Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who said she was black and became leader of a Washington state NAACP chapter, lost two outside portfolios Monday as revelations about her deception continued to roil social media and cable news.
After Ms. Dolezal’s resignation Monday as head of the Spokane chapter of the black civil-rights group, it was reported that she was no longer employed either by the city’s alternative weekly or the local university where she had taught Africana Studies.
Ms. Dolezal had been a weekly columnist for the Pacific Northwest Inlander, but editor Jacob H. Fries wrote in a piece on the paper’s website Monday evening that questions about her truthfulness cannot be set aside.
“As one of the many organizations that put their faith in Dolezal, we, too, feel manipulated and deceived. We also feel empathy for Dolezal — she is a person, not an idea, and the global shaming she’s enduring is sizable — but truth is truth. For journalists especially, truth and the trust that comes from sharing it are sacrosanct, and we can provide no shelter for anyone who threatens that covenant. As a result, Dolezal no longer writes for this paper,” Mr. Fries wrote.
Separately on Monday, Eastern Washington University told Breitbart News that she no longer worked at the Spokane school where she had taught on race relations and black and African culture since 2010.
Spokesman David Meany said Ms. Dolezal’s contract expired last Friday and she is “no longer an employee of Eastern Washington University.”
He told Breitbart News editor-at-large John Nolte that the school had removed from its website a profile of Ms. Dolezal that had overstated things by falsely identifying her as a professor.
“Dolezal was listed as a professor but she was never a professor,” but rather an “adjunct instructor hired on a quarterly basis,” Mr. Meany said. “Either she or one of her staffers listed her inaccurately as a professor.”
The possibility of future employment for Ms. Dolezal at EWU was left open, however.
“When asked if Dolezal’s contract would be renewed next quarter, as it has been every quarter since 2010, [Mr. Meany] said he had no idea,” Mr. Nolte wrote at the popular conservative news site.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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