A New Jersey professor stopped class and called a student a racist over a Trump flag on his bedroom wall.
The college investigated – and called it his fault.
What the college did to his diploma after he withdrew is the part that crosses every line.
Passaic County Community College Professor Stopped Class to Call a Trump Supporter a Racist
Justin Caiazzo was sitting in his own home in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey, in July 2021, attending an online business statistics class at Passaic County Community College via Zoom.
A Trump 2020 flag hung on his wall – the kind millions of Americans still have in their homes.
Professor Gladys Harris spotted it and stopped the entire class.
She told Caiazzo the session would not continue until that flag came down. When he asked what was wrong with it, Harris called it "offensive" and waited for him to comply.
He didn't move.
So Harris called him a "racist" – in front of every student watching on Zoom – and removed him from the call.
He hadn't mentioned politics once during class.
The flag was simply hanging on his wall the way flags and family photos hang in homes across this country, and that wasn't good enough for Professor Harris.
At the next session, Harris let other students drown him out and refused to give him the floor.
When Caiazzo sought tutoring help after class, she pointed him to "tutor.com" and refused to address what had just happened.
He escalated to school officials, including Dean Peter Hynes. The college launched a review – and sided with the professor.
The school offered no transfer, no no-credit withdrawal, nothing. It formally treated his political expression as "disfavored" and left him with no recourse.
Caiazzo withdrew from the course rather than finish under those conditions.
Passaic County Community College Has a First Amendment Problem – and New Jersey Has Seen This Before
This is not the first time a New Jersey public college declared war on a student over a Trump image on Zoom.
In 2020, Stockton University – another New Jersey public institution – 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 every single charge.
New Jersey public colleges are arms of the government. The First Amendment does not suggest that public institutions tolerate political speech – it commands them to.
Passaic County Community College cannot punish a student for displaying a political flag in his own home any more than it could punish him for writing "Trump" in the margin of his notebook.
Courts have upheld this consistently since Tinker v. Des Moines in 1969 – passive political expression that doesn't disrupt education is protected, and a flag on a student's bedroom wall during a Zoom call is about as passive as political expression gets.
That is settled law – and Professor Harris didn't enforce a neutral classroom rule, she enforced her own politics on a government salary.
Now she and the college are named defendants in a lawsuit filed in New Jersey Superior Court. Caiazzo's attorney Marc Calello told the New York Post: "Our client was wronged on many levels."
Student Sues Passaic County Community College After Being Denied His Degree
Caiazzo didn't quit – he enrolled in the identical business statistics course at William Paterson University and finished it with an 88, completing every requirement for his associate's degree. Passaic County Community College still refuses to award it.
A professor called a student a racist on Zoom for a flag on his bedroom wall, the school backed her up, and now the degree he earned and paid for is being withheld as the final punishment.
Caiazzo is suing for educational harm, emotional distress, and humiliation. The lawsuit puts a number on the damage, but the real cost doesn't fit in a filing: the credits lost, the time burned, the degree held hostage while a professor who branded a paying student a racist faced no professional consequences.
Conservatives have been warning about exactly this for years – a student targeted for his politics, frozen out of class, and denied his degree at the finish line.
The American Left calls it inclusion, calls it safety, calls it creating a welcoming environment. What they are actually running is a political litmus test on the taxpayer's dime, and anyone who fails it pays the price.
Justin Caiazzo is the latest to find that out – and now he's fighting back in court.
Sources:
- Cassandra MacDonald, "New Jersey Student Sues After Professor Called Him a 'Racist' Over a Trump Flag on His Bedroom Wall," The Gateway Pundit, October 3, 2026.
- Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, "Stockton University: Disciplinary Charges Over Trump Zoom Background and Political Facebook Post," FIRE.org, 2020.
- College Fix Staff, "Public University Prosecutes Student for Using President Trump as Zoom Background," The College Fix, 2020.
