What if that bully taunts the child that “six million [Jews] was not enough?”
What if that bully creates an atmosphere of hate in school and on the playground to such an extent that Jewish students are forced to eat lunch alone, drop classes and hide their religious identity out of fear?
You would, of course, report that bully to the teacher. To the principal. To the city public school system, if it came to that. Such unacceptable hate has no place in our schools.
But what if the bully is the city’s public school system?
The result was exactly what the bullies intended: Jewish students lost friends, and became isolated and even more vulnerable.
That metaphor is the reality for many Jewish students in Baltimore, where their own places of learning have become the source of isolation and fear, and the repeated pleas for action coming from Jewish parents have been largely ignored by the city school system.
According to a federal civil rights complaint filed July 22 by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Baltimore public schools are now “a pervasive hostile environment where Jewish students are denied equal access to opportunities and forced to choose between isolation from their peers or concealing their Jewish identity.” The ADL filed the complaint on behalf of parents whose children have been subjected to “egregious and persistent discrimination and harassment” by students and teachers in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS).
That “bully” directing Nazi salutes at the sole Jewish child in class? That wasn’t a Baltimore student—it was a Baltimore teacher, the same teacher who announced to their Jewish student, in front of the entire class, “I’m about to go all Nazi on you.”
Meanwhile, swastikas have appeared at several schools with little, if any, accountability for those responsible—on bathroom walls, on desks and penciled into Jewish students’ textbooks.
The 22-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, also chronicles numerous instances of severe harassment.
Mt. Washington School is a typical example. Despite reports from students and parents of constant bullying and threats, rather than discipline the bigoted bullies, school administrators determined the allegations were “inconclusive,” and encouraged those victimized to change their behavior—avoid the bullies, take different routes to classes and leave school early. The result was exactly what the bullies intended: Jewish students lost friends, and became isolated and even more vulnerable.
At the Baltimore School for the Arts, history teachers removed units on the Holocaust while teaching about World War II, according to the complaint. When swastikas were found on bathroom walls after the Jewish High Holidays one year, the school’s executive director whitewashed the hate symbols as “graffiti” when addressing the student body on the matter, avoiding the words “swastika” or “antisemitic.”
“All schools have a fundamental obligation to maintain a learning environment that protects students from discrimination,” said James Pasch, ADL Vice President, Litigation. “On this essential measure of keeping its Jewish students safe from harassment and intimidation, Baltimore City Public Schools have failed.”
The complaint urges the US Department of Education to investigate BCPS, while calling on the district to adopt comprehensive reforms—including mandatory antisemitism training for staff, Holocaust education and strict enforcement of zero-tolerance policies against antisemitic behavior.
The complaint also urged the school system to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Incidents of antisemitism in the state of Maryland have more than tripled since 2022, and Maryland now ranks third in the nation for the number of school-based acts of hate.
Baltimore—once the heart of Maryland’s education system—is now apparently a place where children aren’t taught to think, but to hate. If this can happen here, where will it happen next?
And more importantly, who will stop it?
