BERKELEY — Yvette Felarca, the middle school teacher who made headlines last summer when video showed her hitting a man at a white supremacist rally, is at the center of another controversy, this one over a recent interview she gave to Fox News.

A political organizer for the anti-racism advocacy group By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN, and a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, Felarca talked to Fox News correspondent Tucker Carlson during a show that aired Feb. 13 about a scheduled appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley on Feb. 1.

The Yiannopoulos appearance was canceled after members of a group of about 100 to 150 masked, black-clad people threw rocks, broke windows and set fires during what otherwise was a peaceful protest outside the event venue. That group’s actions have since been the subject of nationwide debate and criticism.

Felarca said she was among thousands of people defending immigrant Muslim students that day from fascists, and contended that she and others had prevented Yiannopoulos from whipping up a lynch mob mentality by shutting him down.

Asked by Carlson if someone like Yiannopoulos, whom Felarca has characterized as a fascist, should be allowed to speak in public, she responded:

“He should not be allowed to speak in public to spread his racist and misogynistic and homophobic lies. No, he does not have the right to do that.”

Felarca’s local notoriety began after a June 26 melee in Sacramento, when she was recorded on video hitting a man at a rally by the Traditionalist Worker Party. About three months later, the Berkeley Unified School District put Felarca on administrative leave, but she is back in the classroom teaching again. Fellarca later sued the district alleging defamation and violation of her civil rights.

Some footage from the June 26 melee is included in the Feb. 13 Fox broadcast.

BUSD spokesman Charles Burress said the district as well as King Middle School have received numerous phone calls and emails about Fellarca.

“All of the messages, emails and calls that I’ve read or received have been critical of Ms. Felarca,” Burress said, adding, that many of the calls referred to the video at the Sacramento demonstration in June and her Feb. 13 interview with Carlson.

For further comment, Burress referred to a June 29 statement from district Superintendent Donald Evans and school board then-President Beatriz Levya-Cutler. The district issued another statement Oct. 5.

The district added another statement on Feb. 15 from Evans and school board President Ty Alper.

Felarca was not immediately available for comment.