Four male high school students entered a Muslim prayer room at their public school, where two Jewish students prayed and sang in Hebrew and one did a handstand. Within moments, they were accused of “trashing” the room, making sexual maneuvers and engaging in offensive conduct they say never happened.
The incident at the public Academy at Palumbo in Philadelphia is the subject of a federal lawsuit against the School District of Philadelphia, with the students alleging that school officials failed to correct false accusations about what happened or protect them from threats that followed.
A federal judge ruled Friday that the lawsuit can move forward against three Philadelphia school officials, rejecting their effort to have the case thrown out. The judge found that the students had made a sufficient case that their constitutional rights may have been violated when they were disciplined for entering the prayer room.
According to the lawsuit, the students were confronted by classmates, threatened, and subjected to increasingly serious allegations about what they had done inside the room on June 11, 2024. Two families eventually left the Philadelphia School District, the lawsuit says, so their sons could finish high school elsewhere.
Outside the Muslim Prayer Room at Academy at Palumbo in Philadelphia (Courtesy)
Only two of the four students were Jewish, but that apparently didn’t matter. The lawsuit claims the school district subjected them to different treatment because they were “not Muslims and were—or perceived to be—Jewish,” and because some of them expressed Jewish and pro-Israel views inside a prayer room used by Muslim students.
“Philadelphia high school boys had their lives threatened for daring to enter a room they later learned was reserved only for Muslim students,” Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, which is representing the boys, told The Daily Wire. “The School District did nothing to protect these boys and instead their actions fanned the flames of hatred against them.”
The room was labeled a “Quiet Room” with a Palestinian flag on the door on the outside, but the lawsuit describes it as a Muslim prayer space. Inside were exclusively Islamic religious images, Arabic prayers, and materials identifying the room with the school’s Muslim Student Association. In a police report following the incident, Palumbo Principal Kiana Thompson herself described the dispute as involving “a particular room designated for one religion and with a particular flag on it.” The lawsuit also alleges that the room had designated times for Muslim students and that the Muslim Student Association held its meetings there.
Police report by the principal of Academy at Palumbo (Courtesy)
The judge’s opinion notes that the plaintiffs allege access to the room was effectively restricted to Muslim students. It also cites a large sign welcoming students to the “Prayer Room” and wishing them a “Happy Ramadan,” as well as guidelines from the Muslim Student Association.
The lawsuit says the students entered the room after seeing the door open. Several Muslim girls were inside, and the boys remained there for fewer than 10 minutes.
One of the Jewish students, M. Danowitz, said a brief Jewish prayer in Hebrew, told the girls he had a right to pray, asked why they were laughing and said he was a “proud Zionist.” Another Jewish student, identified as J2, who was recording the encounter, sang “Am Yisrael Chai,” meaning “the people of Israel live,” while Danowitz did a handstand and removed one poster and placed it on the floor.
The two non-Jewish students, identified as Hiester and Parmar, did not say anything.
The encounter was recorded on video but cannot be published because a court order protects the identities of the minors involved.
Within moments of leaving the room, the boys began facing threats from other students, according to the lawsuit.
Hiester received 11 phone calls from A.B., a Muslim Palumbo student who had previously assaulted him and made death threats. Hiester ignored the first 11 calls but eventually answered one, at which point A.B. demanded to know where Hiester and Danowitz were because he had “unfinished business” with them and wanted to fight them. A.B. allegedly told the boys that if they did not return to school, he would come to their homes.
The lawsuit says the boys took the threats seriously because of A.B.’s history of assault and previous threats against both Hiester and Parmar. Hiester also received multiple threatening phone calls, text messages and FaceTime calls from other students who were close to A.B., according to the complaint.
Muslim prayer room at the Academy at Palumbo in Philadelphia (Courtesy)
Meanwhile, Parmar and J2 returned to their computer lab, where A.B. and several other students confronted them, the lawsuit says. A.B. and five other students allegedly entered the classroom, surrounded the boys and demanded to know what they had done in the prayer room, accusing them of “trashing” it.
