Principal Goes on Racist Tirade During Graduation and Um, She Is Still Employed Why?

We show our true colors when we're at our most stressed, and one high school principal certainly showed hers. Georgia principal and founder of TNT Academy Nancy Gordeuk let out a racist tirade at a graduation ceremony in front of parents and students last week.

It sounds like the graduation ceremony had gotten off to a shaky start. Gordeuk claims an attendee was trying to take video without permission, causing a disruption, and when security escorted him out of the auditorium there was booing (probably because she calls him a "goober"). That's when the flustered principal accidentally ended the ceremony early, before the valedictorian had the chance to speak. But it got worse.

As frustrated and disappointed attendees filed out Gordeuk tried to get the valedictorian back on the podium. And then she blurted out something a white principal of a high school might not want to blurt out.

You people are being so rude to not listen to this speech. It was my fault that we missed it in the program. Look who's leaving, all the black people!

And from there it all broke out into pandemonium.

Gordeuk apologized after the ceremony, blaming the Satan. No really. She said, "I'd like to apologize to everyone who was in the crowd. I'm sorry for what I said. Like I said, the devil was in the house." Parents might agree she may have been possessed. How else to explain why Gordeuk also reportedly told the audience: "If your baby's crying, you need to do one of two things: you need to tape their mouth, or you need to get out because they shouldn't be here anyway," according to attendee Brooklyn Jacobs.

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Good Lord. If I'd been a parent in that audience I'd be 1) pretty darn relieved that my kid was no longer attending that school and 2) deeply concerned that this woman had been running my kid's school all this time. It would have been a cringefest. Whether you're black or white, this unacceptable behavior in a school principal.

Gordeuk's words betray a kind of racially-directed hostility. As a parent you'd have to wonder if she'd been thinking thoughts like that all along, and if that bias had ever manifest itself in other ways when she was running the school. It's kind of creepy. 

Even if you don't care about racism you have to admit, it's disturbing to see the person running a high school (someone who works with teenagers all day!) losing it like this. Makes you wonder how often she loses her temper when parents aren't looking.

And blaming it on the devil -- what the ... ? In a culture where we're always admonishing our young people to take personal responsibility for their actions that's just plain hypocritical. The last thing we want high school graduates to take away is the notion that you can always blame the devil for whatever you do.

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How would you feel if your kids' principal said this at graduation?

Image via michaeljung/Shtuterstock