly accused Olson of being a racist. Turner said Olson’s posts show he is “the epitome of a bad teacher” and a “white supremacist,” EAGnews.org reported.

According to the website, Olson wrote on Facebook, “Anyone care to explain to me the school-to-prison pipeline my colleagues and I have somehow created, or perpetuated, or not done enough to interrupt? Because if you can’t prove it, the campaigns you’ve waged to deconstruct adult authority in my building by enabling student misconduct, you seriously owe us real teachers an apology. Actually, an apology won’t cut it.”

"Phones and iPad devices, used for social media and gaming," wrote Olson. "There have always been rules for ‘devices,’ and defined levels of misconduct. Since we now have no backup, no functional location to send kids who won’t quit gaming, setting up fights, selling drugs, whoring trains, or cyber bullying, we’re screwed, just designing our own classroom rules.”

The group, Black Lives Matter St. Paul, charged that Olson portrayed students as drug dealers and gang bangers in his Facebook posts about a lack of district support in discipline matters, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Black Lives Matter had threatened a “shut-down action” at the school if Olson was not fired, but the group did not follow through with it after Turner reportedly met with St. Paul superintendent Valeria Silva.

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