After McFadden School of Excellence assigned a student to give the Nazi salute in a Hitler outfit for a living history assignment, an 11-year-old student demanded her classmates stop and was sent to the principal's office, according to a Twitter thread initiated by her father.

As part of the exhibit on World War II, one student was assigned to portray Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party leader who orchestrated the mass killing of Jews during the Holocaust. In this role, the student was expected to deliver a speech and perform a Nazi salute at the end, according to Rutherford County Schools spokesman James Evans.

"During rehearsal on Thursday, May 9, the student gave his presentation, and when he gave his salute, some other students in the class responded with the same salute," Evans said.

Keith Jacks Gamble, who works at Middle Tennessee State University, chronicled the events in a Twitter thread Wednesday morning, providing screenshots of emails sent by his wife Lauren Jacks Gamble to Principal Clark Blair. At the start of the thread, Gamble asked Twitter users to leave a comment with support for his daughter, who is pictured sitting in the blue horseshoe on the MTSU campus.

The girl became upset and was sent to the principal's office to calm down, not to be disciplined, Evans said.

The Gambles did not provide further comment for this story.

Students at McFadden, one of the district's magnet schools, have participated in living history assignments as far back as 2007, according to DNJ archives.

School: Daughter removed for being 'disrespectful'

The thread details the assignment: Dating back to early April, fifth-grade students researched various historical figures and time periods as assigned by the teacher.

In an email provided by the student's mother from teacher Jennifer Austin, Gamble's daughter was given a platform to express her disdain with the assignment when she saw several classmates performing the gesture, but was told "not to address it again."

As the research portion of the project continued, students began performing the Nazi salute around campus, the email said. Each time, Gamble's daughter confronted them, but they continued doing it, ultimately planning to do a "mass Nazi salute" directed at her. The student told her teacher, who addressed the situation with students and asked them to refrain from the gesture.

During the final rehearsal for the assignment, a group of students performed the salute, and Gamble's daughter shouted, "Stop it. Put your hands down now."

In the same email from Austin, the teacher wrote the girl was removed from the classroom for "being disrespectful with her tone and body language to teachers."

The girl was sent to Blair's office, but no discipline took place, according to Evans.

The thread says during the performance that was shown to parents, the student's mother observed several students performing the salute who weren't participating in the demonstration. When Gamble's daughter and her team were presented with an award during an assembly on May 10, the girl used the time allotted for her acceptance speech to talk about why the salute was wrong and encouraged parents to discuss it further with their children.

Evans said the student's mother has discussed the issue with Blair. In turn, the principal met with all fifth-graders about what took place "and to put a stop to any further instances," Evans said in an email.

School: History project won't include Hitler next year

Hitler won't be covered as part of next year's living history project, the spokesman said.

"The school will find alternative means of covering the fifth-grade history standard," Evans' email said.

"Our director of schools also sent an email to fifth-grade parents to assure them we do not condone any type of symbolism or actions that can be interpreted as hate-filled or insensitive," the spokesman said.

Williamson County Schools dealt with racist and culturally insensitive assignments this year. In February, two social studies teachers at Sunset Middle School in Brentwood issued an assignment that asked students to pretend their families owned slaves and to create a list of expectations for those slaves.

The teachers resigned from their jobs in March and are no longer employed by the school system.

That incident came a few weeks after some students at the same school linked arms between classes to form a human chain and then barred non-white students from passing. The students likened it to President Donald Trump's border wall proposal.

What do you think of the assignment? Reach Brinley Hineman at bhineman@gannett.com and on Twitter @brinleyhineman.