Catholic school teacher with 'alt-right' views fired

A Catholic school substitute teacher in Maryland was fired after his students exposed his “alt-right" views online.

Students at the all-girl Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington first exposed Gregory Conte after discovering his Twitter profile that showed his white nationalist views, according to WTTG-TV.

The school’s ex-field hockey coach used the name “Gregory Ritter” on Twitter, and his account description said he’s the director of operations at the National Policy Institute, which white supremacist Richard Spencer runs.

Links to “Alt-Right Politics” podcasts on altright.com are often shared on his page as well.

Conte’s students also found footage of him attending the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., last summer.

The school knew about his “alt-right” views since October, WTTG reported, but didn’t say why it waited until January to fire him.

Last week, the school sent letters to parents informing them about Conte’s firing and saying his views didn’t impact the students.

Conte told WJLA-TV he wasn’t surprised the school booted him and mentioned he was open about “being pro-Trump, pro-Putin” and being proud of his European ancestry.

“I don’t regret it,” he told WTTG. “I obviously liked working at the school, and I miss everybody, but I understand the political situation and I expected them to act as they did.”

Some students were shocked to learn their teacher had “alt-right” views.

“I’m upset. I didn’t know he had this double life but it’s also shocking because I wouldn’t think that in this century there are people still like that out there,” one student told the station.

Others noticed he had a preference for Russian literature.

“During class, he would read Russian books or books about Putin and stuff like that,” another student said.