Middle School Teacher Secretly Ran White Supremacist Podcast, Says It Was Satire
(CNN) -- Dayanna Volitich is a social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School in Crystal River, Florida. Online, she was also known as "Tiana Dalichov," the pseudonymous host of a white supremacist podcast called "Unapologetic" and the voice behind a Twitter account riddled with racist and antisemitic posts.
In a statement through her attorney, Volitich confirmed that she was the one speaking as Dalichov on the podcast, but claimed her comments were "political satire and exaggeration" and the persona was a "hobby."
"None of the statements released about my being a white nationalist or white supremacist have any truth to them, nor are my political beliefs injected into my teaching of social studies curriculum," she said in the statement.
Now that her alter ego has come to light, Volitich has been removed from the classroom while the school district investigates her behavior.
In a statement provided to CNN, the Citrus County School District said "the Human Resources department was notified and an investigation was initiated immediately" when they learned of Volitich's alleged online behavior.
"The teacher has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing," the statement read.
Assistant Superintendent Michael Mullen also told CNN Volitich is still employed by the school, but "does not have contact with students while the investigation is being conducted."
A racist alter ego
The Huffington Post first connected the 25-year-old teacher to her online persona earlier this week. Details tweeted from @TianaDalichov's account matched up with details of Volitich's life, and the account appeared to use a photo of Volitich as its avatar, according to the news outlet. Dalichov's online presence has now mostly been scrubbed.
On Twitter, Volitich, as Dalichov, would tweet about the "horrors" of Islam and the superiority of white culture, and referred to the "Jewish Question," an antisemitic conspiracy theory. In screenshots of tweets captured by The Huffington Post, Volitich abbreviates this as "JQ" -- a common practice in alt-right and white supremacist circles.
In a February 26 episode of the podcast obtained by HuffPost, Dalichov talked about being a middle school teacher in her second year -- the same as Volitich, according to Citrus County Schools. In the recording, she says she strives to teach her views to her students and take back influence in the classroom from "the left." She also says she staved off any suspicion by encouraging students to "play along" when she acted differently under the observation of superiors.
"I danced like a little puppet and I waited until they were gone," she says in the recording posted to HuffPost's website.
Dalichov's guest talks about "closet Red Ice listeners." Red Ice is a white supremacist media company that produces podcasts and videos trading heavily in Holocaust denial, ethno-nationalism and white genocide.
"I do hear from teachers all the time that are closet Red Ice listeners that support what we do," the guest says.
"Well I am absolutely one of them, then," Dalichov replied.
Later in the same episode, she invokes racial biology, another popular white supremacist theory.
"So many other researchers have looked into this," she says. "There are races that have higher IQs than others."
Although the "Unapologetic" recordings have been deleted, an entry on podcast search engine Listen Notes identifies the guest in the February 26 episode as Lana Lokteff, one of the hosts of Red Ice.
A Twitter account appearing to belong to Lokteff recently tweeted in support of Volitich, saying she's the target of a "witch hunt."
"Lefties never wanted diversity of thought/opinion," she tweeted. "They want leftist totalitarian rule where they police everyone for 'wrong think.' They are delusional religious zealots who hate nature."
The-CNN-Wire
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