Teaneck Public Schools is making national headlines as it joins Newark Public Schools and Rutgers University for, according to the U.S. Department of Education, allegedly discriminating against students of a particular “race, color, and national origin,” a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Newark the discrimination is against Black students at the district’s High School of Global Studies. At Rutgers and in Teaneck, the discrimination is against Jewish students in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.

In Teaneck, a Bergen County bedroom community just outside of New York City, the Board of Education is under scrutiny for allegedly not allowing Jewish residents to speak freely about the war while permitting Muslim residents to speak at length. ”

At the October school board meeting, reports the Jewish Standard, 

“When one speaker said it’s possible to unequivocally condemn Hamas’s actions without taking a side in the conflict ‘unless of course you’re trying to appease people who actually think that the raping and murdering and pillaging of the community is appropriate,’ Board Vice President Victoria Fisher immediately cut him off. In contrast, the board remained silent when another commenter said, ‘These people talking about raping and piling bodies on top of each other, that happened in the Holocaust. And if they’re having PTSD for what they’re doing to the Muslim community in Palestine, that’s something they need to seek mental health counseling for.’”

“When a speaker rhetorically asked how others would feel if ‘Indigenous people in our country … pulled your kids out of their beds and then shot you in front of them,’ Fisher disapprovingly interrupted. But the board allowed someone else to freely comment that Israel’s ‘dehumanizing and genocidal actions’ and the ‘propaganda surrounding them have spread all the way to us, where kids are stabbed 26 times just for being Palestinian.’”

The Washington Post notes that Teaneck was once a “model of national unity” with its diverse population of Jews and Muslims, but now is a case study in conflict. “Oct. 7 was a shattering of the symbiotic relationship that existed between the Jewish community and the greater community here in Teaneck and around the world,” said Noam Sokolow, 56, who is Jewish and has placed dozens of photographs in his deli’s windows memorializing those missing in the Hamas attack that escalated the conflict. “I have been here for 35 years, and I have never seen this type of tension.”

Since October 7th there have been 44 investigations into educational institutions as a result of the Hamas attack; three of them are in New Jersey. USA Today quotes U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

“Hate has no place in our schools, period. When students are targeted because they are — or are perceived to be —Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, or any other ethnicity or shared ancestry, schools must act to ensure safe and inclusive educational environments where everyone is free to learn,” said Cardona. “These investigations underscore how seriously the Biden-Harris Administration, including the U.S. Department of Education, takes our responsibility to protect students from hatred and discrimination.”