Columbia High School in New Jersey serves two towns, Maplewood and South Orange. It’s a high achieving high school (top 10% according to US News) in a state often given high marks for its public schools. And the area is outwardly progressive.
The two towns, sometimes abbreviated SOMA, trumpet their progressive colors in their multiple social justice organizations, including SOMA Justice, SOMA Action and Community Coalition on Race, and in a 40-foot mural, “I Am Maplewood,” depicting a child’s face divided into six sections, each conveying a different racial identity.
Last year, an incident took place which has split the community apart by race. That story starts with a parents group called the Black Parents Workshop which had previously sued the school district.
The Black Parents Workshop, which formed in 2014, sued the district in 2018, charging that Black students were…
