On behalf of six families, the Deborah Project has sued the Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City, Calif., charging systemic failures to address antisemitism among both students and staff.
The legal nonprofit’s suit, filed on Nov. 15, summarizes reported antisemitic acts and the alleged failure of administrators at the public school to take the threat seriously.
Sam Kasle, the lead plaintiff, said “I tried for months to get the school officials to respond like professionals. Instead, they allowed my daughter to be harmed, other Jewish students to be harmed and non-Jewish students to be taught that the normalization of antisemitism in our school district is acceptable.”
Incidents included in the filing include teachers using anti-Israel propaganda in classes; making jokes about the Holocaust; and telling a student that she appeared Jewish because of her nose. Students also reportedly used antisemitic slurs, said they wished all Jews would die and laughed about young diarist Anne Frank, who hid with her family in Amsterdam during World War II until they got captured. She died at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp in February 1945 at the age of 15.
Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, stated that “the widespread, demoralizing antisemitism continued for months, yet the school district refused to obey the law or even follow their own internal procedures to stop the harassment and cease the hostile environment which they instead allowed and enabled.”
She said “our clients repeatedly attempted to follow the district’s rules to obtain redress for these egregious actions and ultimately realized they had to bring the school district’s actors to court to stop the harm.”
