ADL Civil Rights Complaint Alleges Firestorm of Antisemitism in Philadelphia School District

A civil rights complaint accusing the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) of standing down while its Jewish students were subjected to a slew of antisemitic abuses throughout the school year was filed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Tuesday.

The 49-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), recounts dozens of incidents that have occurred at SDP since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Teachers allegedly propagandized in the classroom, students chanted “kill the Jews,” and swastika graffiti emerged across the district, the complaint says, adding that parents’ concerns have gone unheeded and that Jewish teachers, beleaguered by acts of retaliation, are retiring in droves.

“Since the Oct. 7 attack, the Philadelphia Schools have fostered a toxic environment that has allowed antisemitism against Jewish students to metastasize and fester without repercussions,” ADL senior director of litigation James Pasch said on Tuesday in a statement announcing the action. “What’s worse, the district has encouraged a rampant culture of retaliation and fear that has prevented Jewish parents and students from coming forward.”

The ADL argues it is time for the OCR to intervene and compel the district to observe Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which explicitly prohibits public schools from failing to respond to, as well as perpetrating, acts of discrimination and intimidation animated by religious and ethnic bias.

The facts necessitate OCR’s involvement, the ADL contends. Antisemitic bullying at SDP is so severe that one Jewish student, after being told “f—k you and free Palestine” as well as “Praise Hitler,” left the school district entirely, according to the complaint. In another incident, an anti-Zionist student used the Halloween holiday to appear at school costumed as a terrorist and attempted to “drape a Palestinian flag over a Jewish student.” Their principal later allegedly “praised the costume.”

Discriminatory behavior has continued in the classroom, where, presumably, a teacher is always present to prevent bullying and other disruptions which hinder learning. However, the ADL charges, at SDP, teachers contribute to intimidation and shaming, using their power and monopoly on class discussions to denounce Israel as “exterminators” and stream videos accusing the Jewish state of “making Palestinians homeless.”

One teacher’s alleged behavior was so egregious that the ADL redacted her name from the complaint to protect the witnesses of her conduct. According to the complaint, she proclaimed to students that Judaism originated in Ethiopia, and, when an Ashkenazi Jewish student rebutted her claim, she said that “Ashkenazi Jews are people from Europe who were forced to convert so that Jews could stay in power.” On another occasion she reportedly told her class that “getting angry at the Houthis for attacking Israel is like getting angry at a lynched man for struggling at the noose.”

The slogan of the Houthis, an internationally designated terrorist organization and rebel movement in Yemen, is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam.”

“Philadelphia schools have a long history of providing a safe and welcoming environment for students of all identities. However, in the recent past — and especially in the aftermath of Oct. 7 — we’ve seen a stark rise in incidents and attitudes that alienate Jewish students, faculty, and families,” ADL Philadelphia regional director Andrew Goretsky said on Tuesday. “Jewish students face a shameful and pervasive litany of antisemitic harassment from their peers, and teachers and administrators, the professionals tasked with our children’s education. This pattern is dangerous, completely unacceptable, and needs to stop now.”

Parents served by SDP have no recourse because school administrators ignore them, the ADL argues in its complaint. Instead of disciplining discriminatory conduct, administrators have allegedly punished students, transferring them out of the courses of problematic instructors. At other times, they blamed parents for expressing concern, and one principal denounced one such parent at a school assembly which the entire student body attended. Instead of being transparent about its alleged failures, SDP has not formally addressed the allegations lodged against it, the ADL says, adding such behavior signals to the district’s Jewish community its indifference to the problem.

“SDP’s silence has been thunderous; absent intervention from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the message to Jewish students in the SDP — one of the nation’s largest and most storied public school systems — is that they are on their own and will not be protected from this climate of hostility and retaliation,” the complaint says. “Several SDP teachers have created a toxic environment within SDP that has allowed hate against Jewish students to metastasize and fester. Indeed, harassment by teachers is particularly harmful due to the power imbalance and resulting loss of trust in their teachers and in the school’s ability to keep them safe.”

Antisemitism in K-12 schools has increased every year of this decade, according to the ADL’s latest data. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public schools increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.

“School-based harassment in 2023 also included one-off incidents such as when a middle school administrator received a note containing antisemitic death threats or when a high school student threatened their Jewish classmates, stating that if they supported Israel, they would beat them up,” the civil rights group said in its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2023. “Given the insidious nature of bullying, compounded by the fact that many children may not feel empowered to report their experiences, it is likely that the actual number of school-based antisemitic incidents was significantly higher than the data reported in the audit.”

The problem has led to numerous civil rights complaints filed with the OCR.

Last month, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced that the Community School of Davidson, a charter school located in North Carolina, agreed to settle a civil rights complaint alleging that administrators failed to address a series of disturbing antisemitic incidents. A non-Jewish student was allegedly called a “dirty Jew,” told that “the oven is that way,” and battered with other denigrating comments too vulgar for publication. The abuse, according to the complaint, began after the child wore an Israeli sports jersey.

As part of a settlement with the OCR, the school has agreed, among other things, to issue a statement proclaiming a zero tolerance policy for racist abuse, institute anti-discrimination training for teachers and staff, and “develop or revise” its approach to responding to racial bigotry.

That case was not the first the Brandeis Center pursued on behalf of K-12 students. In February, it filed a complaint alleging that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in California has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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