A middle school teacher in Kentucky has been suspended after a student wore a Klan costume to school, officials said. The student wearing a white sheet was videotaped by a classmate and posted to TikTok.
A Kentucky middle school teacher has been suspended indefinitely for allowing a student to dress as a KKK Grand Wizard as part of a history assignment, officials said.
The unnamed instructor is now under investigation by the Pulaski School District, according to Superintendent Pat Richardson.
"I am extremely disappointed and embarrassed by this incident,” Richardson said Monday in a statement. “I am deeply apologetic of this situation, and I am taking immediate steps to address this matter," he said.
Cellphone video of the student wearing the white sheet costume on a school bus was shot by a classmate and posted to TikTok, where it received an avalanche of criticism. The TikTok account has since been made private and the video is no longer public.
The student reportedly dressed as Confederate Army Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Richardson said. The child gave a three-minute presentation to the class as part of a history assignment for extra credit, according to local reports.
"This is nothing new. This is stuff the country endorses. It has happened in Pittsburgh schools, happened in California, happened in Texas,” Whit Whitaker of the Lexington Fayette NAACP told WKYT-TV Monday.
Whitaker questioned whether the teacher would have given permission if the student "wanted to come as Charles Manson or Hitler.”
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