An Arizona school has parted ways with its principal for sending anti-Semitic and racist messages to a former Jewish employee.
Justin Dye is no longer the principal of Heritage Elementary charter school in Glendale, its superintendent Jackie Trujillo told local outlets. Trujillo declined to tell The Arizona Republic whether Dye resigned or was fired.
Danielle Elkin, the school’s former event coordinator, posted on her Facebook page on June 7 a screenshot of a series of messages from Dye to herself and her sister, Brittnay, from January that are jokes about being Jewish and black.
Elkin, who is Jewish, has a 7-year-old biracial son.
“What do you get when you cross a black person and a Jewish person? The loudest/cheapest thief in town. He steals pennies, holds on to them, and then screams about it to everybody. I just made that up on the fly, what do you guys thing? Cleaver?” said Dye in a text message to Elkin and her sister.
Dye then messaged, “Wait I changed my answer. A basketball player who’s too greedy to pass.”
Dye followed up with another text that read, “Wait wait wait, a prisoner who refuses to spend a quarter for a phone call.”
Elkin, who left the school in February after working there for seven years, told The Arizona Republic that she didn’t report Dye’s messages to his supervisor in January as the school had stood by Dye, despite allegations of sexual harassment and shorting teachers on their pay.
In her Facebook post with the screenshots, Elkin wrote: “I thought long and hard before posting this, but I couldn’t be silenced anymore and continue to accept such casual racism and anti-Semitic comments in my life, for Ezra and me, to my grandparents, and [H]olocaust survivors.”
She added, “Here’s to not working at a job where you are constantly oppressed for being a woman, and Jewish.”
