A veteran teacher at a Texas middle school has been fired after students accused her of using a racial slur in front of a class full of sixth graders, according to officials.
The now-former teacher, who taught math at Bradley Middle School in San Antonio for the past 18 years, was previously identified by parents as Rebecca Woodland. However, the district did not confirm this or publicly name the woman because she does not face criminal charges.
The accusations against Woodland surfaced on the platform X earlier this week after students claimed they heard the 30-year veteran educator casually use the N-word while explaining the plot of the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”
“They didn’t hire n—-rs back then,” Woodland allegedly said as she attempted to explain defunct policies at NASA that once served to marginalize Black contributions.
The student said she was so unsettled by what the teacher said that she immediately went home and told her uncle about it.
Outraged, the man swiftly took to social media to give the teacher and the school a piece of his mind.
The video quickly went viral and caught the attention of the North East Independent School District, which investigated the claims and fired the teacher five days later, on May 20.
“As of today, we have completed our investigation, and the teacher in question will not return to Bradley or be employed anywhere within our district,” the district told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in a statement.
The film — “Hidden Figures” — is a true story about the significant role that Black women scientists played behind the scenes at the U.S. space program, with their expertise and calculations leading to the first moon landing in the 1960s.
While trying to explain the racial tensions that existed during the civil rights era, the longtime educator with more than three decades of classroom experience allegedly told the class, “They didn’t hire n—-rs back then,” according to the young whistleblower who told her uncle about the abuse.
Not believing what the teacher had just said, the girl said Black and white students looked up at each other in complete shock, according to the uncle, who goes by the handle @hennytwote on X.
His video, posted on May 15 and watched and shared thousands of times since, put pressure on school officials to take action after he launched an email campaign and drafted a letter for people who wanted to message the school’s principal and district superintendent about the incident.
His letter demanded a full investigation and that the school publicly condemn the incident and enforce policies and anti-racism training programs for the school’s faculty and staff, although it’s not clear if the school has met all these criteria, or whether it planned to.
For now, the girl’s uncle continues to say that the teacher’s comments left the children feeling disturbed and hurt, adding that Woodland should have never uttered the slur at school while suggesting she deliberately used the slight under the guise of the film’s historical context.
“There is never a context in which a, specifically non-Black teacher, should ever be using or saying that word to a classroom full of young students,” @hennytwote said in his TikTok. “Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, saying that word to a classroom full of young kids, in particular, is traumatizing for all of the children involved, but especially the Black kids.”
The mother of the girl who made the initial allegations sat down with the school’s leadership, and during the meeting, the vice principal asked if her daughter may have misheard the teacher say “negro” instead.
Previously, the district issued a statement denouncing the teacher’s actions, saying, “We do not condone racism and take this allegation very seriously. The teacher is currently on administrative leave, and we are conducting a thorough investigation. Once it is complete, we will share what we are able to within the parameters of the law.”
