TOMS RIVER - Toms River Board of Education member Dan Leonard said he will not "apologize or resign" from the board following a often-chaotic school board meeting Wednesday at which more than a dozen speakers chastised him for sharing posts disparaging Muslims on his personal Facebook page.

The Facebook posts shared by Leonard on his personal page include the comment, "my life would be complete if she/they die," which Leonard wrote above a photograph of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat and Muslim from Michigan.

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The comment was above a link to a Fox New article about Tlaib calling for a hunger strike in response to U.S. Customs & Immigration Enforcement's treatment of immigrants at the U.S. border.

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"If you're a board member, you are supposed to protect the interests of everyone, all of the school members, the students, the staff," said East Brunswick resident Wesam Berjaoui, who is a Muslim. "And by your actions of hate, that is disgusting." Watch Berjaoui's statement — and Leonard's response — in the above video.

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"Our kids are affected by the decisions you make and what you condone," said Toms River resident Amanda Barton, a former teacher who pointed out that faculty members in the district are warned against making inflammatory social media posts, even on their own personal accounts, and would likely have been fired for sharing memes or making posts like Leonard's.

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"I don't really know how a board member is held to a different standard than the teachers," she said.

Many of the speakers questioned how Leonard can serve a school system that is becoming increasingly diverse after sharing divisive memes and making inflammatory statements on social media.

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"I know for a fact that my principal, Mr. (James) Ricotta, would certainly have punished any student who said something like this in his halls, and rightly so," said South Toms River resident Allan Palombi, a 2017 graduate of Toms River High School South. He said board members should be held to an even higher standard than teachers and other staff members "due to the fact that they not only represent the school itself but all of Toms River schools."

But Leonard refused to back down during Wednesday's meeting. He frequently interrupted speakers who called his Facebook posts bigoted and hateful, attempting to justify at least one of his posts by saying he opposes "Sharia Law" and not Muslims, drawing jeers from the crowd..

Board of Education President Joseph Nardini to bang his gavel in a sometimes fruitless effort to get Leonard to stop speaking.

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Defending the Tlaib post, Leonard said, "the congresswoman is trying to shut down a federal agency of the government, right, so my point was, 'let her starve.' And I say it again, how is that offensive to Muslims. Just because she's Muslim?" Watch Leonard's statement in the video below.

Board Attorney Melanie Szuba Appleby advised the board not to allow "these personal conversations" between Leonard and audience members.

Wednesday night's board meeting came a day after the New Jersey Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ) called for Leonard to resign for sharing "racist and Islamophobic posts" on his Facebook account.

With the board meeting already underway, Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Gov. Phil Murphy joined the chorus of public officials calling on Leonard to resign.

"We are disheartened by the racist comments made by a school board member in Toms River," Oliver wrote in a post on her official Facebook page. "His hateful language is counter to the best interests of our students and does not represent our values. Governor Phil Murphy and I urge him to resign. The New Jersey Department of Education is also looking into this matter."

Leonard's Facebook posts have also drawn the ire of Muslim Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based national advocacy group, which called for his resignation or removal from both the school board and his position as Ocean County delegate to the New Jersey School Boards Association..

In a prepared statement issued Wednesday, Muslim Advocates Special Counsel for Anti-Muslim Bigotry Madihha Ahussain said, “No individual who is responsible for governing the education of children should ever engage in hate speech, bigoted conspiracy theories and violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric on social media. The harmful, ugly content that Daniel Patrick Leonard regularly posts to Facebook exposes him as someone wholly unfit to work with the diverse school children in Toms River and the state of New Jersey."

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Forced recess

Shortly after 9:10 p.m., Nardini abruptly recessed the school board meeting after Toms River resident Paul Williams, who had criticized Leonard's posts as "despicable and disgusting" earlier in the meeting, stood in the rear of the auditorium and began loudly yelling and cursing at Leonard.

Williams left after the recess and the meeting resumed again shortly before 9:30 p.m. Leonard did not interrupt any other speakers once the meeting resumed.

In addition to the post about Tlaib, CAIR-NJ highlighted two other posts from Leonard's "D.P. Leonard" Facebook page in calling for his resignation. One features a photo of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — who is also a Muslim — with the comment, "Terrorist....100 percent."

The third post is an image of a bruised Barbie doll in a head scarf. "Sharia Barbie, Comes with Jihab [sic], bruises, & Quran, Stoning accessories available for additional purchase. "Jihab," CAIR-NJ notes, is an apparent reference to the Islamic head scarf, actually known as a "hijab." All three of the posts are from April and were sent to CAIR-NJ by an anonymous Toms River resident.

Several speakers who called for Leonard's resignation expressed frustration that the board had not taken action or spoken out more forcefully against Leonard's Facebook posts.

Board President Nardini again stressed that Leonard's posts are on his personal page and stressed that the board does not condone "incivility" by anyone.

"As counsel I have advised this board to confer with our firm if they wish to confer with the board attorney to see if there are any possible violations of statutes," Board Attorney Szuba Appleby said. She noted that state law prohibits the board from collectively filing an ethics complaint against a board member with the state School Ethics Commission.

But individual board members — or any member of the public — can file such a complaint, she noted.

Leonard, 42, who represents Beachwood on the nine-member regional board, was elected to a three-year term in 2016. He is seeking re-election this year.

Early Thursday morning, Leonard wrote on his Team Leonard Facebook campaign page that he had met with representatives of CAIR-NJ and other "Muslim members of the community." Leonard came down off the stage where the board sits in the Toms River High School North auditorium to speak to the group and was still speaking to them outside the school shortly after staff had cleared the building for the night.

"Although I will not apologize or resign over the mischaracterization of my "out of context posts" — we did agree to disagree and I did reassure them that I .understand the position that some of them felt the need to take," Leonard wrote. "Sadly, my personal posts have obviously impacted the district and I will be more cautious going forward as we continue our fight against the Loss in State Aid — right or wrong, not everything is NOT about me and my colleagues an I have worked way too hard to let this ruin our path to progress!"

Jean Mikle covers Toms River and several other Ocean County towns, and has been writing about local government and politics at the Jersey Shore for nearly 35 years. A finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in public service, she's also passionate about the Shore's storied music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle, 732-643-4050, jmikle@gannettnj.com.