A white theater arts teacher in Texas reportedly resigned from his job after 14 years amid backlash - after he was recorded using a racial slur in class and questioned why there is no 'white history' month.
The teacher, Norman Grueneich, was recorded earlier this month using the 'N' word and making other offensive remarks at a theater tech class at Klein Collins High School in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston.
He could be heard in the audio recordings, which were later posted to social media, saying: 'People get really upset, and the tension in the room rises because we're not allowed to have a difference in opinion.'
A student then asks him: 'I mean if there's a word that you're not supposed to say, why are you saying it?'
'I don't know,' Grueneich replies. 'Why do guys in my class go, you know, say "Man n*****, you crazy?" Why do they say that? And why is it cause I'm a white guy, I can't say that? I can't say the N word.'
Norman Grueneich resigned from his position as a theater teacher after he was recorded using the 'N' word in class and asking his students why there isn't a white history month
He had been a theater teacher at Klein Collins High School for 14 years
The conversation later turns to Grueneich asking why there is a Black History month and not a white history month.
'Because if I say that you will be like "Oh my gosh, that's racist, that's KKK kind of stuff,'" he tells his class in another recording.
'Do we have Hispanic heritage month?' he asks, to which one student could be heard tentatively replying: 'Yeah.'
'OK, why?' he asks again. 'Why? Why? Why do we have a Black History Month.'
At that point, another student could be heard asking Grueneich, whose students call him 'Mr. G' if he wants a white history month, as Grueneich continues to ask the students why there is a Black History Month until a third student chimes in: 'Because of what they've been through.'
'Because of what they've been through?' he spits back, as the recording abruptly ends.
But according to Raw Story, Grueneich then asks: 'Why don't we have a white history month talking about what the Irish went through,' to which a student replies that that would be considered an Irish history month.
The audio clips were posted to social media by Adrian Lopez, who said the incident began when his daughter and her friend were having a private conversation about other students using the offensive term
The audio clips quickly spread through social media, with Nicky D's writing that he was 'ashamed to see that' Klein Collins 'would rather sweep the racist and hurtful action' under the rug rather than punish him
The exchange reportedly came earlier this month, after a female student heard some of her colleagues using derogatory terms for African American and homosexual students in her English class.
She then went to her Theater Tech 2 class, and spoke about the incident with her friend, who is black, in a private conversation before the bell rang, the girl's father, Adrian Lopez, wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
But, he said, Grueneich overhead the conversation and 'went on a half hour tirade on why those students did nothing wrong.
'He spoke in an aggressive and demeaning manner to my
