School official responds to racist tweet uproar: Both my daughters had black prom dates!

A Virginia school administrator responded Thursday to the uproar over her controversial social media posting from earlier this year.

Amy Strickland, an assistant principal at Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington High School, re-tweeted a post from the @OrNahhTweets account in June that students have protested as racist.

The post showed a group of black boys and white girls paired off in couples and dressed in prom apparel, along with the caption, “Every white girl’s father’s worst nightmare or nah?”

Students walked out of class this week in protest after they learned about Strickland’s post, which she made before the school hired her.

She was placed on administrative leave this week, reported WAVY-TV, and she attempted to explain the post by saying she’d forwarded the tweet to her daughter.

“I have devoted years of my life to educating students in a predominantly African American school and was named Teacher of the Year for the predominantly African American Portsmouth school system last year,” Strickland said in a statement. “Partly because of my exemplary record of working well and achieving success in an urban school system, I was hired this fall as Assistant Principal at Booker T. Washington.”

Strickland, who is white, said she never perceived the post as racist.

She pointed out that both of her daughters had black dates to last year’s prom, the station reported.

Officials from the Norfolk chapter of the NAACP said they did not believe Strickland is racist, but they said the post she retweeted expressed a racist message.

They still want an explanation from Strickland about why she retweeted the post.

The school board president said the school district was taking the matter seriously and reviewing the matter for appropriate action.

Watch this video report posted online by WAVY-TV: