Jewish Groups File Anti-Semitism Complaint with US Dept of Education Against Santa Clara School District

Crass left-wing anti-Semitism has clearly infested the California education system as one school after another gets hit with federal discrimination complaints in recent weeks.

Now, the Bay Area Jewish Coalition and the educational group StandwithUs has filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education against the Santa Clara Unified School District for the continued abuse and bias Jewish students have suffered at the hands of other students and also teachers, as administrators allowed the hate to fester unchecked.

The complaint  charges “pervasive discrimination and bias against Jewish students” at the District’s elementary, middle school and high schools. The abuse included “antisemitic slurs directed against Jewish students, demonization of Jewish and Israeli students by their peers, as well as the approved use of antisemitic content and programming by teachers and guest speakers.”

According to the April 3 filing, the District continually failed  to properly investigate incidents or take any ameliorative measures when anti-Semitimic harassment of students occurred. The complaint also describes cases of teachers bullying Jewish students and turning their classrooms into pro-Hamas forums. In one case, a high school teacher even showed students a Turkish propaganda video that likened Israel’s war with Hamas to the Holocaust.

“It is a deeply hostile environment for Jewish students,” StandWithUs Senior Counsel and K-12 Specialist Jenna Statfeld Harris told the California Globe. “They do not feel safe. [The District] never took any concrete actions to stop anti-Semitism.”

Along the same lines, Bay Area Jewish Coalition’s Maya Bronicki said the complaint was a last resort. “Parents have tried to work with the District [as] more and more incidents happened at the schools,” she told the California Globe. “Parents did not want to escalate it. But complaints were not resolved adequately. We had no choice but to get a seat at the table” by filing the complaint.

“We want to protect our children,” she explained. “We are parent volunteers. Our only agenda is to protect students. We are thankful for StandwithUs for facilitating this on our behalf.”

The complaint alleges repeated inaction on the part of administrators in the wake of incidents.

“Despite being on notice of – and being offered constructive opportunities to address – its hostile environment, SCUSD failed to take the steps reasonably necessary to protect its Jewish and Israeli students from ongoing harassment. SCUSD failed to appropriately enforce its own policies, failed to conduct proper or timely investigations, and failed to provide basic training and education to staff or students prevent further incidents of antisemitism. The evidence demonstrates that, far from eliminating the pervasively hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students pursuant to its Title VI obligations, SCUSD has effectively sanctioned antisemitic harassment in its schools.”

The complaint cites a litany of abuse and  also tells how teachers turned their classrooms into pro-Hamas forums, often with Jewish students bullied in the process.

–The teacher who distributed the Turkish propaganda video also told her 10th grade class that Israel is an “oppressive apartheid state” guilty of “genocide” against the Palestineans.

–Another teacher likened Hamas taking hostages to Israel taking terrorists into custody. When an Israeli student objected to that characterization he faced “bullying” from other students, including one who exclaimed,  “I don’t want to sit next to this Zionist.”

–Middle school students cursed out Jewish students, saying “Fuck you, Jew, go kill yourself.”

–Jewish high school students were told by another peer that, “all Jews should have burned in Auschwitz.”  The student who said that was suspended. But the complaint says the District still failed to provide a safe atmosphere for Jewish students.  “There is no evidence that SCUSD took any steps to address the hostile environment, or that SCUSD investigated the extent to which other students were subjected to the same hostile environment. As a result of SCUSD’s inaction in the face of anti-Jewish hostility, at least one other student transferred out of the District”

–In January 2024, an Israeli flag was stolen from a display of national flags at the Santa Clara High School. No other flags were touched.  After weeks of requests from Jewish students a new Israeli flag was put up. The complaint cites this incident to argue that “SCUSD did nothing else to address the incident, yet again failing to respond with any training or educational programming.”

The filing says these kinds of incidents occurred again and again because administrators did nothing to insure a safe environment for Jewish students and they ignored complaints from parents.

After, “each incident of bullying, harassment, bias and disruption based on shared ancestry and ethnic identity, Jewish and Israel families at SCUSD contacted school and/or district leadership to voice their concerns. Jewish and Israel families made public comments at SCUSD Board Meetings, requesting that their students be protected from discrimination and be able to access a safe learning environment.

Despite these repeated attempts and offers for collaboration by Jewish and Israeli parents, as well as from numerous educational organizations, the hostile environment at SCUSD remains. SCUSD failed again and again to meaningfully address any of the incidents reported, and to has ultimately failed to prevent ongoing harassment of its Jewish and Israeli students. In fact, SCUSD appears to have not only ignored the concerns, but to have actively evaded them using procedural violations and biased applications of district policies.”

Jenna Statfeld Harris of StandWithUs said she hoped the complaint prompts the Education Department to get accountability and reforms from the District.

“We hope that the Department of Education will hold the district accountable for the harm it has already caused, “ she emailed. “ We hope it will require the district to provide meaningful training and education to all staff members – teachers, administrators and especially those who are supposed to be overseeing antidiscrimination and bullying efforts – about the Jewish people and the many manifestations of antisemitism through a well vetted and mainstream Jewish education organization. We hope the district will be monitored to ensure that it is applying its policies and relevant state and federal law and procedures to all of its students equally. We hope the district adopts a nuanced and kind approach to respond to the concerns of its students and parents regardless of their ethnic or shared ancestral heritage. We hope the district will adopt and deeply learn the IHRA definition of antisemitism  so it can understand its Jewish families’ experiences. “