EXTREMISMU.S. Department of Education Opens Investigation into Anti-Semitism at Berkeley K-12 Public Schools
The U.S. Department of Education has opened a formal investigation into a complaint that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) failed to address non-stop “severe and persistent” bullying and harassment of Jewish students in classrooms, hallways, schools yards, and walkouts since October 7, 2023.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced Tuesday it has opened a formal investigation into a complaint that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) failed to address non-stop “severe and persistent” bullying and harassment of Jewish students in classrooms, hallways, schools yards, and walkouts since October 7, 2023.
BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel is also being called to testify tomorrow before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce about BUSD’s anti-Semitism problem. This is the Committee’s first K-12 hearing on anti-Semitism. It has held two hearings on college anti-Semitism where Committee members questioned the heads of Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, including discrimination against Jews based on their actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, in educational institutions that receive federal funding. Under the law, harassing, marginalizing, demonizing, and excluding Jewish students based on the Zionist component of their Jewish identity is unlawful. UNESCO has cautioned that “Jew” and “Zionist” are often used interchangeably today in an attempt by anti-Semites to cloak their hate. President Biden’s US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released in May 2023, observed that “When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. And that is unacceptable.”
The Title VI complaint being investigated by the Department of Education was filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), and it documents dozens of incidents such as students shouting “f—- the Jews” and “KKK,” graffiti stating “Kill Jews,” and teachers indoctrinating students with anti-Semitic tropes and biased, one-sided anti-Israel propaganda disguised as education. BUSD has not only failed to address the cascading anti-Semitism, according to the complaint, it has permitted retaliation against parents who complained.
