Lawsuit cites antisemitic harassment at Fulton County schools in Georgia

Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. Credit: Warren LeMay/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.

From JNS and SJL reports

Three Jewish organizations have called for federal intervention to counter what they characterize as pervasive, unchecked antisemitism in Georgia’s Fulton County School District.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced on Aug. 13 that with Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education and the National Jewish Advocacy Center, it had filed a complaint against the district with the Education Department, claiming violations of Title VI from the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The Brandeis Center said the district had “fostered an intense climate of hostility and fear by teaching propaganda and by allowing students to harass their Jewish and Israeli peers before, during, and after class, mocking their pain and threatening their families.”

Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center, said while post-Oct. 7 antisemitic harassment largely appeared at colleges, some K-12 schools have failed to counter hate against Jewish students.

“Antisemitism also is being taught in K-12 schools and at times perpetuated by teachers and staff,” Marcus said. He called for the district to “fulfill its moral and legal obligations to create a school climate free from antisemitic harassment and discrimination.”

The school district released a response denying any wrongdoing, and not commenting “on the validity — or lack thereof — of the allegations in the complaint.”

The system’s statement continued, “This private group’s effort to depict Fulton County Schools as promoting or even tolerating antisemitism is false… Whenever inappropriate behavior is brought to our attention, Fulton County Schools takes it seriously, investigates and takes appropriate action.”

The system said world events spill over onto campuses everywhere, and the system “recognizes the strong feelings that were generated by the tragedy of October 7 and the continuing war in the Middle East.”

The statement concluded by asserting that “school leadership has continually communicated with parents and students with the goal of respecting one another and maintaining a focus on learning.”

Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives for the Brandeis Center, said that “the families of these Jewish and Israeli students have been left to fend for themselves, by administrators who dismiss their complaints and refuse to act. It is long past due for FCSD to take swift corrective action against the antisemitism that pervades their schools.”

Among the cited incidents, the day after the Oct. 7 massacre, Jewish and Israeli students in FCSD were subject to other students yelling anti-Israel slogans and cursing at them. One Israeli middle school student was told by a classmate that “somebody needs to bomb your country, and hey, somebody already did.” A high school student approached a group of Jewish and Israeli girls and mimicked shooting them with a gun while making gunshot noises. Students have also burned “I stand with Israel” posters.

A student asked an Israeli fifth grade student if she was Israeli and then told her that she hates Jews and Israelis and they should all be killed. The same student kept approaching the Israeli student and happily describing all the atrocities that Hamas had committed in Israel, including beheading babies and butchering children. Further, some Jewish students, as young as six years old, have been told, during class and with teachers present, that Israel is entirely at fault for this war.

Nine days after Oct. 7, a second grade teacher told her class — which included two Israeli students — that the war was Israel’s fault. Further, educational materials used by FCSD teachers to indoctrinate students with one-sided history include maps that completely omit the State of Israel and erase the heritage of Jewish and Israeli students.

In April, during cultural night at a District elementary school, five Israeli mothers of FCSD students were tabling with their children when they were verbally accosted and abused by a group of Palestinian parents. The Israeli mothers were yelled at and called “Nazis.”  As the mothers began to shake and cry in fear for their children’s and their own safety, the leader of the Palestinian group – a father of another student – spat at them. After the victims complained to a school safety officer, the guard ultimately told the women that the man seemed nice, so he was not going to do anything.

The Brandeis Center stated that “Parents reported the antisemitism to school administrators on numerous occasions. But instead of taking responsive action to address the anti-Jewish hostility, FCSD denied the antisemitic nature of the incidents or offered inadequate solutions.”

The hostile environment “has become intolerable, and is ultimately denying Jewish students the full benefits of their federally-funded education and interfering with Jewish students’ ability to access their education.”