Last week Tamar Herman, the South Orange-Maplewood teacher who was put on administrative leave last year for allegedly pulling off the hijab of one of her second-grade students, filed a civil lawsuit against the South Orange Maplewood School District Board of Education and Fiedeldey Consulting, a consultant for student mental health. In this suit, Herman accuses the defendants of “complicity in a parade of outrageous, false, defamatory and antisemitic statements and relentless discriminatory treatment.”
Here are highlights from her lawsuit:
- Herman describes herself as a longtime “devoted teacher at the Seth Boyden Elementary School located in the SOMSD, one of New Jersey’s most diverse schools, one who has consistently incorporated diverse faiths, cultures, traditions, and backgrounds in her teaching and curriculum and has valued the same.” She has tenure, “which cannot be stripped from her without the SOMSD demonstrating just cause and providing her with a hearing.” No hearing has occurred.
- District policy is that “students are prohibited from wearing any item that blocks their vision and materially interferes with their schoolwork” so when the student’s vision appeared blocked by a face mask and a hoodie, Herman, who “believed in good faith that the student’s hijab was under this hood,” gently brushed back the hood. When she discovered she had touched the child’s hair, she “immediately apologized for the incident “which lasted mere seconds” and the “the student’s mother told the School’s Principal that she understood what had happened with her daughter to be a simple misunderstanding.”
However,
- Although the mother of the student stated to District officials that she understood that what had happened was a simple misunderstanding, “she changed her story when she learned that Herman was Jewish and took to social media to spread a false narrative with antisemitic overtones, accusing Plaintiff of removing the student’s hijab because Plaintiff is Jewish.”
Included in the lawsuit is a copy of the mother’s post on Facebook. This is the gist:
“TEACHER TOOK HER HIJAB OFF && SAID SHE CANT WEAR THAT IN SCHOOL…PUBLIC SCHOOL BTW.”
““I JUST FOUND OUT THE TEACHER IS JEWISHHHHHHHHHH �������������������������� . . . that’s why I believe she did it now I’m furious.”.
“SHE’S JEWISH OO SUS GOT A PROBLEM ON HER HANDS.”
“SHES JEWISH! Period TRY & CHANGE THAT! Imma print 1000 SHIRTS THAT SAYS HERMAN IS JEWISH! Imma keep saying that! Isn’t she? A JEWSIH TEACHER THAT TAUGHT AT A JEWISH SCHOOL & A PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR 30 YEARS PULLED MY MUSLIM 7 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER HIJAB OFF HER HEAD CLAIMING IT WAS A HOODIES.. SHE”S JEWISH!
- National media started covering the story once Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad put it on Instagram. Gov. Murphy tweeted out support for SOMA. Herman received threats on social media: “The next time I’m home in New Jersey, I’m, going to find out where this teacher resides, and I hope she has daughters….because I’m, going to take her clothes off in public. Im going to tell her daughter that her breasts are beautiful and she should expose them as much as possible.” Also, “Take that Bi ÷%# head off first thing in the Am.”
- The SOMA school board “placed Plaintiff on administrative leave without the benefit of a hearing or opportunity to defend herself against these false and scurrilous claims.” This is in spite of the fact that the second-grader’s mother had recently released “written statements and made a public video in which she expressed the antisemitism underlying her claims and her hope to make money off of the event. The video also shows the mother coaching her daughter about what to say…the District expressed no interest in the Plaintiff’s personal safety, despite the online threats, antisemitism and media furor and the fact that the Plaintiff was forced to ask the local Police Department for protection.”
- Although SOMA knew the allegation was false, it “enlisted Fiedeldey [the mental health consultant named in the suit] to add the October 6th incident to the “anti-bias” training as part of its efforts to display that it had the controversy under control.” Its presentation to SOMA staff “clearly impugned Plaintiff’s reputation and damaged her indelibly in the eyes of her professional colleagues throughout the District and beyond.”
- While the district claims to value diversity and “treat all members of the school community equally and provide a safe environment to both students and staff, it apparently did not mean the Jewish members.”
It is clear that for the SOMSD, antisemitic hate is not worthy of condemnation, while a nonsensical allegation of Islamophobia, that was admitted to have been a misunderstanding, that defies logic, and that is fueled by antisemitism is worthy of condemnation without even providing Plaintiff an opportunity to tell her side of the story.
Herman is suing for a lack of due process, violation of equal protection, violation of state law against discrimination, defamation, and invasion of privacy. She is asking for attorney fees, compensatory and punitive damages, and “other and further relief as the Court may deem just and equitable.”