Gladys Harris

Introduction

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, called him a “racist” in front of his classmates when he asked why, and removed him from the session when he refused — and that the college then backed Harris and offered him no relief. Caiazzo, 29, of the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany, says he ultimately withdrew from the course and had to complete it at another university. The claims are allegations from an unadjudicated civil complaint; Harris has not publicly responded to them.

Background Information

Harris taught business statistics at Passaic County Community College, a public institution chartered in 1968 that opened in 1971, with academic centers in Paterson, Passaic and Wanaque and a federally designated Minority Serving Institution student body. Because the college is public, its faculty and administrators act under color of state law and are bound by the First Amendment — the legal foundation Caiazzo’s suit invokes under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, which allows civil damages for constitutional deprivations by state actors. The summer 2021 class at issue was one Caiazzo needed for his degree.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from a civil lawsuit filed by a former student in New Jersey Superior Court in Morris County; they describe conduct that was never admitted by Gladys Harris, never criminally charged, and never adjudicated in court. Harris has not publicly responded to the allegations, and neither the college nor the dean sued alongside her was reported to have commented.

According to the September 23, 2026 complaint, the confrontation began when Harris spotted the “Trump 2020” flag on the wall behind Caiazzo during the July 2021 Zoom session and halted the entire class to demand he take it down immediately. Caiazzo, who says he had not raised politics in the class, asked what was wrong with the flag; Harris called it “offensive,” then slammed him as a “racist” in front of his classmates and ultimately booted him from the call when he refused to remove it, the lawsuit says. He alleges the treatment carried into the next session: Harris allegedly let other students 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,” per the complaint.

Caiazzo took his concerns to school officials, including dean Peter Hynes, a co-defendant. The college launched a probe but, the suit says, ultimately backed Harris and blamed Caiazzo, never offering him what the complaint calls “meaningful relief” — no transfer to another class, no “no credit” grade. Told his options were to “remain in the class or take an F,” he withdrew at his own expense “rather than continue under conditions regarded as hostile, unfair, unconstitutional and academically untenable,” court papers say, and he later completed the same statistics course at William Paterson University. He is now demanding unspecified damages for educational harm, emotional distress and humiliation, plus attorney fees. “Our client was wronged on many levels,” his attorney, Marc Calello, told the New York Post, arguing the case shows how institutions meant to foster debate increasingly censor certain views: “There’s a difference between an opinion and a fact . . . regardless of what side you’re on.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The lawsuit drew national attention when the New York Post’s October 3 report framed it as a professor shaming a student over a political symbol, reviving a running argument over speech rights at public colleges. Commentary on the case has leaned on precedent: public institutions cannot censor passive political symbols absent material and substantial disruption under the Supreme Court’s Tinker v. Des Moines line, and a 2020 Stockton University dispute over a Trump Zoom background — dropped after civil-rights pressure — is the closest New Jersey analogue. Notably, the college’s own emergency and conduct guidelines state that nothing in its anti-harassment procedures should be construed to limit legitimate free speech or infringe academic freedom. PCCC declined to comment on the litigation, a spokeswoman told NJ.com, and neither Harris nor Hynes returned the Post’s requests for comment.

Current Status

As of early October 2026 the case — Caiazzo v. Passaic County Community College, Harris and Hynes — is pending in Morris County Superior Court, where it was filed September 23, 2026. The claims against Harris are unadjudicated: she has not been charged with any crime, no trial has occurred, no ruling on the complaint has been reported, and no response filing or public statement from her has been reported. Damages are unspecified, and no trial date has been set. The New York Post reported that the college, Hynes and Harris did not return its requests for comment.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For Harris, the suit attaches her name permanently to an incident that has become a national shorthand for alleged viewpoint discrimination in public classrooms — a case litigated in the press as much as the courts, four years after the underlying session. Whatever the outcome, she is the individual defendant in a test of how far Tinker-style speech protections reach into New Jersey higher education, under a state civil-rights statute that exposes public employees to personal damages claims. For Caiazzo, the record he says the confrontation derailed has since been partly rewritten: he finished the course at William Paterson University and made that school’s Dean’s List in both the Spring 2025 and Fall 2025 semesters. The case’s resolution — dismissal, settlement or trial — will determine whether the allegations against Harris harden into a legal finding or remain what they are today: one side of an untried complaint.

Sources

• New York Post, “Woke NJ professor shames student as ‘racist’ for having Trump flag on bedroom wall: lawsuit,” Oct. 3, 2026 — source
• NJ.com via Yahoo News, “Ex-student sues N.J. college, says professor called him ‘racist’ over Trump flag on Zoom,” Sept. 30, 2026 — source
• Hoodline, “Ex-PCCC Student Sues Over Trump Flag Zoom Dispute,” Sept. 2026 — source
• New Jersey Hills, “Lake Hiawatha man sues Passaic County Community College over Trump flag,” Sept. 2026 — source