"From Playground to Classroom: The Spread of Antisemitism in K-12 Schools"
House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
2025-09-10
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Source: Congress.gov
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R
Rabbi Jill Jacobs
The Subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary and Secondary Education will come to order. I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call recess at any time. Good morning. Over the past two years, the Committee on Education and Workforce has been instrumental in investigating the horrifying rise in antisemitism at universities across the country. Following this committee's oversight, several prominent university presidents have stepped down, and we have seen important reforms at leading institutions. Progress, however, remains uneven, and far too many Jewish students continue to face discrimination, harassment, and civil rights violations at universities across the country. This jarring state of affairs is unfortunately not limited to higher education. Antisemitism is also a growing problem in our K-12 education system. At some schools in my home state, California, the antisemitic environment is so hostile that Jewish children are withdrawing and transferring to other schools. Even the California Department of Education has found ethnic studies curricula to be antisemitic in multiple school districts. As with higher education, there are clear factors driving antisemitism in K-12 schools. Today's hearing will address these underlying causes. First, teachers' colleges increasingly prime faculty to see themselves as activists rather than educators, prioritizing divisive ideologies and casting Israel as an oppressor instead of focusing on preparing future teachers. Second, local and national teachers unions abuse their monopolies to put anti-Semitic activism into action. Take the National Education Association, for example, which the committee recently announced it will investigate. The NEA uses its position as the largest union in the country to spread anti-Semitism nationwide.
In July, its representative assembly unbelievably voted to ban one of the nation's premier anti-Semitism watchdogs, the Anti-Defamation League. Third, an expansive network of outside groups partners with school districts to promote the use of instructional material that traffics in anti-Semitic tropes. Such groups often advance foreign interests and an anti-Israel agenda. These driving factors incite severe discrimination against Jewish students and teachers, forcing many to move schools to avoid being targeted by their peers and colleagues. Administrative malaise or even prejudice at the school, district, and state level has allowed anti-Semitism to fester and even become normalized. Many of the incidents documented by our witnesses today truly shock the conscience. I will tell you that I have also met personally with many students in our K-12 system who have had to live through things that we would never have imagined in this country. uh outright discrimination uh sometimes uh you know the discrimination and the the bigotry uh is couched uh cloaked in in simply uh you know anti uh israel rhetoric or in other tropes sometimes it's just outright undisguised anti-semitism that they are confronted with as they're just going about their lives trying to get an education in our public school system This disgraceful reality that we are faced with, that one of the world's most ancient retrograde prejudices has deeply infected our public education system, demands decisive action. We must use every tool available to protect students across America and to stop poisonous ideologies from corrupting their schooling.
My colleagues and I are committed to understanding why antisemitism has gone unchecked at the K-12 level, and to ensuring a safe learning environment for Jewish students. I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses today, as it will certainly inform this committee's ongoing work. And with that, I'll turn to the ranking member for an opening statement.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses. We can all agree that schools are responsible for creating safe learning environments for students, teachers, and faculty, free from discrimination, harassment, and violence. There is no question that anti-Semitic acts of harassment and intimidation have increased, especially since October 7th of 2023. And as I've said repeatedly in this committee, we must do more. But this is now the 11th hearing we've had on anti-Semitism in the past few years. And what has happened? Are things better? No. Anti-Semitism is on the rise and tensions and divisions have increased. As the mother of Jewish children, I know and understand that we can and must do more. to protect Jewish students and Jewish Americans who are threatened, harassed, and attacked because of who they are.
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