Federal complaint filed against California school district over antisemitism

A California school district is facing a civil rights complaint alleging it continuously ignored reports of “severe and persistent” bullying of Jewish students.

“The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) for failing to take action and end nonstop bulling and harassment of Jewish students by peers and teachers since Oct. 7,” the press release stated.

The complaint claims parents regularly reported antisemitic incidents involving their children to the school district’s administration, but nothing was done to address the “hostile environment.”

The complainants further allege that BUSD’s teachers fostered antisemitic behavior in their classrooms. 

“Non-Jewish students are led by their teachers’ example to believe that they can freely denigrate their Jewish and Israeli classmates, telling them, e.g., that ‘it is excellent what Hamas did to Israel’ and ‘you have a big nose because you are a stupid Jew,’” the complaint stated.  

On Oct. 18, 2023, BUSD high school and middle school students walked out of class chanting, “Stop bombing Gaza,” “F*** Israel,” “KKK,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” through the city of Berkeley, the complaint says.  

The walkout was reportedly promoted by some teachers, and some students received excused absences, against school policy. 

Jewish and Israeli parents in the district asked the district to intervene, citing the district’s “safe spaces” policies, but the district took no action, according to the complaint. 

Ilana Pearlman, one of the parents behind the civil rights complaint, says more than 57 complaints have been filed from parents in the district within the last few months. 

Pearlman said the goal of the complaint is to ensure the district enforce its policies to stop attacks against Jewish students. She claims the attacks have gotten so bad that some Jewish students are afraid to go to school or speak up against the harassment.