Screenshot/Google Earth
- Three viral TikTok videos show a Florida high school teacher teaching misinformation about slavery.
- The Lee County teacher falsely said slaves were not whipped and said the “n-word” means “ignorant.”
- Island Coast High School and the district said the video was under investigation.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A southwest Florida school district is investigating a high school teacher who was seemingly caught in TikTok videos teaching his students misinformation about slavery and making offensive comments about racial slurs.
The series of three videos depicts an Island Coast High School teacher claiming that the “n-word” actually just means “ignorant” and becoming angry when a Black student questions him. Fort Myers News-Press first reported the story on Monday.
The videos, which have millions of views in total, were posted to the social media app by a student Saturday who said the discussion took place in his Advanced Placement (AP) government class.
Island Coast High School, located in Cape Coral, Florida, said in a tweet Sunday that the TikToks were “under investigation.” A spokesperson for the district, Lee County, also confirmed the investigation to the Fort Myers News-Press in an email.
Lee County Superintendent Gregory K. Adkins and Island Coast High School Principal Michelle Cort did not immediately return Insider’s requests for comment.
In the first video, which has 4.3 million views as of Tuesday morning, the teacher falsely claims that slaves were not whipped by slave-owners in the US. It's well-documented that slaves in the Americas were abused.
The teacher then appears to threaten to kick a Black student out of the classroom for questioning the statements. "How do you know? Were you there?" the student, who posted the TikToks, asks the teacher in the video. "You want to have an honest conversation," the teacher says, after saying he could "kick" the student out of the classroom. "Let's have an honest conversation."
The second of the three TikToks has 1.8 million views as of Tuesday. The teacher can be heard asking, "If I call somebody the N-word, what am I calling them?" A student can be heard responding by saying, "ignorant," and the teacher agrees.
"The N-word just means ignorant," the teacher says. "It doesn't have any other meaning in any other vocabulary other than you are a stupid person. You are ignorant. You are not well-read. You are not well educated. That's what it means."
The statements ignore the racist history behind the word and its continued use to disparage Black people.
In the third video, students discuss hate speech, and the student who posted the TikToks tells the teacher that though the "n-word" may not feel like hate speech to him, it does to the student. "That's a good point," the teacher says in the video.
The student who posted the TikToks did not immediately respond to a request for comment through social media.
The viral videos immediately sparked outrage online. Commenters on TikTok, as well as Twitter users who shared the videos, identified the name of the high school and its district in the hopes of getting the teacher fired. The reaction follows a trend of social-media users identifying the workplaces and schools of people caught on camera doing offensive or racist things.
In April, a Georgia high school student posted a racist TikTok video with her boyfriend in which they said Black people "don't make good choices." Both students were expelled from their school after social-media users identified them.