Chemistry teacher repeatedly uses N-word as students beg him to stop

A Tennessee student recorded her chemistry teacher using a racial slur multiple times in class.

Hero Lawson told WVLT-TV that she used her phone to record the teacher, who the station did not identify, after he used the N-word in class Monday and tried to justify it.

“He said it the first time, and bam -- we were on him,” Lawson said.

The South-Doyle High School teacher told the class he could use the word if he was repeating what students were saying, adding the slur was part of the English language.

"There's a difference between calling somebody that -- that's derogatory," the teacher said. "I told you before, I'm tired of that language. It goes on back and forth, and they say, 'But we're brothers.'"

Some of the students asked him to stop, and the 16-year-old Lawson said the teacher owes her classmates an apology.

“From the looks on their faces, there was a certain type of anger that they were bringing out that you could tell it was hurt,” she said. “It was not just anger. It was flat-out hurt. And, you could hear it in their voices when they are pleading for this guy to shut up. Just stop.”

Knox County Schools told the TV station the teacher had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, adding the district does not tolerate racism.