A Melbourne principal wanted to make a powerful speech about the Christchurch terror attacks when he used racial slurs and discussed his family’s Nazi connections at a school assembly.
Brighton Secondary College principal Richard Minack on Friday appeared as a witness at a Federal Court trial brought by five former students against him, the school, teachers and the state of Victoria.
The students allege they experienced anti-Semitic bullying, discrimination and negligence at the school between 2013 and 2020, which has been denied by all respondents.
Mr Minack told the court he wanted to make a “powerful instructive speech” for the anniversary of the 2019 Christchurch mass shootings, when he gave a speech that offended students.
He said he wanted students to think about “how these things might possibly come out and make them vigilant to these processes”.
“I wanted to make a speech that was really authentic and powerful,” he said.
“So I decided to share some of my own personal family history with the school, which I had not done before.”
In the speech Mr Minack discussed how his father had fought for the German army during World War II and used the N-word.
Asked about why he did this, he said a Brighton school alumni had told him the school’s uniform in the 1950s had the colours of “Nigger brown” and “Chinaman yellow”.
Read the article by Emily Woods in the Hawkesbury Gazette (AAP).