‘I could take care of the ni**ers’: HS principal retires over racist video
Bishop Hendricken High School principal Jay Brennan hurls anti-Black and anti-semitic slurs
Bishop Hendricken High School principal Jay Brennan hurls anti-Black and anti-semitic slurs
Jay Brennan was the principal of Bishop Hendricken High School for 40 years before he was caught going on a racist rant.
The Providence Journal reported that the 6-second video appears to show Brennan in his school office when he makes the anti-Black and anti-Jewish slurs. The video was also mailed to a news station and the Rhode Island NAACP.
“That way, I could take care of the ni**ers and the ki*es,” Brennan says in the clip, though there is no context to his statement.
However, administrators said that, regardless of the context, the language was unacceptable, and Brennan announced his retirement shortly thereafter.
“We recently were made aware of a six-second video-clip from the past with a statement made by Mr. Jay Brennan which includes inflammatory language,” Bishop Hendricken President John Jackson said in a written statement, according to WPRI-TV. “The video clip, which is under review, has no context and Mr. Brennan was being secretly recorded, but clearly the language is inappropriate. We will not tolerate inflammatory language in any context.”
The language was ‘unacceptable’
As soon as the clip went public, it brought outcry from the community. Jim Vincent, president of the Providence branch of the NAACP, condemned the video clip and said that it was “unacceptable” behavior.
“I just don’t think a person of that authority should be talking like that. No matter where. No matter when,” Vincent said according to WPRI-TV. “It hurts. It’s painful. It conjures up a past that was horrific for people both in the black and the Jewish community.”
The Catholic community similarly reacted in horror, with Diocese of Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin saying that he was “stunned and profoundly sorry” to hear the comments.
“Racism is a sin, a grave sin, and expressions of racism will simply not be tolerated by any employee of the Diocese of Providence, its agencies or institutions,” Tobin said.
