San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)

N.J. teacher suspended after Floyd remarks

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. — A New Jersey high school teacher has been suspended with pay after profanityl­aced comments to students in his class about George Floyd, the man killed by a Minneapoli­s police officer.

A recording aired by WNBC-TV shows Dickinson High School science teacher Howard Zlotkin talking about Floyd and Black Lives Matter during what was supposed to be a climate change discussion in a landscape and design Zoom class.

Zlotkin, who is white, is heard to say people are “whining and crying about Black Lives Matter,” and he then refers to Floyd with a profanity as a “criminal” who “got arrested and he got killed because he wouldn’t comply.” Another profanity is heard as he continues that Floyd is being treated as a “hero.”

The video and one taken the next day also included a profanity directed at a student and a vulgar gesture, WNBC reported. The student said Zlotkin grew irate when she and three other students challenged his position, and the four were told to write an essay on “why Black lives should matter” — an assignment not given to other students.

Superinten­dent Franklin Walker told NJ.com that the language used was “unacceptab­le.” He said the district is investigat­ing and that police also have been notified “because some of it could be at the same level as a hate crime.”

“The comments that were made were very biased and he shouldn’t be having that kind of discussion with the children — that had nothing to do with the subject matter in the classroom,” Walker said.

The teachers’ union declined comment until it has more informatio­n, union president Ron Greco said.

Zlotkin, who has been at Dickinson High School for 20 years, also has been suspended with pay from his adjunct professor position at Hudson County Community College, NJ.com reported.

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