Educators Quizzed by Congress About Growing Antisemitism in Public Schools

With buzzwords akimbo,  a trio of school district leaders in New York, Maryland, and Berkeley tried to fend off accusations during a congressional hearing May 8 of failing to tackle the issue of growing antisemitism in public schools.

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks, Montgomery County, Md. School Board President Karla Silvestre, and Berkeley Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel all told members of Congress that their districts are all actively fighting antisemitism and “all forms of hate.”

They are doing so, they said, by creating “resources,” holding “workshops,” engaging in “dialogue” and “listening sessions,” forming advisory groups, reaching out to local Jewish organizations, “evaluating” and “creating” curricula, using “restorative conversations,” and, in the case of Berkeley, even designating last November as “Unite Against Hate” month.

Was their testimony in front of the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce informative and illuminating or were piles of terms du jour thrown about to simply make it through the two-hour session?

For the most part, the latter.

One very notable word that the three administrators could not bring themselves to say was “fired.”

In referencing a principal who did not take swift action when a Jewish teacher, fearful of an antisemitic mob at the school, was forced to hide in her classroom for two hours, Banks said the principal was “removed” but admitted – eventually – he was not fired and, while Banks would not confirm it, is now part of the NYC school district’s teacher evaluation process, said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.

Banks did note that a number of students had been suspended after the incident and the district is currently investigating a dozen instances of antisemitism.

When asked if any of her district’s problematic teachers or staff had been fired, Silvestre said they had been “disciplined” and are aware that further improper conduct could lead to further consequences.

Superintendent Ford Morthel declined to answer any questions about firings or student suspensions, citing California’s privacy laws. She did say the district had received and investigated nine complaints.

That number would seem to be at odds with the fact that the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law and the Anti-Defamation League on Monday expanded and amended the federal civil rights complaint against the district in February, alleging that numerous overtly antisemitic acts were committed by students and teachers which the district in turn ignored.

At the hearing, Ford Morthel did reveal that the Brandeis Center complaint was officially taken up by the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights division and an official investigation into the district has been launched.

Marci Miller with the Brandeis Center said there have been more than nine complaints lodged, though she was not sure exactly how Ford Morthel was defining the term “complaint.”

Miller added that Ford Morthel’s claim of not being able to discuss the complaints was also not quite right – California law allows for the release of personnel and student information as long as it is not “personally identifying.”

Committee Democrats, like Ranking Member Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., did try to provide some cover for the educators. Bonamici called for more funding for the Department of Education’s civil rights division and, of course, claimed that Donald Trump has used antisemitic tropes, ignored the rule of law, and demeaned women and that is all very bad, too.  

Rep. Jamaal Bowman,  D-N.Y., demanded that “all hate” be fought, then noted that the U.S. Capitol has artwork and statues that depict “colonists” taking over the continent while there is “no reference to the black people who built” the nation.

“I work in an institution that teaches hate!” exclaimed Bowman before saying the three witnesses were doing an exemplary job educating students.

Ford Morthel denied that the Berkeley Unified School District is home to rampant antisemitism.

“That’s not who we are,” said Ford Morthel, noting that, like the city itself, the BUSD operates in “a spirit of DEI and activism.”

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, asked if BUSD had purchased its ethnic studies curriculum from Liberated Ethnic Studies, which offers a more radical approach to the topic.

Liberated Ethnic Studies – which was deemed to be too militant, too anti-Jewish for the state of California – is “a true Ethnic Studies which is anti-imperialist, which is anti-capitalist, which is anti-Zionist,” said one of its creators.

Ford Morthel said BUSD has not purchased the curriculum.

She did, however, admit that LES was a “thought partner” in their own in-house ethnic studies development process.

Miller characterized much of the testimony given as vague, but did say Ford Morthel seemed “well meaning” but has offered no specific actions or solutions to the problem.