Fair Lawn—A 16-year-old student at Fair Lawn High School, who was questioned by school administrators last week regarding whether she cyber-bullied a classmate, became the focus of worldwide attention, causing Fair Lawn High School’s administrators, school board, police and community institutions to review their security policies and procedures, prompting the town to step up additional protection to any potential targets. Fair Lawn’s mayor, John Cosgrove, told the Jewish Link that he believed the situation had been blown out of proportion and that his number one priority was simply to ensure the security of all the town’s citizens.
Bethany Koval, the student, was widely reported in media sources, including The New York Times, to be Jewish with pro-Palestinian political views. Her more than 4,000 Twitter followers could be mistaken for a roll call for organizations aligned with Hamas, Hezbollah, BDS and Students for Justice in Palestine. Her tweets, which were made private on Friday, included widely reported statements such as “Israel is a terrorist force” and Hamas is “not extreme.”
However, the Fair Lawn school board maintained that the questioning she faced was not at all about her views, but, in fact, about whether she cyber-bullied a classmate she referred to as “that pro-Israel girl in my school,” whom she then identified under separate cover to a Twitter follower who asked for it. Cosgrove concurred with that view and said that he felt the school board went completely by the book about bullying allegations and that there was no issue at all in terms of anyone’s political views.
On Monday, in the wake of many online activists associated with Palestinian causes crowing that the school administrator sought to muzzle Koval’s right to free speech, the school board’s president, Bruce Watson, made the following statement to the media: “We stress at the outset that at no time have district officials sought to censor or reprimand any pupils for their online speech.”
Adding that they respect every student’s right to free speech, Watson said that the school initially responded to a complaint regarding Harassment, Intimidation or Bullying (HIB) by one student against another. Watson himself had been threatened by name in an online video alleged to have been made by the hacker group Anonymous. The video demanded that Watson apologize to Koval. “If you fail to meet these simple requests for one who has done no wrong, committed no crime, only exercised her constitutionally protected right to free speech, it will be you who suffers in the end,” a robotic voice stated in the video.
But Watson did not apologize to Koval, as the voice on the video demanded. Instead, he unequivocally stated that the board would stay the course and complete its investigation. “We are obligated by New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Statute—one of the strictest in the nation—to investigate any such allegation to determine whether an act of HIB occurred under the statute,” Watson said.
Meanwhile, Koval’s followers and friends, most of them outside Fair Lawn, created the hashtag #IStandWithBenny, the young woman’s nickname. Noelle Holden of Arizona, who identified herself as a “close friend of Bethany” started a GoFundMe page, which, at press time, had not yet reached its $1,000 fundraising goal for a legal defense. It appeared that almost all the support for Koval originated online, creating a hostile online environment but without too much overt change in Fair Lawn’s quiet suburbs. In short, almost all the uproar has occurred online.
“Our diversity is our strength. Fair Lawn is a shining example of a community that gets along. Community police officers even run our interfaith task force,” said Cosgrove. He added that in addition to the community rabbanim, he had also been in touch last week with several religious leaders from other local institutions, who were concerned about the safety of all the town’s 33,500 residents in the wake of so much attention. “They were sharing concern not just for their congregants but for everyone,” he said.
Marc Zharnest, a Fair Lawn community organizer and a young leader at Congregation Shomrei Torah, added that the online activities cast unwanted attention on an otherwise peaceful town which is proud of its many interfaith activities and annual events.
He said that on Thursday and Friday the Fair Lawn Police Department increased its presence on the various school campuses and shuls and continued with increased patrols throughout the weekend.
Zharnest added that Cosgrove had made particular efforts to reach out to the Jewish community and ensured that Jewish institutions also received additional patrols, in light of the attention the community received. Cosgrove, who before serving as mayor was the town’s fire chief, is a regular visitor at Fair Lawn shuls for community events and shiurim, and has consulted with them on security issues from time to time, as well as safety issues involving crosswalks in front of community institutions, for example. “I’ve lived in Fair Lawn my whole life, and even though I’m Irish Catholic, I know a lot about Judaism,” he joked to the Jewish Link. He even shared that he has had the pleasure of helping many community rabbis light communal menorahs in Fair Lawn for the past several years, and enjoys the festivities he shares with the town’s Jewish community as well as the many relationships he has formed with Jewish residents.
Zharnest added that while Fair Lawn was indeed quiet over the weekend, the observant community remained tense. He said he spoke to all of the community rabbanim late last week, shared that organizations associated with the observant community had increased their security over the course of the weekend, but had not received any specific threats.
On Sunday, many Fair Lawn parents as well as some alumni and current students rallied at the high school in support of the school’s administration and board. Many of them gave interviews to national media sources, hailing the school for its strong stance against bullying.
By Elizabeth Kratz
