The office of Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson has investigated antisemitic statements that a member of the state’s Human Rights Commission made during a meeting of the state agency in March 2025, but more than a year later, the man remains on the panel, JNS has learned.
JNS asked Barbara Harris, executive director of the commission, if any action was taken to address comments made by commissioner Luc fils Jasmin during the March 27, 2025, meeting, after the commission posted video of the conversation on Wednesday.
“The governor’s office appoints commissioners and handles matters related to your inquiry,” she told JNS. “Given that the governor’s office previously reviewed this matter and investigated, I believe it is most appropriate to forward this correspondence to the governor’s office for any review or response deemed appropriate, rather that addressing the matter through the commission.”
JNS sought comment from the Washington governor’s office. Per the commission website, Jasmin’s term runs through June 2028.
A pastor who immigrated from Haiti, Jasmin was appointed to the commission in 2023 by then-Gov. Jay Inslee. At the March 2025 meeting, he accused Jews of complaining too much about antisemitism.
“This word ‘antisemitism’ has been around since the Jews got trampled by Hitler, and it seems like the Jewish people keep on crying and crying and crying and crying—always crying over the antisemitism,” he said.
He added at the meeting that “these people the Jewish are killing by the millions over there—the Palestinians and the Arabs.”
Jasmin is the father of Luc Jasmin III, who has served as the Eastern Washington outreach representative for the governor’s office since October 2022 and is running for the state legislature as a Democrat.
The younger Jasmin told JNS that his father apologized to the governor’s office soon after the incident and that he’s talked to his father about the strong ties between Jewish and Haitian communities. He admitted that his father had not issued a public apology.
Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington state Democratic party, told JNS that “Washington Democrats condemn antisemitism in any form.”
“Hate has no place in our state, and we are working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot who will protect the safety and freedoms of every Washingtonian,” she said.
Solly Kane, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, told JNS that his office tried in vain to reach Jasmin.
“Our office reached out directly to commissioner Jasmin earlier this week after these comments came to light to express our concerns and request he do some serious learning and reflection as well as issue an apology,” he told JNS. “We have not heard back from him.”
“At a time when the Jewish population is 2% of Americans but the target of approximately 70% of all religious-based hate crimes, for commissioner Jasmin to suggest that Jews are always ‘crying and crying’ about antisemitism reveals a stunning lack of understanding and awareness of the real threats the American Jewish community faces,” he said.
“Commissioner Jasmin suggests that Jews are seeking special treatment when in fact all the Jewish community is looking for are the basic entitlements in this country of safety and religious freedom,” Kane told JNS.
Kane called on elected officials to “unequivocally condemn commissioner Jasmin’s remarks and uphold their responsibility to be moral leaders in our community by making clear that offensive comments like these have no place in Washington state.”
