Much has been written about the atrocious and increasingly common prevalence of Jew hatred in America’s K-12 schools. Now a lawsuit has exposed a new and even more sinister twist on an already frightening situation: Jewish students who speak out about antisemitism are facing not only indifference from administrators but are actively being punished for reporting antisemitism at school.
The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in February alleging that California has failed in its duty to protect students in its K-12 public schools from antisemitic harassment in accord with its own antidiscrimination statutes.
The suit “arises out of the persistence and prevalence of antisemitism throughout school districts within the state of California,” Jeffrey Lang, senior litigation counsel at the Brandeis Center, explained to the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). It was brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the organization StandWithUs, and other legal groups.
“The need to sue the state arose out of the wholesale failure of the state to ensure that districts were taking antisemitism claims seriously, investigating them and taking corrective action,” Lang added. “We felt compelled to sue the state for systemic, effective change.”
Testimony from students and parents documented in the lawsuit points to a new and glaring aspect of antisemitism being weaponized against Jewish students who dare to speak out about threats, harassment, and discrimination. Instead of penalizing the perpetrators, a pattern has emerged of administrators instead “segregating Jewish students” who report antisemitism, essentially punishing the victims and further isolating them within the school ecosystem.
One such case was that of a student at Berkeley High School in California who is identified in the lawsuit by the initials A.D.
JNS details what occurred when A.D. dared to complain about Jew hatred in his high school:
A.D.’s mother, Ilana Pearlman, is one of the plaintiffs. She reported her concerns to the school about her son’s art teacher, who bragged a week after Oct. 7 about his art depicting “barbed wire fences in the shape of a Star of David with a giant fist punching through it.”
During class time, the teacher also promoted an anti-Israel walkout that included protesters chanting expletives at Jews. The school responded by taking A.D. out of the class and having him “sit alone in the library,” the suit alleges.
“The child was denied classroom instruction to protect the teacher’s ability to continue to espouse antisemitic ideology,” The Brandeis Center attorney Lang described.
Nor was this the only case where a Jewish student was isolated after complaining about anti-Semitic harassment at school.
Jaclyn S. Clark details another case for The Times of Israel:
Another student, B.R., at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School—named, with grim irony, after a Jewish journalist murdered by terrorists—had an honors chemistry teacher who wrote “Oy vey, it’s free” on the whiteboard on the anniversary of October 7, with an arrow pointing to the words “free Palestine.” When the family complained, the school removed B.R. from honors and placed him in a non-honors online course. B.R. had transferred to that school after being beaten unconscious at his previous one, where a student shouted “let’s get the Jew” during gym class. The attackers were not suspended. Some were placed back in his classes.
“He’s denied in-class instruction in an honors class in order to protect a chemistry teacher’s espousal of antisemitic tropes,” attorney Lang summarized the school’s horrifying response.
This egregious conduct on the part of administrators means that Jewish students are facing double discrimination—first that of their teachers who promote anti-Semitic libels and pro-terror sentiments in class, and secondly that of being ostracized from their educational environment when they dare to complain about mistreatment.
Administrators seem to think that it is easier and less politically fraught to simply remove Jewish students from classes or programs where they have experienced antisemitism than to make it clear to their own students, faculty, and staff that antisemitism is unacceptable.
Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which an African American student complained about racism in his honors history class. Which is more likely: that the teacher would face immediate discipline or dismissal or that the student would be demoted to a lower-level class while the racism continued unabated. The latter ‘solution’ is unthinkable until you replace “African American” with “Jewish.”
“Do not accept a response that punishes the child instead of the problem,” writer Jaclyn S. Clark advises in The Times of Israel. “If a school responds to antisemitism by pulling your kid out of a class, that is not a solution. It is segregation. Name it.”
“Two Jewish students reported antisemitism to their schools. Both were punished for it,” summarized the non-profit North American Values Institute (NAVI) on Instagram. It is horrific and unacceptable response to Jew hatred that is becoming increasingly common in America’s public schools.