Athletic director resigns after ‘gold teeth, dreadlocks’ post, Georgia school says

A Georgia high school athletic director has resigned after racist social media posts recently surfaced, according to the school district.

The Columbia County School District announced Friday that Jody Hilley, Lakeside High School’s athletic director, is stepping down. In a statement, the district called the posts “unacceptable and inappropriate, especially for an educator.”

“The Columbia County School District is committed to providing its students and staff with a safe, positive educational environment. To this end, we hold our faculty and staff to the highest standards of behavior and will not accept conduct that detracts from this mission,” the statement said.

A February post from what appeared to be Hilley’s account surfaced on Sunday, The Associated Press reported. The post, which included a picture of a Black man in a Ku Klux Klan robe, featured text stating Black people kill more African Americans in six months than the Klan has in 86 years, according to the AP.

Sandra Carraway, Columbia County schools superintendent, said the post was “completely appalling,” The Associated Press reported.

In a statement Wednesday, Hilley said the post was due to a technical issue after he had posted an item for sale in a local Facebook yard sale page, WRDW reported.

“Once the item published, the post immediately popped up on my Facebook news feed. It was then that I noticed that an offensive picture had been accidently (sic) downloaded along with the pictures of my items for sale,” Hilley said. “Upon seeing that, I immediately deleted the post within the first minute of it being published.”

Attention was later drawn to a second alleged post by Hilley, reported Thursday by the Augusta Chronicle. It’s not known when it was originally posted.

“We need to recruit some rocked-up brothas (sic) with gold teeth, dreadlocks, and criminal records. No wonder we can’t stop anyone on defense because all of our DBs look and play like Carlton from The Fresh Prine (sic) of Belair. #softascotton,” the post read, according to the Chronicle.

After news of posts surfaced, the Clergy Coalition at International Congress on Faith and Justice sent a letter to superintendent Carraway demanding Hilley resign or be fired, the Chronicle reported.

This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 2:48 PM.