The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee is investigating three public school districts after “disturbing reports of Jewish students being harassed and subjected to open antisemitism in their classrooms and hallways,” the House panel said on Monday.
The three districts are the Berkeley Unified School District (Berkeley, Calif.), Fairfax County Public Schools (Fairfax, Va.) and the School District of Philadelphia, which collectively educate about 490,000 students in roughly 450 schools and centers.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), the committee chair, and a colleague wrote to the Berkeley district that “Jewish and Israeli students have allegedly been regularly bullied and harassed” at its schools since Oct. 7.
Some district teachers and administrators “allegedly facilitate and encourage this hostility, while others fail to act in response to it,” the committee stated. “BUSD teachers, staff and administrators have allegedly urged students to join walkouts and demonstrations during school hours that isolate and alienate Jewish students.”
“At one such walkout, students were allegedly chanting ‘kill the Jews,’” the committee said.
A spokesman for the Berkeley district told JNS that the committee is asking about “old allegations” that the superintendent addressed in May 2024, when she appeared before Congress. “The district will, of course, respond appropriately to the committee’s letter,” the spokesman said.
In a letter to the Philadelphia district, Walberg and a colleague stated that the district is allegedly “rife with antisemitic incidents, including allegations of teachers spreading antisemitism in the classroom and the School District of Philadelphia approving antisemitic walkouts that isolate Jewish students.”
The district settled with the U.S. Department of Education in December and agreed to address the matter. Still, “antisemitic incidents have continued to proliferate since the plan,” and “Jewish parents have likewise claimed that their complaints about antisemitism to the school district continue to go unanswered,” the committee wrote.
Monique Braxton, deputy chief of communications for the district, told JNS that district policy is to avoid commenting on active investigations.
Walberg wrote to the Fairfax district of Jewish students having “allegedly faced repeated antisemitic bullying, including other students making the ‘heil Hitler’ salute and throwing coins at them.”
Among the incidents that Walberg cited is a district school’s chapter of the Muslim Students Association distributing flyers on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 that included “a map depicting the elimination of the State of Israel.”
A spokeswoman for the Fairfax district told JNS that the district “intends to fully cooperate” with the congressional inquiry and “continues to partner with all families to provide a safe, supportive and inclusive school environment for all students and staff members.”
The committee asked the districts to provide relevant documents by Dec. 8.
