At a packed Berkeley school board Wednesday night, pro-Palestinian students, parents and teachers pushed back against a federal civil rights complaint alleging “severe and persistent” antisemitism in Berkeley schools, arguing the complaint was aimed at stifling the right to “teach Palestine” in classrooms.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League filed the complaint on Feb. 28 with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, based on input from over 100 parents and students.
The incidents described in the complaint range from antisemitic bullying by peers — students being taunted about the Holocaust, comments like, “You have a big nose because you are a stupid Jew” — to examples of students transferring from classes due to what the complaint describes as an antisemitic and anti-Israel environment cultivated by teachers that’s led to individual Jewish students being targeted by peers.
During public comment at the school board meeting, speakers, many of them Jewish, argued the civil rights complaint conflated antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and said teaching the story of Palestine was necessary, not antisemitic. The boardroom was standing room only, filled with people wearing keffiyehs and pro-Palestine T-shirts. On one side of the room, a handful of people held up signs with slogans like, “Believe Jewish Kids.”
“I will not stand for the antisemitism, which we face, to silence voices calling for peace,” Xaro Kaufman, a senior at Berkeley High who is Jewish, said at the board meeting through tears. “If you are currently uncomfortable with your teachers and peers being pro-Palestine, it is not because they are antisemitic. It is because your views on Israel cloud your ability to see the genocide which is being committed.”
Debates over how to teach about Israel-Palestine have flared in California, including in Berkeley, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, which killed 1,200 people, with 250 taken hostage, and has been followed by Israel’s war in Gaza that’s killed more than 30,000 Palestinians.
These debates have consumed the public comment period of the Berkeley school board meetings for months. The lectern has been a place to hash out the district’s public stance on the war — the district has declined to take one — and how its ethnic studies curriculum should present the subject. The meetings are emotional, sometimes over 150 people attending, but unlike at the Berkeley City Council, speakers leave following public comment, allowing board directors to conduct their regular business.
Last week’s civil rights complaint marked an inflection point in the debates.
After the complaint was filed, a group of Jewish parents, BUSD Jewish Parents for Collective Liberation, put out a statement claiming that most of the allegations were either false or exaggerated. They argued reports of antisemitism are being used as “as a harassment tactic” intended to pressure the school district into cracking down on teaching about Palestine.
The complaint says teachers helped students organize and promote a demonstration calling for a cease-fire and that another teacher referred to Israel as an apartheid state and hung a poster calling for a fight to end apartheid featuring a young man in a keffiyeh throwing a rock, among other examples.
It’s the framing of these kinds of incidents in the complaint as antisemitic that generated the most criticism from the audience at the board meeting. They argue these incidents are within the bounds of free speech and their framing is designed to censor teachers on the subject of Palestine.
BUSD doesn’t ban teachers from sharing their own views on controversial issues, as long as it’s done in a spirit of “fostering open dialogue and embracing diverse perspectives,” according to district policy. The complaint accuses the district of violating its policy by allowing teachers “to promote anti-Semitic, anti-Israel narratives in class.”
“This is a war, clearly, on Palestine — its entire existence — and there’s a parallel war happening right here in our district,” Christina Harb, a Palestinian American teacher at the school, said at the meeting. “A small group of very entitled parents who are uncomfortable with the reality of what’s happening, are trying to conflate the issue of Palestine with the issue of antisemitism, undermining the seriousness of both issues.”
A group of about 25 Berkeley teachers stood behind Harb in solidarity as she spoke.
Parents involved in the complaint said being met with disbelief about antisemitic incidents has been painful. They said the complaint was not about curriculum, but student safety. Ilana Pearlman, one of the parents behind the complaint, said she was “tormented by this gaslighting.” She began soliciting antisemitic incidents after her own son transferred out of his art class because he felt unsafe, documenting 57 in all, many of which she shared with the Brandeis Center and ADL.
In turn, Harb said some parents behind the complaint have been “systematically intimidating, punishing our teachers and students and attempting to silence our collective opposition to genocide.”
For example, Harb said, teachers have been asked to take down their posters and have been accused of wearing antisemitic paraphernalia that turns out to be a “Free Palestine” pin. Harb said the result is a chilling effect where teachers feel uncomfortable teaching about Palestine.
People calling for a cease-fire have also said they have been retaliated against. They also pointed to nationwide groups doxxing people defending Palestine, like Canary Mission, a website that publishes identifying information about college students who it deems antisemitic or anti-Israel.
Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel said at the meeting that the district considered the civil rights complaint “an opportunity to further examine our practices, procedures and policies and to ensure compliance with federal laws and to make sure that we are truly advancing towards our mission and our values for all of our students.”
“This is not an adversarial process,” she said. “The district will fully engage with the Office of Civil Rights to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the allegations presented.”
The school district said it had received formal complaints from 15 parents or guardians related to antisemitism or Islamophobia since Oct. 7, declining to break down the numbers.