When one student said he had been praying, A.B. allegedly shouted, “Which religion?”
The allegations quickly grew more serious. According to the lawsuit, Thompson later told the mother of one of the students that girls inside the room had accused her son of saying he “hates Muslims,” making sexually suggestive movements, including “humping the floor,” ripping posters from the walls and trashing the room.
Two days after the incident, Philadelphia School District teacher Kristin Luebbert addressed the Board of Education, despite not teaching at Palumbo and having no firsthand knowledge of what had occurred. No District investigation had yet begun, according to the complaint.
Luebbert described the incident as an “appalling display of sacrilegious defilement” and alleged that male students had entered a prayer space where Muslim girls were gathered, ripped items from the walls, thrown prayer rugs around and “grind and writhe on the floor in an imitation of sex acts.”
“Take that in,” Luebbert told the board. “This was a planned action that included acts which any Muslim girl or woman would be deeply offended and traumatized by.”
She called on the District to publicly denounce what she described as “anti-Muslim and anti-Black hate.”
The lawsuit notes that Luebbert made her comments long before any investigation was conducted by the school and relied on rumors.
The families say the school failed to stop the allegations from spreading or adequately respond when the boys began receiving threats. When three of the students’ parents went to Palumbo seeking help, the lawsuit says that Thompson refused to meet with them because they did not have appointments. When one mother emphasized that her son was receiving threats, Thompson allegedly laughed and responded, “Well, there’s multiple sides to that story.” The complaint says Thompson then called school security and police to remove the families from the building.
The families later went to the School District’s central office, where they provided statements and showed officials the video, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs allege that despite being given evidence contradicting the allegations, District officials failed to adequately protect the students or correct the accusations.
Prayer room at Academy at Palumbo in Philadelphia (Courtesy)
The two boys were then suspended at the direction of Assistant Superintendent Richard Gordon, purportedly because they had snuck Danowitz, who was no longer a Philadelphia School District student, into the school building through a back door. The boys disputed that account, saying they had not let Danowitz into the building and that security footage supported their version of events.
Although the school had possession of that video, its leaders allegedly did not look at it before suspending the boys, which validated the rumors that the boys had trashed the prayer room and did sexual maneuvers in the room.
The judge ultimately dismissed Danowitz’s claims for damages and injunctive relief, finding that he lacked standing because he was not a member of the Palumbo school community and was on school property without permission.
But the judge found that Hiester and Parmar had sufficiently alleged a violation of their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. They were never told they were being suspended for helping an unauthorized visitor enter the school. Officials only questioned them about entering the prayer room.
The two non-Jewish families said the dispute eventually drove them out of Philadelphia, so their sons could finish high school elsewhere.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court last year, alleges that the students’ treatment violated their constitutional rights and that school officials discriminated against them because they were Jewish or perceived to be Jewish.
In explaining his decision, U.S. District Judge John Milton Younge wrote that “a reasonable jury could find” that school officials violated the Establishment Clause by disciplining the students for entering the prayer room. He also rejected the officials’ claim of qualified immunity, writing that their argument was “unpersuasive.”
Younge also dismissed the students’ Title VI claims without prejudice, finding that the complaint did not plausibly establish that school officials acted with antisemitic animus or that the harassment itself was antisemitic. The judge said the threats against Hiester and Parmar appeared to stem from accusations that they had desecrated the prayer room and harassed Muslim girls, rather than from their perceived Judaism.
“We’re thrilled that the judge has sustained our claims under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and the Due Process claim and given us leave to amend all the other claims so that this case will proceed,” Marcus said. “The injured families can now proceed to rectify what happened to them because of the failures of the Philadelphia School District to comply with the law and to protect all future students.”
The Philadelphia School District did not respond to a request for comment.
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