The state Attorney General 's Office said Thursday there was probable cause to find the Marine Academy of Science and Technology failed to respond properly to anti-Semitic harassment of a Jewish student, including fellow students' scrawling “I H8 JEWS” at a high school event and drawing swastikas on a cafeteria table.

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced the finding by the state’s Division on Civil Rights, issued against The Monmouth County Vocational School District, which oversees MAST and six other schools. The finding, while not a final disposition of the case, bolsters a complaint filed on behalf of a female student who later left the Sandy Hook school following three years of alleged antisemitic abuse.

The state's finding indicates that the student “was subjected to unlawful discrimination based on religion.” Anti-Semitic claims cited in the student's complaint alleged that:

During her sophomore year, her fellow students drew swastikas on cafeteria lunch tables and on their notebooks.
Students publicly read Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” during “read” periods in class, even though the book was not an assigned part of the curriculum.
A rock with the word “Adolf” written on it was placed on top of a water cooler directly behind the girl’s assigned seat in English class

According to the AG's Office, a probable cause finding “does not resolve a civil rights complaint. Rather, it means the state has concluded its preliminary investigation and determined there is sufficient evidence to support a reasonable suspicion New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD) has been violated” and further action could follow.

A parent of the student alleged in a June 2018 complaint that “her daughter’s fellow students engaged in anti-Semitic harassment aimed at her daughter on a regular basis over the course of her three years at the school, including an April 2018 incident during which two male students wrote ‘I H8 JEWS’ in large letters in the sand at a school-sponsored event, and then circulated a photo of one of them laying on the ground next to the message.”