COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. – Hundreds of students walked out of class at Columbia Heights Senior High Wednesday to protest a school board member’s alleged comments about Muslims on Facebook.

Those students and others are demanding the removal of board member Grant Nichols after his account posted a message to Facebook Sept. 6 that complained about Muslims and their hygiene, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

“No they are just unsanitary by bringing water into a bathroom and making a mess. Besides washing their feet, armpits in the sinks in the bathrooms. Power on the toilet seat. Touching door knobs after they wipe their but with their hands. They leave it a mess and no one says anything about that? Thats (sic) ok though. You probably don’t work with any of them?” the message read.

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Nichols denied writing the post, which was made in response to a Minneapolis Star Tribune story. He also denied repeated interview requests.

At a school board meeting Tuesday, vice chairman Ted Landwehr read a message from Nichols to the room in which he apologized for the comment, but denied responsibility and offered multiple excuses.

Nichols “said his phone had been hacked. He also said someone took his phone and wrote the comment,” according to the Star Tribune.

He also wrote that he doesn’t agree with the comment.

Board Chairman John Larkin, however, called out his colleague and alleged Nichols told him personally that he authored the controversial post, MPR reports.

Regardless, the board needed four votes to remove Nichols, who did not attend the meeting. Three board members voted for his ouster, but Landwehr voted to keep him.

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Larkin called Landwehr’s vote a slap in the face, and everyone in attendance cleared the room immediately after the vote, according to the Star Tribune.

“A community that was united saw a board that was not,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the Star Tribune. “We cannot have this type of a leader in front of our school while the school is in session.”

The next day, hundreds of Columbia Heights Senior High students walked out of class shortly after 9 a.m. to protest the board’s decision, and talked about their frustrations for about 45 minutes before heading back in.

“I feel very disrespected,” senior Sherouk Mohamed said. “The comment was just quite rude and it was off guard hearing from a school board member as well.”

Hussain said CAIR isn’t going to drop the issue, and will continue to rally the community to push for Nichols’ removal.

“The (Muslim) community is saddened obviously over the fact that Mr. Nichols was not removed from the board,” he told MPR. “But we do welcome the overwhelming support and unity over this issue.”

Several folks online pointed out obvious holes in Nichols’ story.

“So which was it, was his phone hacked or did someone take his phone and wrote the comment?” Lisa Reiter posted to Facebook.

“Doesn’t anybody else find Grant’s statement confusing? It wasn’t his intention to cause damage or inconvenience (inconvenience, say what?) … yet, he claims his phone was hacked? If your phone was hacked, you wouldn’t have any intentions at all,” Jill Nuebel wrote. “The truth is in his words.”

Others were a little more straight forward.

“Hey jerk … own it!” Todd Spangrud commented.