Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Jewish student events at UC Berkeley
Pro-Palestinian protesters manage to force a door open at a UC Berkeley event hosting a former IDF soldier, slam on windows to cause a disruption, and gather outside a campus event for Jewish students. (Credit: Elijah Feldman/Sharon Knafelman)
Multiple California K-12 schools are being accused of promoting "viciously hostile environments" of "severe and persistent" antisemitism in a recent federal civil rights complaint.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League along with the U.S. Department of Education filed the complaint against the Berkely Unified School District on Wednesday. The complaint alleged that the district has allowed the ongoing "harassment and discrimination" of Jewish students to skyrocket since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel.
"Over the past four months, BUSD has knowingly allowed its K-12 campuses to become viciously hostile environments for Jewish and Israeli students. While antiSemitism has flared up at BUSD from time to time in the past, it positively surged after October 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out a terrorist attack in Israel, massacring, torturing, and kidnapping 1400 innocent civilians, including infants, children, and the elderly," the complaint read.
Teachers have encouraged high-school and middle school students to attend walkouts and demonstrations in favor of Gaza.
It continued, "Most people across the globe were horrified, but at BUSD, a virulent wave of anti-Semitism swept through its schools immediately following the massacre. Jewish and Israeli students have since been subjected to nonstop antiSemitic bullying and harassment by their teachers and peers, in hallways, in classrooms, and in school yards."
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The complaint cited multiple walkouts and demonstrations conducted by faculty members without parental permission across middle and high school campuses in support of Gaza. During these rallies, students were reportedly heard chanting "Kill the Jews" and "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free."
Multiple anonymous Jewish students also reported harassment in the classroom as teachers openly espoused anti-Israel beliefs and displayed antisemitic images such as a fist punching through the Star of David holding a Palestinian flag. The complaint alleged that other students had been influenced by these teachers and had begun calling out their Jewish classmates.
"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 read.
It noted that rather than punish or reprimand the teachers, the schools’ solutions were to simply move students out of these classes, disrupting their education. Meanwhile, many students still reported feeling afraid to even attend school.
Berkeley teachers and students have reportedly been sharing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel images. (iStock)
The complaint concluded by recommending remedies to protect Jewish students, including issuing a public statement denouncing antisemitism, prohibiting the display of antisemitic images, enforcing a code of conduct against students and teachers and appointing an independent investigator to examine the campus climate.
"For the foregoing reasons, the Brandeis Center and ADL urge OCR to: initiate an investigation of BUSD, a recipient of federal funding, for violations of Title VI and the statute’s implementing regulations, and urge the parties to engage in OCR’s mediation program," the complaint recommended.
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel said in a statement to Fox News Digital that the schools remain committed to make classrooms "feel responsive and humanizing for our diverse students" and will collaborate with the investigation.
"While we have not received official notification of the recent federal complaint, the district will work with the Office of Civil Rights in support of a thorough investigation. We remain committed to engaging with our community to ensure that BUSD is a district that lives up to its values of excellence, engagement, equity, and enrichment," Morthel said.
The Brandeis Center told Fox News Digital that it hoped the Office of Civil Rights’ involvement could influence some change.
"We are simply asking the district to enforce its own existing rules with respect to its Jewish students as they presumably would have done for any other student group. That includes requiring the students and teachers to comply with district policies, enforcing existing policies on bullying and harassment, and prohibiting all forms of anti-Semitism, discrimination and indoctrination," Brandeis Center Senior Education Counsel Marci Miller said.
Jewish students reported feeling scared and intimidated from going to class. (AP Photo / iStock)
She added, "We would welcome the opportunity to work with BUSD and rid the school of incessant anti-Jewish bullying. Frankly, if BUSD had engaged with parents and addressed the brewing antisemitism, as required by law, we would not have needed to enlist the federal government on behalf BUSD’s Jewish students."
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