Berkeley schools chief pushes back at House GOP accusations
WASHINGTON – Berkeley Unified’s schools chief was among a group of K-12 leaders who forcefully pushed back Wednesday against House Republicans who’ve claimed their districts are hotbeds of unchecked antisemitism, the latest in a series of GOP-led sessions probing liberal academic institutions.
Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel told lawmakers she has received nine formal complaints of antisemitism since October 7. “However,” she said, “antisemitism is not pervasive in Berkeley Unified School District.”
“Our babies sometimes say hurtful things. We are mindful that all kids make mistakes. We know that our staff are not immune to missteps either, and we don’t ignore them when they occur,” Ford Montel told the House Education & the Workforce subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education.
The hearing took place amid growing concerns about antisemitism in both K-12 schools and on college campuses, as well as tense standoffs on university campuses across the country as pro-Palestinian protesters call for school officials to divest from companies linked to Israel and support a cease-fire in Gaza.
Berkeley was one of the first K-12 school districts to see a civil rights complaint filed against it – submitted by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League – since the Hamas attack on Israel. Dozens of universities have faced similar complaints, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis and Stanford University.
Berkeley schools are facing allegations that administrators ignored “severe and persistent” harassment of Jewish students, according to a complaint filed with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. The complaint alleges a wide variety of incidents, including that one student was told, “You have a big nose because you are a stupid Jew” and “I don’t like your people,” while others allege that students chanted, “Kill the Jews” and “KKK” during a walkout in support of Palestine.
Ford Montel said she believes the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic “if it is calling for the elimination of the Jewish people in Israel.” She added that “it does have different meanings to different members of our community.”
A supplement to the complaint filed Monday said “the already-hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students at BUSD took a turn for the worse” after the initial filing.
Ford Montel said she sees the complaint as “an opportunity to reflect and grow and continue to move towards our mission and values.”
Berkeley Unified is not alone in facing such allegations. The Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Oakland Unified over discrimination complaints on January. 16, according to the Education Department’s website.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin (Placer County), asked Ford Montel how he could be confident that antisemitism was being adequately addressed if she did not believe antisemitism was pervasive in her district.
She said that “there have been incidents of antisemitism in Berkeley Unified School District. And every single time that we are aware of such an instance, we take action and we follow up and we take appropriate action.”
While the chancellor of New York City Public Schools and the president of Montgomery County Board of Education (Maryland) shared information about disciplinary actions taken in response to antisemitism by students and teachers, Ford Montel did not.
“When investigations show that an antisemitic event has occurred, we take action to teach, correct and redirect our students. We do not publicly share our actions because student information is private and legally protected under federal and state law,” she said.
Similarly, if a teacher “crossed a line, we take appropriate action,” but those actions are private and legally protected, Ford Montel said. “Nondisclosure can again be confused with inaction.”
ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BERKELEY and other schools could take time for federal officials to untangle. Civil rights investigations filed with the US Education Department take on average six to eight months to conclude, Secretary Miguel Cardona told lawmakers Tuesday. The agency has 145 open cases and has closed two cases related to antisemitism, he said.
Student free speech is protected unless there is “unwelcome conduct based on a protected characteristic that’s subjectively or objectively offensive and so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from an educational program,” American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Emerson Sykes told lawmakers.
Congressional Republicans have accused universities and school districts of enabling antisemitism on their campuses. The House committee has been investigating several universities for possible antisemitism, including Columbia University, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT. In the wake of a tense December 2023 hearing involving the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT, all three faced intense pressure to resign. The presidents of Harvard and Penn acquiesced.
Now, the Republican lawmakers have moved on to targeting K-12 schools leaders, particularly in liberal areas.
“Jewish teachers, students, and faculty have been denied a safe learning environment and forced to contend with antisemitic agitators due to district leaders’ inaction,” subcommittee chair Aaron Bean, R-Fla., said in a statement before the hearing. “This hearing will allow Committee members to hold the leaders of the most embattled school districts accountable for their failure to keep Jewish students and teachers safe.”
But Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said the hearing was merely Republican grandstanding.
“The Republican majority continues to use their committee business time to get sound bites to post to their social media pages and talk about on Fox News. They have no
real interest in solving the issue at hand, which is bigotry in schools,” Lee, whose district includes Berkeley, told The Francisco Chronicle. “I would welcome this new ‘enthusiasm’ from our Republicans colleagues to address hate everywhere, but I am not inclined to believe they are acting in good faith.” Witnesses and Democratic lawmakers agreed.
“This convening – for so many people across America in education – feels like the ultimate gotcha moment. It doesn’t sound like people are actually trying to solve for something that I believe we should be doing everything we can to solve for,” David Banks, chancellor of New York City Public Schools, told lawmakers.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said it was hypocritical for some lawmakers to say educators are teaching hate when art in the US Capitol doesn’t reference “the Black people
who built this country” and when there are three statues of Black people in the building, compared with 12 Confederate ones.
“I work in an institution that teaches hate,” said Bowman, who taught in New York City public schools before joining Congress. “Yet we’re scolding you as educators who’ve been doing an exemplary job fighting against hate within our schools.”
Oregon Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, the leading Democrat on the subcommittee, pointed out that the witnesses “are from what might be considered blue states” and asked to include articles with antisemitic incidents in Republican-led states into the congressional record.
Bean, the subcommittee’s chair, however, said he thought the hearing delivered an “open and honest conversation.”