Muslim student in hijab attacked at Glendale Heights middle school, cellphone video shows

An incident involving a female student in a hijab, an Islamic headscarf, being attacked by a male student at Glenside Middle School in Queen Bee District 16 in Glendale Heights, is being investigated by the district and police.

The attack happened Thursday and was caught on students’ cellphones and shared widely on social media and WhatsApp. The video shows a male student grabbing the female student by her head and holding her in a headlock before shoving her to the ground near a set of lockers.

On Monday afternoon, the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had previously warned of an increase in bullying, harassment and discrimination incidents against Muslim students over the last couple of years, called on law enforcement to investigate the attack.

District 16 Superintendent Joseph Williams called the events “extremely upsetting” but said the investigation does not suggest that the attack was fueled by bigotry.

“This is a serious disciplinary incident and we’re handling it as such, but we have no evidence that this was some act of intolerance related to a matter of faith,” Williams said Monday. “This type of behavior is aberrant; we completely won’t tolerate it. Our duty at this point is to protect the child through what happened, and then respond within the limits of the law, understanding that everybody here is a child.”

Though Williams could not share the identity of the female student, he noted that she is one of 91 students in the district who are new to the country.

“We have 52 languages spoken in a student population of about 1,700. We embrace it as a gift and it is a strength of our community,” he said. “It’s a multifaith, multicultural community and it’s brilliant, so things like this hurt.”

Williams said the district notified the Glendale Heights Police Department, which has initiated an investigation into the attack. “We can report that we have identified the students responsible for this attack,” Williams said.

According to CAIR-Chicago, the student’s family came from Saudi Arabia and has been in the United States for two months.

In the footage, a crowd of students can be seen watching the events unfold but none are seen intervening.

Williams said that while the behavior of the other students was deeply distressing, within minutes, a teacher responded to the female student in distress and called the administration for help.

A member of the school’s administration then responded and cleared the scene, and made sure the student was physically safe, Williams said.

“At this time, we are working on our No. 1 priority, which is to support the student to whom this happened,” Williams said. “We will make sure that the school is safe for them, and will always continue to be and also hold the individual or individuals responsible for this behavior fully accountable.”

In a statement, CAIR-Chicago also called on the school and the district to effectively address the larger culture of bullying, which has become an intractable phenomenon.

“Bullying involves more than the perpetrator, bystanders who watch and accept, or even reward this behavior, make it possible for the bully to carry out their attack,” CAIR-Chicago’s operations manager and former CPS school teacher, Maggie Slavin, said in a statement. “In this case, we see bystander students reinforcing the terrible ambush, filming it, and even gloating about it on social media. This larger culture must be addressed.”

Williams said the district will investigate every possibility, considering the culture and climate of schools across the country.

“We’re not immune, just like any other school, seeing as, unfortunately, this happened,” he said. “But in our case, we will accept responsibility for the safety of the child and also to hold the … individuals accountable. It just cannot happen again.”

Williams said the district is in communication with leaders from Muslim Society Inc., a mosque down the street from Glenside Middle School, as it ensures the well-being of the female student and her family.

Glendale Heights police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

zsyed@chicagotribune.com