Pennsylvania teacher fired for racist remark

Jet, Dec 26, 1994

A White middle school teacher in Monessen, PA, recently was fired for making a racist remark to three Black seventh grade girls.

The school board in Monessen, located about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh, voted 8-0 to fire Donna Sullenberger, a home economics teacher who had taught there for 17 years.

Sullenberger made her remark to Black students after they returned from a physical education class.

Sullenberger led up to the remark by telling the girls she wanted to share a joke with them that her husband had told. She then told the girls who were perspiring, that they looked "like n-- sweating at a Ku Klux Klan meeting."

After making the remark, she asked the girls not to tell anyone what she had said.

Prior to the firing, Sullenberger had been suspended without pay while an investigation of the incident was conducted.