Sleuthing students prompt firing of substitute teacher after they discover his ties to white nationalists

Students at the Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Maryland, discovered footage of their substitute teacher attending the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year and successfully got him fired, BuzzFeed News reports. The all-girls Catholic academy's president and CEO, Kathleen Ryan Prebble, told parents that the students learned Gregory Conte is "a member of the 'alt-right' movement" through social media sleuthing, The Root reports. "Prior to his firing, he was successfully using an alternate identity in his work with his atrocious group," Prebble wrote.

Conte, who used the internet alias Gregory Ritter, is the director of operations for the National Policy Institute, which is headed by white nationalist personality Richard Spencer. The National Policy Institute claims to be "dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world." Conte himself has claimed on Twitter that "Hitler did not commit any crime." He told ABC's affiliate network in Washington, D.C., that his firing was "sort of expected."

Prebble told Fox's local D.C. affiliate that there is "no reason to think that [Conte] negatively influenced any of our girls with his philosophy."

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