Bay District Schools in Florida, which has nearly 50 schools with almost 30,000 students, failed to take sufficient action against Jew-hatred, according to a complaint that the Anti-Defamation League and the law firm Akerman filed with the U.S. Department of Education.
The ADL said on Thursday that it filed the complaint, which is dated Feb. 24 and alleges that the district violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The complaint states that an unnamed Jewish student was subjected to two antisemitic student slideshow presentations in class at A. Crawford Mosley High School in Lynn Haven, Fla., in August and September 2025.
The August 2025 presentation depicted Jews as “collectively powerful, greedy and manipulative” and was not related to the assigned topic, but the teacher did not interject throughout the presentation, according to the complaint. (JNS sought comment from the district.)
After the student and another student told the teacher that they were concerned, she told them that she would check all slides in advance to prevent such a presentation in the future. But the next month, another antisemitic project was shown to the class. This one featured “antisemitic tropes regarding money, control, dual loyalty to Israel, demonization of Jews and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories,” according to the complaint.
The students giving the second presentation weren’t Jewish but wore kippahs. They also made Nazi salutes, according to the complaint.
A substitute teacher allowed the presentation to continue and laughed during it, and when the main teacher returned to class, she let the students deliver the presentation again, the complaint alleges.
After the student and his mother reported the incidents, the district determined that the presentations were inappropriate and antisemitic and said that the students involved would be disciplined. The district also stated that a teacher would be reprimanded and required to undergo further training.
The complaint alleges that the district did not take any further steps to seriously address the matter.
The district didn’t tell the community that an antisemitic incident had occurred, and it did it issue a public statement denouncing Jew-hatred or provide training and programming in response to the incidents, according to the complaint. It adds that the student enrolled in a district in another state, because he felt unsafe due to the incidents and to years of prior Jew-hatred in the district.
“No child should have to endure this kind of sustained harassment and exclusion for their religious identity in a public school or any school, and no parent should have to beg a school district to include their child because they are Jewish,” stated James Pasch, vice president of litigation at the ADL.
