Florida Middle School Teacher Who Hosted White Supremacist Podcast Resigns

Image by Crystal River Middle School

By JTA April 3, 2018

(JTA) — A Florida middle school teacher who hosted a white supremacist podcast and shared anti-Semitic and Islamophobic content on social media has resigned.

Dayanna Volitich, a teacher at Crystal River Middle School, in the western part of the state, was removed from her classroom early last month when the Citrus County School District began investigating the podcast she hosted under a pseudonym.

The probe started after the Huffington Post reported that using the name Tiana Dalichov, the teacher bragged about secretly injecting her beliefs into the classroom. She reportedly bashed diversity, said Muslims should be eradicated “from the face of the Earth” and praised the work of Kevin MacDonald, a retired psychology professor who holds anti-Semitic views. MacDonald has said Jews are genetically programmed to destroy Western societies, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Assistant Superintendent Mike Mullen said on Monday that the district received Volitich’s resignation, CNN reported. The resignation is not final until the letter is accepted by the school board. Mullen said approval of the resignation will be on the agenda at the April 10 school board meeting.

Volitich has claimed that her statements during the podcast, called “Unapologetic,” were “political satire and exaggeration.”

“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,” she said in a statement released last month.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO