BLACK TEXAS H.S. TEACHER RESIGNS AFTER RACIST TWEET ABOUT FERGUSON MO. CONTROVERSY

VINITA HEGWOOD

Nearly a week after posting controversial tweets about events in Ferguson, Mo., that sparked accusations of racism, Texas high school English teacher, Vinita Hegwood, has resigned.


In a statement released Thursday by the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, Hegwood acknowledged the tweet, calling it a reaction to “a series of threatening and racist attacks” made against her on Twitter during a debate about Michael Brown, the unarmed Black teen who was shot and killed this summer in Ferguson by a White police officer, the report says.

“My reaction in no way reflects the standards to which I have held myself and my students for the last 20 years of teaching,” Hegwood, who worked for two years in the Duncanville Independent School District, said in the statement. “I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I regret the embarrassment that it has caused the school district.”

The controversial tweet was posted last week on her personal Twitter account.

“Who the (expletive) made you dumb duck (expletive) crackers think I give a squat (expletive) about your opinions about my opinions RE: Ferguson? Kill yourselves,” she said in the since-removed post, which erupted a firestorm of controversy.

She was suspended without pay prior to her resignation after district administrators called her tweets “reprehensible.”