High school coach fired for comparing Black Lives Matter to the KKK
“#BLM is a cult and no different than the #KKK. They both think their race is superior,” the coach wrote on Facebook.
A high school girls’ swimming and diving coach has been fired for comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Tim Damico says he was fired from Germantown High School over a Facebook post he wrote on July 9. “#BLM is a cult and no different than the #KKK. They both think their race is superior,” the post read. In a second post, Damico wrote, “Black lives matter is a joke.”
A week after the controversial statements were made on social media, he was contacted by the school’s athletics director and told that his contract would not be renewed for the upcoming school year.
Damico spoke to Mark Belling, a radio talk show host, and shared his version of why he was terminated. “Of course I agree with the statement [Black Lives Matter],” but the organization is “not something that I as a conservative can or will ever support,” he said, adding that he did compare the organization to the KKK.
School Board President Bob Soderberg said that Damico is misrepresenting the conversation he had with the athletics director and says he wasn’t fired over his political views.
“Mr. Damico failed to follow established protocols and used reckless professional judgment in his use of social media,” Soderberg wrote in a Facebook post.
“Mr. Damico’s indiscretion, lack of sound professional judgment, and total disregard for the fact that coaches have to have credibility with student-athletes, fellow coaches, and parents to function effectively are among the real reasons why he was no longer a viable choice for a coaching position.”
He continued, “Mr. Damico created a situation where having him return as coach clearly would have disrupted the entire swimming program, including precipitating almost certain conflict between him and student-athletes, loss of credibility with student-athletes, as well as serious damage to the program’s ability to attract students to come out for the sport.”
Read Soderberg’s full statement below.