A Lexington County, South Carolina middle school teacher accused of running a neo-Nazi social media handle called “SC Nazi” is no longer employed with Lexington County School District One.
On Thursday, Tim Manning, of Columbia, SC, was placed on paid administrative leave after Identify Dixie referred to him as “the Nazi who gloriously f***ed up the Airbnb accommodations for the #UniteTheRight white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017.”
On Friday, Manning — a social studies teacher and volleyball coach at Pleasant Hill Middle School — requested to be released from his district contract, according to Lexington County School District One chief communications officer Mary Beth Hill. The district later approved his request.
Manning has denied running the “SC Nazi” Twitter account in question.
As of Friday afternoon, the tweet from Identify Dixie had been shared more than 450 times.
On Thursday, the district sent FITSNews the following statement:
“Late Wednesday afternoon, the district received social media accusations leveled at a 42-year-old social studies teacher at Pleasant Hill Middle School.
Acting in accordance with board policy and district procedure, Human Resources was immediately informed. The employee is on leave while the district thoroughly investigates the allegations. This is standard operating procedure.
The district takes any incident like this seriously and is thoroughly investigating.”
Lexington County School District One
Since the tweet was posted yesterday, the school district apparently deleted the following tweet welcoming Manning aboard in 2019.
The Southern Poverty Law Center first identified an individual by the name of Tim Manning as a “longtime neo-Confederate movement malcontent” who ran the Twitter account “SCNazi.”
“Manning was blackballed from ID (Identity Dixie) and the broader alt-right in summer 2017 after a news outlet used his posts on The Daily Stormer under the handle ‘SCNazi’ to reveal that the far right was scheduling lodging for the Unite the Right event using Airbnb,” SPLC wrote in the story.
Identify Dixie posted several comments allegedly written by Tim Manning on the pro-Nazi website “The Daily Stormer.”
Hours after the tweet was posted, the SCNazi account was de-activated.
While SPLC technically identified an ambiguous Tim Manning, “Identify Dixie” singled out Tim Manning of Columbia, South Carolina – who is a current teacher and volleyball coach at Pleasant Hill Middle School in Lexington County School District One and formerly taught at Crayton Middle School in Richland County School District One.
The Twitter account identified Manning specifically by scanning archived screenshots of the previously public facebook group “Identity Dixie.”
FITSNews founding editor Will Folks reached out to Manning late Wednesday for comment. Manning denied the accusations, saying he did not run the SCNazi Twitter account. Manning further stated he and his family had been receiving threats of violence in the aftermath of the Identify Dixie tweet – although he declined further comment pending a formal statement.
Sources familiar with the situation tell us Manning is in the process of obtaining a lawyer for the purpose of serving Twitter with a cease and desist letter.
Manning family lawyer Elizabeth Millender later sent NBC News and other outlets a statement on the family’s behalf further denying the accusations.
In the statement, Millender called the Twitter account “repugnant” and said Manning had nothing to do with it. She added in the statement that the family “sympathize in any way with, fringe or otherwise prejudicial groups or associations.”
FITSNews reached out to the Identify Dixie Twitter account to ask how sure they were that they identified the right person.
“Because I know the SPLC had lawyers crawling all through their articles vetting EVERYTHING to protect them from liability, I’m 100% sure,” the person running the Identify Dixie account told FITSNews.
Tim Manning is the son of “southern nationalist” Timothy D. Manning of Kernersville, North Carolina, according to his grandmother’s obituary. Timothy D. Manning Sr. has accused the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina of having a “hit” out against his son Christopher (Tim Manning Jr.’s brother) and being targeted by the police because of his pro-confederate ideologies, Chad Nance of the Camel City Dispatch reported in 2013.
This story will be updated.
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