Antisemitism Is Proliferating in Our Public Schools Jews face discrimination in many K-12 schools and colleges. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/21/antisemitism-is-proliferating-in-our-public-schools/

As I recently noted, UC Davis—a research university with 40,000 students—has a well-documented anti-Jewish problem. In April last year, the StandWithUs Center For Legal Justice filed a formal complaint with the Department of Education, claiming “a pervasively hostile, antisemitic campus climate, with incidents of unlawful discrimination and harassment, for students.” Not surprisingly, in November, Davis was ranked as one of the most anti-Jewish universities in the country by the advocacy group StopAntisemitism, which gave Davis a grade of “F.”

Davis is hardly an isolated case. A federal probe of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the school acted with “deliberate indifference” to threats against Jews and violations of their rights during an antisemitic encampment in the spring of 2024.

In a letter to UCLA leaders, Justice Department officials stated that Jewish and Israeli students at the school “were subjected to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment that created a hostile environment by members of the encampment,” including being “assaulted, verbally harassed, and physically prevented from accessing parts of the UCLA campus.”

DOJ officials explained that UCLA received complaints from Jewish students that the school took no meaningful action to eliminate the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students caused by the encampment until it was disbanded. The DOJ also alleged that they violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI due to antisemitism and race-based discrimination. As a result, in July, the university settled a lawsuit with Jewish students for $6.45 million.

University presidents at other California institutions face growing pressure to explain discrimination against Jewish students and faculty.

Nationally, 83% of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, according to a recent poll.

Anti-Jewish bigotry also exists in K-12 schools. In late 2024, the Sequoia Union High School District in California’s Silicon Valley faced a lawsuit over widespread antisemitism experienced by students, with administrators standing by and allowing it to worsen. When SUHSD parents and students raised concerns—through emails, petitions, and formal complaints—the District responded with “bureaucratic obfuscation and outright denial, demonstrating a deliberate indifference to SUHSD’s Jewish students. Emails were ignored, and meetings were canceled without explanation,” the lawsuit states.