Fired Alt-Right Substitute Teacher At Maryland Catholic School Defends Beliefs

A substitute and field hockey coach defended his affiliation with the alt-right movement Friday after being fired from the Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Maryland.

It was confirmed Friday that Greg Conte was fired from the all-girls college preparatory school for his strong political stance. The academy's president discovered in late October that Conte had ties to the movement, according to Bethesda Magazine. After admitting to his alt-right affiliation, he was then fired from both positions immediately.

"Diversity leads to social problems, it leads to conflict, it leads to war," Conte told WJLA reporter Anna-Lysa Gayle.

"What do you say to people who say that social problems arise regardless of whether there is diversity?" Gayle asked in response.

"That's true, they will arise," Conte said. "It's just going to be worst if there is diversity."

Officials from the Academy of the Holy Cross recently discovered that Conte was a member of the alt-right movement. He is also the current director of operations at National Policy Institute (NPI), a white nationalist think tank in Virginia led by Richard Spencer. Conte has participated in demonstrations with Spencer in Charlottsville, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

While working at NPI, he reportedly used the pseudonym "Gregory Ritter."

"[Conte] was fired from Holy Cross immediately after his affiliation with the 'alt-right' came to my attention," Kathleen Ryan Prebble, the academy's president and CEO, said in a message addressed to parents Thursday. "Prior to his firing, he was successfully using an alternate identity in his work with this atrocious group."

"As for his potential impact on our girls, I conducted an investigation at the time of the firing and determined there was no reason to think he negatively influenced any of our girls with his philosophy. It appears that at the time he was focused on maintaining an appropriate persona for our school environment," Prebble added.

Conte wasn't surprised by his termination, but he was dissatisfied. He claimed the school likely fired him because "they were afraid of negative backlash in the media," according to WRC-TV.