North Louisiana School Employee Out After Racist MLK Day Text
Just days after a racist text message was made public through social media, a Louisiana school employee has resigned. The text was centered around Martin Luther King, Jr Day.
The text was sent from Ouachita Parish Junior High School Office Secretary Nelwyn Fontana, and was directed at an athletic coach at the school. The text was published on multiple social media platforms on Monday, the holiday in question, alerting the public to the content. The text message contained a racial slur in reference to the holiday.
Warning, the unedited slur can be seen in the video posted below.
KTVE/KARD-TV reports that the Ouachita Parish School Board confirmed to them that the text being attributed to Fontana was authentic. The school board further confirmed that Fontana is no longer employed by the school system. KTVE/KARD-TV spoke with Ouachita Parish Junior High School Principal Darren Wheeler who told them:
"Unfortunately, on Friday evening, a text message which contained a racial slur from an employee was brought to our attention. That employee is no longer employed by the Ouachita Parish School System. We do not condone any form of racism in our schools and community. Thank you for your time, and enjoy the rest of your day."
Text messages show that Fontana attempted to apologize to the coach for using the slur, but as it was pointed out in social media comments, the slur was misspelled in the text. Which suggests that it was either approved by the sender after an autocorrect, or has been used frequently enough in the phone that it identifies it as the correct spelling. This is all just suggestions by those on social media, and hasn't been proven in any way.