Crystal River teacher pulled over podcast allegations

CRYSTAL RIVER (FOX 13) - A Citrus County teacher is in the middle of a firestorm after being accused of hosting a white nationalist podcast. 

Left-leaning news website The Huffington Post says Dayanna Volitich, a teacher at Crystal River Middle School, hosts the podcast under the pseudonym Tiana Dalichov. 

One parent, who says she knows Volitich, has a hard time believing the accusations. 

"I would trust her with a gun to defend my child,” said the woman, who gave her name as Jessica.  "I see accusations flying around all the time with no facts to really support it. I haven't seen the podcast, but it sounds like she's stating an unpopular opinion. That's not worthy of you guys being out here." 

The podcast is called "Unapologetic." In one episode, she and guest Brian Hendrix discuss his views on Hurricane Katrina and the African American population:

"It was this ingrained hunter-gatherer culture that left them unprepared for Hurricane Katrina and it wasn't the government that was to blame for this and their reaction to this ingrained culture." 

Volitich wasn't home when we knocked on her door for comment, but her neighbor was.  

"She's so quiet, you know, keeps to herself. She seems like a decent individual,” he offered.

"If my tax dollars are paying her salary, I’ll move out of Citrus County,” countered another resident.

After the article was published, the podcast was taken down, and her social media accounts have been removed.  A tweet captured before that read, "it isn't supremacist or hateful to prefer your own people over others." 

In another episode of the Unapologetic podcast, the host details a time when a parent wrote in to the school's principal.  

"The parents went over me and emailed my principal and said ‘I’m worried that your teacher is injecting political views’ and the principal came to me and said ‘I’m not worried, should I be?’ I said no and she believed me and I haven't heard anything since." 

Volitich never claims to be a white a separatist on any of the podcasts we have reviewed, nor does she claim her show is about white supremacy. The Huffington Post article that launched this investigation appears to take some of Volitch's comments out of context.

FOX 13 has tried to reach out to Volitich for her side of the story, but so far we have been unable to reach her.

Meanwhile, she has been removed from the classroom while the school board investigates the allegations.