Teacher Resigns After Appearing In Blackface

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Teacher Resigns After Appearing In Blackface At Basketball Game

http://www.wftv.com/news/4382951/detail.html

MACON, Ga. -- A high school teacher who wore blackface at a student-faculty basketball game has resigned, saying "it was poor judgment and will never happen again."

Greg Dougherty said the school had offered to renew his contract for the fall, but he turned it down. The deal would have seen him suspended without pay and barred from school property and events for the rest of the current academic year.

Photographs from the Central High School game on March 25 show Dougherty wearing an exaggerated, Afro-style wig with brownish makeup covering his face and arms. A student also is pictured wearing brown makeup on his face and arms.

"I offer an apology to anybody I offended," Dougherty said Thursday. "My intent was never to offend. I was trying to generate laughter. It was poor judgment and will never happen again."

In 1999 Dougherty was accused of making sexually inappropriate comments to female students, Bibb County Schools Superintendent Sharon Patterson said.

"There's a pattern now of judgment issues," Patterson said.

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