Half Hollow Hills High School West student gets $125G settlement for pro-Palestinian artwork removed by school

A former Half Hollow Hills High School West student has agreed to a $125,000 settlement with the district after pro-Palestinian artwork she had painted on her school parking spot in 2024 was removed, according to her attorneys and district officials.

The student, a Muslim American of Pakistani descent who was a senior at the time, had painted a watermelon slice with a kaffiyeh pattern, her name in Roman and Arabic letters and a message that said "PEACE BE UPON YOU," according to a complaint filed by her mother, Nighat Malik, in March 2025. 

The watermelon, which has the red, white and green colors of the Palestinian flag, has been seen as a symbol of solidarity with Palestine. Some criticized the artwork, coming amid the Israel-Hamas war, as offensive to Jewish people, and the district painted over the watermelon portion, Newsday previously reported.

The settlement was approved by the Half Hollow Hills school board at its April 21 meeting. Superintendent John O'Farrell said in a statement Monday that the payment would be covered by the district’s insurance carrier, which also handled the legal defense.

O'Farrell did not comment on the controversy, other than to note the district no longer allows students to paint their parking spaces at High School West "following the incident and the disruption it caused."

In court filings, Steven C. Stern, of Sokoloff Stern LLP in Carle Place, the attorney appointed by the district's insurance provider, wrote that the watermelon image "symbolized anti-Semitic hate speech" to some.

He argued the district should be allowed to regulate such a painting in its parking lot, which is open to students, faculty, parents and community members.

"Any student, teacher, or member of the public could have driven into the parking lot and reasonably understood the school was endorsing a political message — or worse, anti-Semitic hate speech — by allowing it," he wrote.

Attorney Andrew B. Stoll, with Stoll, Glickman & Bellina LLP in Brooklyn, represented the student and her mother, along with the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The settlement, he said, shows "there's no Palestine exception in the First Amendment."

He added, "There's a large community of really dedicated civil rights lawyers and organizations like CAIR that are going to make sure that when pro-Palestine speech is being unfairly singled out and crossed ... people are going to pay for that."

Through their attorneys, the student and her mother declined to comment Monday.

Newsday has filed a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain a copy of the settlement.

Controversy erupts

The watermelon slice was painted over in September 2024. Shortly after, a crowd of hundreds packed a school board meeting, with supporters of the district arguing the image conveyed a message against Israel and opponents arguing administrators violated the student’s right to free speech.

The student, who graduated last June and is in college, told the board at the meeting she felt betrayed by her school.

The student was vice president of the student executive council, vice president of the Muslim Students Association and had a 4.0 GPA.

Christina John, a CAIR staff attorney, said Monday the district's actions made the teen feel like "the other."

"This event also made her feel like the school, without process, had decided that her expression was antisemitic and that they were OK with other people viewing her as antisemitic and terrorizing and disrupting their community when that couldn't be further from the truth," she said.

The family's complaint noted the district in the past had allowed students to paint politically charged messages such as a Black Lives Matter fist and the Pride flag.

Patrick G. Harrigan, who was superintendent at the time, said then he didn’t believe the student was motivated by hate. He resigned in October 2024, weeks after the controversy erupted, and took a job at a lower salary at the Oyster Bay-East Norwich district. He was recently named superintendent of Patchogue-Medford schools.

Harrigan declined to comment Monday.

Trustee Michael Prywes, who cast the lone dissenting vote when the school board approved the settlement, declined to comment when reached by phone Monday but read a statement at a board meeting Monday night.

Prywes, an adjunct law professor at Touro Law Center who has taught the First Amendment, called the lawsuit frivolous and "poorly pleaded." The school officials in this case acted "within their lawful authority and discretion under the ‘government speech doctrine,’ " he said.

"It’s what most people would call common sense: The government gets to decide what does and doesn’t belong on government property," he said. "No private individual has the right to override that decision."

Even though the settlement won't cost taxpayers, he said he was troubled by the payout.

"Outside activists and lawyers tried to sow division and turn a local matter into a media circus, and this lawsuit poured salt into the slow-healing wound that opened in September 2024," he said. "This controversy never merited a meaningful payout to anyone by anyone."

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.