Aug. 4 (UPI) -- A lawsuit is moving forward against a New Jersey high school over a Sikh student's claims that he was bullied and subjected to slurs over his faith and South Asian heritage as teachers and administrators ignored the harassment.
Gloucester
County Superior Court Judge Timothy Chell last month denied a request to
dismiss the suit.
"One way or
another, we expect restorative justice for this student, as well as meaningful
change to help other racial and religious minorities who may still be suffering
from the same kind of malice from their peers and neglect from those who should
protect them," Giselle Klapper, a senior staff attorney for the Sikh
Coalition, said in a statement.
The coalition, a
New York City nonprofit, is representing the student, along with New Jersey
attorney Brian Cige.
The suit accuses
the Gloucester County Special Services School District Board of Education of
violating the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination by failing to take remedial
action after being told of the abusive acts targeting the student on the basis
of his religion and national origin and by retaliating against him after he
reported the bullying.
A priority is to provide the student with a safe space to return to the classroom for in-person learning after the reopening of schools, which are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
High bullying
rate in USASikh American students are bullied at a rate
that is twice the national rate and that it has received 14 complaints related
to school bullying in the past year.
The lawsuit,
filed in May by A.M.'s mother on his behalf, alleges the teen was subjected to
a pattern of "bias-based bullying" beginning in early 2018 when
another student called him a "terrorist." Later in the year, the same
student started mocking A.M. -- described in the suit as having brown skin -- by
calling him "sand cricket" and using the N-word, the suit says.
Other students
began joining in and also spoke negatively about A.M.'s religious wear,
including the kara, a Sikh article of faith that he wears around his wrist, the
suit alleges
A.M. and his
mother met with school officials several times in December 2018 and January
2019 to report the harassment but the situation did not improve, the suit says.
