NEW York City officials are investigating a Staten Island assistant principal after a Facebook post on the teacher's profile slammed the jobless for wearing $200 sneakers.

The post, which appeared on Deborah Morse-Cunningham's Facebook page and asked "what is privilege?", was dubbed "anti-Black", and a petition is demanding her termination.

"Privilege is wearing $200 sneakers when you've never had a job," read the post, which appeared on the New Dorp High School assistant principal's page.

"Privilege is wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance."

The post, which has since been removed, continued: "Privilege is living in public subsidized housing where you don’t have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table."

A Change.org petition has called for her removal.

"As someone responsible for the tutelage of our youth, this is especially troubling and problematic rhetoric to say the least," the petition states.

"This leads me to question what kind of practices she's instilled in the culture at New Dorp High School, and what kind of environment our children are learning in, especially Black youth."

The petition said Morse-Cunningham, who has been an assistant principal at New Dorp High School since 2007, "has decided to use her platform and social media presence to post anti-Black messaging."

During the year 2018-2019, the school had a student body that was 52 per cent white, 27 per cent Hispanic or Latino and 10 per cent Black or African American, according to the New York State Education Department.

Miranda Barbot, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education, said in a statement the department "stands against racism and schools must be safe and inclusive learning environments.
"Teachers and staff have a responsibility to uphold those values, and the principal reported this incident for investigation," Barbot said, according to NBC News.

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