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As West High School students walked out of school Friday to protest the firing of a black Madison security guard for using the N-word to correct a student, the former employee got a major boost from an unexpected corner.

Celebrity dynamo Cher sent a tweet to her 3.7 million followers Friday offering to pay the legal expenses for Marlon Anderson, who was fired Wednesday for the incident earlier this month.

"If You Want To sue MMSD Ed.Board I Will Incur Your expenses," Cher wrote.

Anderson was dealing with a troublesome student on Oct. 9 when the student repeatedly called him the N-word. Both Anderson and the student are black.

Anderson told the student to stop using the slur, repeating the word itself, a violation of the Madison School District's zero-tolerance policy toward staff use of such language toward students.

He is appealing his termination.