The woman who resigned as head of an NAACP chapter in 2015 after mispresenting herself as Black, Rachel Dolezal, was working for the Catalina Foothills Unified School District until its officials learned Tuesday of social media content under her current name.
“We only learned of Ms. Nkechi Diallo’s OnlyFans social media posts yesterday afternoon. Her posts are contrary to our district’s ‘Use of Social Media by District Employees’ policy and our staff ethics policy. She is no longer employed by the Catalina Foothills School District,” said a district spokeswoman, Julie Farbarik, in an emailed statement Wednesday to the Arizona Daily Star.
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District board meeting records show Diallo was hired as an after-school instructor at $19 an hour effective Aug. 9, 2023, with a contract to run through May 24 of this year, contingent at that time upon fingerprint clearance.
Farbarik confirmed to the Star in an email Wednesday that Diallo was a part-time after-school extended day instructor in the Community Schools Program beginning last August, working with K-5 grade levels.
“She was also a substitute with Educational Services Inc., our contracted substitute provider,” wrote Farbarik, the district’s director of alumni and community relations. Asked by the Star for comment, that company wrote: “As a private employer, ESI does not release information on any past, present, or potential employees.”
Farbarik did not respond to the Star’s question about what district officials knew about Diallo’s history when she was hired.
Diallo could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Then going by the name Dolezal, Diallo stepped down as NAACP chapter president in Spokane, Washington, after her parents came forward in 2015 to say she was white but had spent years claiming to be Black.
Diallo’s Catalina Foothills employment and the OnlyFans content were first reported by KVOA News on Tuesday. Explicit photos were being shared on public websites including Reddit, KVOA reported, saying, “It is unclear if the photos were shared by Diallo or if they were placed there by someone else.”
The New York Post reported Wednesday that Diallo is selling risque photos and video on OnlyFans.
The district policy Farbarik said Diallo violated says, in part, employees are prohibited from communicating on social media in an unprofessional manner that would significantly harm their “work-related reputation.”
Interviewed on the Tamron Hall Show from her home in Tucson in 2021, Diallo said she had been unable to find a job and struggled to provide for her children after the furor and international headlines over her self-identifying as transracial. She said she made money braiding hair, writing grants and painting.
Diallo’s LinkedIn profile describes her as an educator specializing in curriculum development who lives in Tucson. She previously posted on LinkedIn: “Thanks to the Tucson Festival of Books for including my memoir, ‘In Full Color: Finding my Place in a Black & White World.’”
The Amazon description of the 2017 memoir, published under the name Rachel Dolezal by BenBella Books, says: “With In Full Color, Rachel Dolezal describes the path that led her from being a child of white evangelical parents to an NAACP chapter president and respected educator and activist who identifies as Black. Along the way, she recounts the deep emotional bond she formed with her four adopted Black siblings, the sense of belonging she felt while living in Black communities in Jackson, Mississippi, and Washington, DC, and the experiences that have shaped her along the way.
“Her story is nuanced and complex, and in the process of telling it, she forces us to consider race in an entirely new light — not as a biological imperative, but as a function of the experiences we have, the culture we embrace, and, ultimately, the identity we choose,” the publisher says.
Axios Phoenix reported in March 2023 that Diallo joined Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs that month for the signing of an executive order that bans state agencies and contractors from practicing race-based hair discrimination.
The Daily Mail reported Diallo moved to Tucson in 2020, Axios said.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported in April 2019 that Diallo agreed in a diversion plea agreement to pay nearly $9,000 in restitution and complete 120 hours of community service to avoid going to trial on two felony charges of welfare fraud. Investigators alleged she failed to report income from her memoir when obtaining food and child-care assistance.
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