GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – One week ago the board of education for the Green Bay School District unanimously accepted Dr. Claude Tiller Jr’s. resignation. This following comments he made on an Atlanta based radio show. We’ve seen some in the community come to Tiller’s defense.
On Saturday, dozens of Green Bay parents, students and community members joined together Saturday in support of Tiller.
In response, several local social justice organizations together hosted a community meeting to discuss the circumstances surrounding the resignation.
“It’s about what we feel in our heart is wrong and what we know would not happen had he been white,” Scott said. “No superintendent would have been blasted all over the media and treated like some common criminal and that is what happened.”
While Tiller wasn’t there, Dr. Adrienne Berry, the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show where Tiller made his comments, was.
“I think that people have a right to say and think and feel what they say and think and feel so I do not find any of his comments offensive,” Berry said.
She was one of several who spoke up in defense of Tiller. The meeting included a call to action
“That this starts necessary conversations and that you all will see a more systemic change in this community in terms of what your public officials look like and that they’re more representative of the entire community,” Berry said.
Berry believes the situation can be reconciled if Tiller is reinstated.
“You have an all white school board that brought him here,” Berry said. “They couldn’t have possibly thought that there would never be conversations about race and that’s what he was talking about.”
Those in attendance say they plan to make their voices heard during a board of education meeting Monday night.
Following Tiller’s resignation, in an email to Fox 11, Jenkins & Associates LLC – the agency that helped release Tiller’s resignation statement said — he wasn’t planning to take any legal action against the district. Instead, “His immediate focus will shift to returning to his home in Michigan, where he intends to spend quality time with his family.
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