Assault on hijab-wearing girl sparks investigation at Chicago middle school

Police are investigating an assault on a girl wearing a hijab at a suburban Chicago middle school.

The assault happened Thursday at Glenside Middle School in Glendale Heights, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. Student cellphone video shows a male student grabbing the girl by her head and holding her in a headlock before shoving her to the ground near some lockers.

A hijab is an Islamic headscarf. According to the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the girl is from Saudi Arabia and had been at the school for two months.

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Queen Bee School District 16 Superintendent, Joseph Williams, tells the newspaper that investigators have identified the students involved in the incident and there’s no indication the attack was motivated 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. "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."

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Glendale Heights Police Department officials did not immediately return the Tribune’s messages seeking comment. A message The Associated Press left with the village’s spokesperson after hours Monday evening wasn’t immediately returned.

Williams said the girl is one of 91 students who are new to the country attending school in the district. He added that the district's roughly 1,700 students speak 52 different languages.