A nonprofit advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday, accusing the U.S. Department of Education of failing to enforce civil rights protections for Jewish students in the School District of Philadelphia.
The complaint, Gevura Fund v. U.S. Department of Education, alleges that in December 2024, during the Biden administration, the department entered into an inadequate resolution agreement with the district, which educates nearly 200,000 students in 330 schools, and then failed to ensure compliance, leaving students exposed to a hostile environment.
Gevura Fund represents families of students in the district, including at least one child who has experienced continued antisemitic hostility since the agreement’s execution, according to the complaint.
“If the Department of Education can investigate antisemitism, cut a deal and then just walk away, every school district in the country will get the message that all you have to do is stall, posture and wait for Washington to eventually lose interest,” Mark Goldfeder, director and CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which is representing the plaintiff, told JNS.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the lawsuit seeks to compel federal officials to carry out their enforcement obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
According to the complaint, the Education Department previously investigated “rampant antisemitic discrimination” in Philadelphia schools, where Jewish students were allegedly subjected to a hostile educational environment that limited equal access to opportunities.
The agency entered into a voluntary resolution agreement with the district, which had a budget of $4.6 billion last fiscal year, but the filing contends that the agreement “utterly failed” to correct the conditions and that federal officials did not enforce even its limited provisions.
The suit further alleges that the department has “unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed” required enforcement actions, despite ongoing reports of antisemitic incidents and noncompliance by the district.
“If the government wants credit for resolving discrimination complaints, it has to also do the hard part, which is enforcement,” Goldfeder told JNS. “Otherwise, the students they are supposed to protect are left exactly where they started.”
