The Shawano School Board is calling on a board member to resign after he postedwhat hesaid was "a joke" about the death of George Floyd.

Shawano School Board member Mart Grams wrote on Facebook on Saturday: "You know George Floyd is drug free for 2 months."

The Facebook post was deleted on Monday.

Floyd died in May after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. The video of his deathspawned protests around the world including many marches and protests in Milwaukee, Madison and elsewhere in Wisconsin.

RELATED: See the more than 45 communities in Wisconsin that have had protests against police brutality and racial inequality

Grams emailed Green Bay TV station WBAY a statement on Sunday, calling his Facebook post"A joke, period. Anyone can say it was insensitive, or poor taste, but, once the racist cards come out, the raw hatred, we have a very poorly trained generation who cannot deal with the slightest contradiction to what the (sic) are told."

Shawano School Board members called a special session Sunday evening to condemn Grams' use of "racially derogatory terminology and of his irresponsible statements mocking the death of Mr. Floyd."

The board called on Grams to immediately resign. As of Monday he has not done so, said School Board Vice President Michael Sleeper. Grams did not attend Sunday night's school board meeting

On Monday community members contacted authorities seeking information about how to formally recall Grams from his elected position, Sleeper said in a phone interview.

"Whether that would come to a recall I dont know," Sleeper said.

By Sunday night - before it was removed -Grams' post had drawn more than 800 comments, many of them calling on him to resign or for the school board to force him out.

One commenter wrote, "Contrary to what you tried to pass off as a reason when you spoke to Action Two News, this isn't just a joke nobody understood. It's racist trash."

The school district, in the city of 9,300located 40 miles northwest of Green Bay, issued a statement earlier Sunday to the Green Bay television station saying Grams was speaking as an individual and doesn't represent or reflect the values of other school board members or the school district.

Since Grams is an elected official, the school district said, "under Wisconsin law, the board does not have the authority to remove or to discipline a member of the board. An elected school board member may be removed through the electoral process, including through recall, but not by action of the school board."

But the measure passed by the school board Sunday evening, following complaints about his Facebook post, contends that Grams' conduct is harmful to the school district and its commitment to equal opportunity and treatment.

According to his LinkedIn profile and Facebook bio page, Grams taught civics in the Shawano-Gresham School District from 1987 to 2016 after teaching one year in the Winneconne School District.He was aU.S. Army intelligence specialist from 1976 to 1980. He earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a master's in history atViterbo University in La Crosse.

His Facebook bio also claims he earned a Ph.D. in economics at Patrick Henry University though when a reporter from the Shawano Leader couldn't find that institution and questioned Grams about it when he ran for school board in 2017, he admitted that he made it up.

Patrick Henry University is a fictional college in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged." His LinkedIn profile says Gramsearned a doctorate of philosophy from Patrick Henry University.

Grams acknowledged toShawano Leader reporter Scott Williams that students had called him "Dr. Grams" for years, but he said he didn't think he misled them by saying he had a Ph.D. from a fictional university.

Everybody knows that theres no such place, Grams said.

When Williams asked how anyone would know he was talking about a fictional university, Gramssaid: I dont know how they would know, unless theyre well-read.

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Wisconsin school board member asked to resign after posting that 'George Floyd is drug free for 2 months' - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel