Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Union Backs Teacher Who Punished Swastika-Drawing Student

A Massachusetts teacher’s union is backing a suspended high school teacher in a fight over a student who made a swastika out of masking tape.

According to a report in the Brockton, Mass. newspaper The Enterprise, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is coming to the defense of a Stoughton High School teacher now serving a 20-day suspension for her treatment of a student who drew a swastika in masking tape in a school hallway.

The teacher rescinded a letter of recommendation she had written for the student.

Two other teachers were also disciplined in connection with their handling of the incident. The union is defending all three of them.

“Educators will not allow bigotry and hate to take hold in our schools,” MTA president Barbara Madeloni told The Enterprise. “Nor will we allow those who speak and act against hate speech to be silenced.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.