By Milt Harris ——Bio and Archives--October 6, 2026
Gladys Harris is a business professor at Passaic County Community College, a public two-year institution headquartered in Paterson, New Jersey, who became the named defendant in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by a former student in September 2026.
The suit alleges that during a July 2021 online business statistics class, Harris ordered student Justin Caiazzo to remove a “Trump 2020” flag visible on his bedroom wall behind him on Zoom, then called him a “racist” in front of his classmates.
When he asked why and refused to remove the flag, she removed him from the session. The college then backed Harris and offered him no relief. Caiazzo, 29, ultimately withdrew from the course and had to complete it at another university.
Caiazzo's lawsuit is based on the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, which permits civil damages for constitutional violations by state actors. The summer 2021 class in question was necessary for Caiazzo to complete his degree.
Caiazzo alleges the treatment carried into the next session: Harris allowed other students to speak over him while refusing to let him participate, and when he asked afterward about tutoring or discussing the exchange, she replied that he should get help on “tutor.com.”
He was told his options were to “remain in the class or take an F.” He then withdrew at his own expense. According to court documents, he withdrew “rather than continue under conditions regarded as hostile, unfair, unconstitutional, and academically untenable.” He then completed the same statistics course at William Paterson University and made that school’s Dean’s List in the spring 2025 and fall 2025 semesters.
He is now demanding unspecified damages for educational harm, emotional distress, and humiliation, plus attorney fees.
In an interview with the New York Post, his attorney, Marc Calello, said:
“Our client was wronged on many levels. There’s a difference between an opinion and a fact regardless of what side you’re on.”
This isn't the first time a New Jersey public college has confronted a student over a Trump image on Zoom.
In 2020, Stockton University, a public institution in New Jersey, charged doctoral student Robert Dailyda with six conduct violations for using a photo of President Trump as his Zoom background during class.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education intervened, and Stockton dropped all the charges against him.
Courts have consistently upheld this principle since the Tinker v. Des Moines case in 1969: passive political expression that does not disrupt education is protected. A flag displayed on a student’s bedroom wall during a Zoom call represents one of the most passive forms of political expression.
In December 1965, high school and junior high students Mary Beth Tinker (age 13), John Tinker (age 15), and Christopher Eckhardt (age 16) wore black armbands to school in Des Moines, Iowa. They did this to silently protest the Vietnam War and to mourn those who had died.
School officials learned about the plan in advance and quickly established a policy prohibiting armbands, warning that students who did not remove them would face suspension.
The students wore the armbands regardless and were suspended until they agreed to return without them.
At trial, the court ruled that wearing armbands constituted symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment, equivalent to pure speech, rendering a 7–2 decision in favor of the students.
Justice Abe Fortas wrote the now-famous quote that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
So, they definitely don’t lose them when they are on a Zoom call in the privacy of their own homes.
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Milt spent thirty years as a sales and operations manager for an international manufacturing company. He is also a four-time published author on a variety of subjects. Now, he spends most of his time researching and writing about conservative politics and liberal folly.