A principal at Racine Horlick High School took a half hour of students' class time to espouse her own personal political opinions and called Donald Trump voters "ignorant" shortly after the 2016 presidential election.
A parent provided News/Talk 1130 WISN with audio recorded from a criminology class on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016, on which Horlick Scarlet School Principal Margaret Byrd can be heard telling a criminology class that members of her family who supported Trump "live out in the country [and] are ignorant to a certain degree."
"I haven't seen my family in a long time and I woke up this morning thinking about what it's going to be like at Thanksgiving," Byrd can be heard saying on the recording. "This is what I thought about as I was getting ready this morning: I'm prepared. They start talking that Trump stuff and I'm walking out. I'm done.
"I'm preparing myself already for it because they live out in the country, they're ignorant to a certain degree, and they live in that little bubble," Byrd added. "I'm probably going to tell mom today 'Just so you know, if they start talking that stuff, I'm out of there. Because if I stay, there's going to be a problem, so I am just going to leave."
"What does this have to do with criminology?" the parent asked. "My [child in the class] felt very uncomfortable."
A spokesperson for the Racine Unified School District said the incident was brought to the district's attention after it happened and that Principal Byrd was disciplined, though the spokeswoman declined to say what sort of discipline was handed down.
Racine Horlick High School has come under fire in recent weeks after students associated with far-left groups Y.E.S! Youth Empowered in the Struggle and Voces de la Frontera posted a list of demands of school and district administrators throughout the school.
After News/Talk 1130 WISN highlighted that story, a Horlick student came forward to allege that several of the school's teachers use so much class time pushing liberal politics that students don't feel as if they're learning anything.
"White conservative students feel like they can’t express their views," the student explained. "When they do they get a lot of hate for it. I feel unsafe sharing my political views."