Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Arizona principal out of job for anti-Semitic, racist texts sent to Jewish employee

(JTA) — The principal of a charter school in Arizona no longer has his job after a former employee posted on social media a series of anti-Semitic and racist messages the principal sent to her.

Justin Dye left the Heritage Elementary Charter School in Glendale on Monday, the Arizona Republic reported. It is not known whether Dye resigned or was fired.

The school’s former event coordinator, Danielle Elkin, posted a screenshot of the texts from late January. Elkin is Jewish and the mother of a biracial infant son. The texts also were sent to Elkin’s sister.

“What do you get when you cross a black person and a Jewish person? The loudest/cheapest thief in town. He steals pennies, holds on to them, and then screams about it to everybody. I just made that up on the fly, what do you guys thing? Cleaver?” one of the texts read.

Elkin told the newspaper that she did not go to Dye’s supervisor in January because school executives had stood by the principal for the past two years amid allegations of sexual harassment and shorting teachers on their pay.

She had worked for the school for seven years when she left in February.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Elkin said she “couldn’t be silenced anymore and continue to accept such casual racism and anti-Semitic comments in my life.” She also posted a screenshot of Dye’s text.

The post Arizona principal out of a job over anti-Semitic and racist texts sent to Jewish employee with biracial son appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.