A Suffern Middle School teacher has apologized for a controversial Facebook post he made that some called offensive.

Music teacher Aaron Minsky posted "What I learned this week," and said "you can call a woman a..." derogatory word toward females, "but can't call a black a monkey."

Minsky has since deleted the post, saying he was reacting to controversial comments made recently by comedian Samantha Bee and actress Roseanne Barr.

He says his intended point was that "we must raise the level of dialogue in our country" and "derogatory language should not be used by or against anyone for any reason."

The school district says Minsky is still employed, but will not be teaching for the remainder of the school year.

District officials said in a statement, "While we are not at liberty to discuss personnel issues, the matter has been and will continue to be addressed. The Suffern Central School District places an extremely high premium on tolerance, diversity and inclusion. This very unacceptable incident will not deter our educators from the important work they do each day for every one of our students."