Papa John’s founder calls resignation a ‘mistake’

The founder of Papa John’s now says that it was a “mistake” for him to resign as chairman of the company after it was revealed that he used a racial slur during a conference call.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that founder John Schnatter wrote in a letter to the board of Papa John’s that the directors “asked me to step down as chairman without apparently doing any investigation.”

“I agreed, though today I believe it was a mistake to do so,” Schnatter wrote in the letter, dated Saturday. “I will not allow either my good name or the good name of the company I founded and love to be unfairly tainted.”

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Schnatter resigned as chairman last week after he admitted to using the N-word during a conference call on public relations, first reported on by Forbes.

He told San Francisco news station KRON 4 on Saturday that because he used the word during a training session that it wasn’t actually a slur.

Schnatter reportedly recounted the incident in the letter, saying he said he wasn’t racist during the conference call.

“I then said something on the order of, Colonel Sanders used the word ‘N,’ (I actually used the word), that I would never use that word, and Papa John’s doesn’t use that word,” he wrote, according to The Journal.

Schnatter is still a member of the board, but is no longer allowed to use the offices at Papa John’s headquarters in Louisville, Ky., and will be removed from all advertising and marketing materials.

Schnatter has hired a trial attorney, Patricia Glaser, who requested that the board investigate the incident.

“He’s not going quietly,” Glaser told the Journal.