College Teacher Who Told Couple 'Go Back To Your Home Country' Placed On Leave
STUDIO CITY (CBSLA) — A woman caught on camera telling a Long Beach couple to go back to their home country has been placed on leave by her college employer after the video went viral.
Officials with the Coast Community College District said Thursday Tarin Olson was placed on leave for two weeks while they performed an internal investigation into her racist remarks to see whether they violated her employer's code of conduct, City News Service reported.
"This is not being taken lightly," said CCCD spokeswoman Letitia Clark.
Olson was reported to be a career planning teacher at Golden West College in Huntington Beach who has been with the school since 1991.
Last week, Long Beach resident Tony Kao posted the video of Olson telling him and his wife, who were on a walk with their baby, "You need to go back to your home country."
CBS2 News spoke to Olson at her home, but she did not agree to an on-camera interview.
However, she did provide a statement, in which she offered to talk "about the displacement of European-Americans."
Soon after the video went viral, Golden West said it would be looking into the incident.
After Olson was identified as the woman in his video, Kao said on Facebook that he had "NO intention of besmirching the offender's personal life or career" and that "there's enough of those feelings in this world."