White Professor Rachel Dolezal under fire for pretending she's black(Photos)

A white professor and civil rights leader is under fire for claiming she was black..Spokane's NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)Chapter President Rachel Dolezal, has been misleading people about her ethnicity for years.

Dolezal, who has been a civil rights activist across Idaho and Washington and works part-time as an Africana Studies professor at Eastern Washington University, is now facing a city ethics probe for falsely claiming on an application that she was black.

Her parents, who are estranged from their daughter, say they first found out she was claiming to be African American as they read a newspaper article about her 'some years ago'.They say they are Czech, Swedish and German..

They have also claimed that she cut them out because she didn't want them ruining her image.Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal spoke from their home in Troy, Montana on Friday ..Her mum told CNN

Rachel has chosen to distance herself from the family and be hostile towards us,' her mother said. 'She doesn't want us to be where she is, she doesn't want to be seen with us because it ruins her image.'

They say their daughter began sounding African American on the phone and then she started to 'disguise herself' from around 2007, her parents said.

Although they and other friends in their community knew that she was white, they did not speak out about it because they originally thought it was an 'artistic representation'.

But after learning that she was claiming to be African American, they did not take the initiative to say anything until they were recently contacted, they said.

'We've never been asked these questions until now,' her father said.

The 37-year-old divorcee sports tight, dark curls, but childhood photos show a fair and freckled blonde child

It's very sad that Rachel has not just been herself,' 'Her effectiveness in the causes of the African-American community would have been so much more viable, and she would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everybody.

She has also previously claimed that her white father is her step-father.

In January, a photo showing Dolezal and a black man on the Spokane NAACP's Facebook erroneously identified the man as her father.

On Wednesday, a reporter from KXLY confronted Dolezal a photo of her with the African-American man while on camera.

'Ma'am, I was wondering if your dad really is an African-American man,' the KXLY reporter asked.

'I don't understand the question,' Dolezal replied. 'I did tell you [that man in the picture] is my dad.'

'Are your parents white?' the reporter asked. Dolezal then removed her mic and walked away.

Reached by the Spokesman-Review, Dolezal answered questions about her ethnicity by saying:

'That question is not as easy as it seems... There's a lot of complexities … and I don't know that everyone would understand that... We're all from the African continent.'