NJ teacher Howard Zlotkin suspended for calling George Floyd 'f**king criminal' in profane rant at Black students
A New Jersey landscape and design teacher exploded into a racist rant at a couple of his students over Zoom. According to a recording of the class, Dickinson High School's teacher Howard Zlotkin said, "If you think I’m privileged then f**k you, because my daughter thinks I’m privileged and I don’t speak to her."
He cursed at students multiple times during the class, once even flipping off a student before saying "f**k you". The class was discussing climate change, however, it turned into an expletive-laden rant where Zlotkin also took a jibe at George Floyd calling him a "f**kng criminal".
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“I hear people whining and crying about Black Lives Matter, but George Floyd was a f**kng criminal and he got arrested and he got killed because he wouldn’t comply and the bottom line is we make him a f**kng hero," Zlotkin said. Timmia Williams, a senior, spoke to NBC that first reported the event and said Zlotkin seemed to focus his rant on Black students and told her and three other Black girls to write an essay.
Williams, 17, showed up the next day without the essay and Zlotkin again cursed at her. "I don't think you can make a case. You know what Timmia? You're full of s**t, too," Zlotkin is heard saying in a second video. Williams' mother Margie Nieves confirmed that the incident had upset her daughter to a point where she started to question if there was a problem with her skin color.
"Who does that? Who would curse, I don’t even curse at my own daughter. She was crying. She came to me, tells me, 'Mom why is it there's a problem with my skin?'" Nieves said. The mother-daughter duo contacted school officials and the board of education after the first incident but didn't immediately get a response. The school district has since released a statement saying Zlotkin has been removed from his position.
"The school was in the process of taking statements from students today before proceeding with disciplinary actions, and then the second video surfaced," the district said in the statement. "The teacher will not have access to students or the school as we proceed. We are appalled by the statements, profanity, disrespect, and treatment of students," it further read. District superintendent Franklin Walker told NJ.com that Zlotkin was suspended with pay.
Walker also stated the student will be offered counseling to discuss their feelings over what was heard in the online class. “We know it affected them some type of way. If this is the way this (teacher) feels then it means that there are other things that certainly may have gone on, things that were said to address what his personal feelings are, which have no place in the classroom with our children.”
Zlotkin has taught various courses at Dickinson High School in Jersey City including Biology, Science and Landscape and Design for 20 years, according to the website. He is also an adjunct professor at Hudson County Community College, a position which he has also been suspended from, the news site reported. HCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Christopher said his “offensive and derogatory language” is in violation of the college’s anti-harassment policy and professional conduct policy.