William Bennett: Marion C Moore High teacher FIRED after violent fight with Black student
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY: A White teacher has been terminated from his job after a probe concluded that he got involved in a violent fight with a student and also told him he was “just another black boy who got shot”. The scuffle between William Bennett and the victim Jamir Strane happened in August 2021, which was also recorded and shared online.
Though the video has now been taken down, the termination letter obtained by The Insider provided all the details of that day. The letter stated that Bennett, a science teacher at Marion C Moore High School in Louisville, was relieved from his duty last month after he confessed to saying something to Strane “about being shot,” which angered the student and he struck him. The teacher then pinned down Strane and put his “whole body weight on top of him.”
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Reportedly, Strane had earlier told numerous publications about his gunshot injury in a drive-by shooting in 2020. He also admitted to punching the teacher, but added that the latter one had provoked him by saying he “would just be another black boy shot.” An anonymous student, whose statement has been included in the report, also claimed to have overheard Bennett's racial remark against Strane.
The now-deleted video from August last year showed Bennett and Strane wrestling as students watch them. The letter noted that a witness pulled them away from each other, but Bennett still followed Strane, “proceeded to engage in the altercation” and also kicked him. Now, the 16-year-old’s mother, Erica Strane, has sued the teacher as well as Jefferson County Public Schools.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Bennett reportedly doesn't have a clean past. Decades ago, he was pulled up in Hardin County for calling a noisy class “a bunch of monkeys.” He also kicked a trash can and targeted a student for swearing at him after he threatened him with detention. Besides, in 2001, the teacher apparently lost his job at Elizabethtown Independent Schools, about 45 miles south of Louisville, after he illegally entered an apartment to check if his girlfriend was cheating on him. At the time, he was also arrested.
Not just that, Bennett is also apparently infamous for making sexual jokes and deeming students who didn't laugh as “Nazi humorists,” his personnel file at Elizabethtown stated. But still he ran for Elizabethtown City Council in 2018. “My parents and grandparents instilled in me at an early age the importance of Christian charity, service to others, a good education, and that public service is a calling not a career,” he told a local outlet at the time.
In the past, he had also been suspended without pay for five days at Bullitt County for reportedly saying things, like “I could just slap you,” “I love guns; I love the Second Amendment; take it away, I shoot you,” and “feminists are modern-day Nazis.” In April 2019, he was said to be reported to the standards board, which handles teacher certifications. However, it has been said that he did not show the records of his past misdeeds when he applied to Jefferson County Public Schools, where the recent case happened.