A US middle school teacher was fired this week after a video was released showing him berating students with insults and racist slurs.
The video, which has been viewed more than 2 million times since it was posted to Facebook by a parent on Wednesday, shows the teacher dragging the boy out of the classroom by his hoodie before yelling abuse at other students in the class.
“You’re stupid!” a outgoing white teacher could be heard shouting to a classroom full of mostly black students at Harlem Park Elementary and Middle School in West Baltimore.
The footage showed the Baltimore teacher grabbing one of his students by the ear while yelling at the rest of the class.
“You have a chance at an education and you want to be a thug who gets shot.”
“Please stop saying things like that,” one student can be heard pleading, as the teacher continues to call students in the class “idiots” and threatens to give them “zeros even though they haven’t done anything.”
By Thursday, Baltimore City Public Schools officials confirmed that “a science teacher at Harlem Park Elementary and Middle School had engaged in abusive behavior and made racist comments toward students” and that “the teacher involved in the incident is no longer employed by the city school system.”
The teacher told the young students,
The district’s statement went on to say, “Baltimore City Schools is committed to creating a positive and equitable learning environment in our school community where all members feel welcome, supported and valued. Discriminatory behavior of any form is not and will not be tolerated.”