EXTREMISMBerkeley K-12 Schools Accused of "Severe and Persistent" Antisemitic Bullying

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) 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 to end nonstop bullying and harassment of Jewish students by peers and teachers since Oct. 7. According to the complaint, Berkeley administrators have ignored parent reports and knowingly allowed its K-12 schools to become hostile environments for Jewish and Israeli students.

Incidents include students repeatedly hearing anti-Semitic comments in classrooms and hallways, such as “kill the Jews,” non-Jewish students asking Jewish students what “their number is,” referring to numbers tattooed on Jews during the Holocaust, and Jewish students being derided for their physical appearance and demonized as evil. Students have also had to endure anti-Semitic teacher rants and class activities, teacher-promoted “walkouts” that praise Hamas, and even a second-grade teacher leading a classroom activity where children were writing “Stop Bombing Babies” on sticky notes to display in the building.

Jewish students report being worried about mob violence, including being “jumped” at school. Many have said they remove their Stars of David and no longer wear Jewish camp t-shirts, and that they are learning to keep their heads down, hide their Judaism and move through their school days in fear. Some students have left the district due to the pervasive bullying.

Parents have repeatedly reported anti-Semitic incidents to the administration, but BUSD has done nothing to address, much less curtail, the hostile environment that has plagued BUSD for more than four months.  Instead of addressing teachers’ anti-Semitic behavior, BUSD officials have chosen to disrupt the Jewish students by moving them into new classes, further ostracizing and marginalizing them from their peers, and normalizing anti-Semitic behavior.  

“The eruption of anti-Semitism in Berkeley’s elementary and high schools is like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” said Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations. “It is dangerous enough to see faculty fanning the flames of anti-Semitism on college campuses, but to see teachers inciting hate in the youngest of grades while Berkeley administrators sit idly by as it continues to escalate by the day is reprehensible. Where is the accountability? Where are the people who are supposed to protect and educate students?”