Parents Even Complained About Her to School Officials but She Told Listeners Principal ‘Believed Me and Backed Off’
A Florida social studies teacher who was revealed as the host of a white nationalist podcast now claims it’s just her “hobby” and just “satire,” despite parents having alerted authorities that their children are complaining about the political bias she reportedly injected in her teaching. Parents did not know she was hosting a subversive podcast under a Russian pseudonym.
“None of the statements released about my being a white nationalist or white supremacist have any truth to them, nor are my political beliefs injected into my teaching of social studies curriculum,” Dayanna Volitich, who is 25 and teaches in a Citrus County middle school told NBC News. HuffPost had first broken the story on Saturday.
“While operating under the Russian pseudonym ‘Tiana Dalichov’ on social media and the ‘Unapologetic Podcast,’ I employed political satire and exaggeration, mainly to the end of attracting listeners and followers, and generating conversation about the content discussed between myself and my guests,” Volitich added, while describing her social media accounts and her podcast as “a hobby” she engaged in on her “personal time.”
HuffPost reported that among other disturbing statements Volitich made on her podcast, she “argue[d] that ‘science’ has proven that certain races are smarter than others.”
Volitich “has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing,” her school district said in a statement.