Three human rights and Jewish advocacy organizations filed a federal complaint against Fulton County Schools over what they claim has been routine antisemitic bullying and harassment against Jewish students since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE), and the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) filed a Title VI complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
The complaint said the antisemitic acts have taken place in the hallways, classrooms, buses, and schoolyards of elementary, middle, and high schools located across the district, according to a Brandeis Center news release.
A Fulton County Schools spokesperson said they knew that the Department of Education received an administrative complaint. The spokesperson said the school district would not comment on the validity or lack thereof of the allegations in the complaint. The school district will allow the administrative process to proceed without interference.
“This private group’s effort to depict Fulton County Schools as promoting or even tolerating antisemitism is false,” the FCS spokesperson said. “Like most, if not all, schools across the country, world events have sometimes spilled onto our campuses. Whenever inappropriate behavior is brought to our attention, Fulton County Schools takes it seriously, investigates, and takes appropriate action.”
The complaint said that FCS ignored Jewish and Israeli parents who said their children have faced increasing physical and verbal harassment. FCS administrators denied the antisemitic nature of the incidents or offered inadequate solutions, according to the complaint.
“The families of these Jewish and Israeli students have been left to fend for themselves, by administrators who dismiss their complaints and refuse to act. It is long past due for FCSD to take swift corrective action against the antisemitism that pervades their schools,” Denise Katz-Prober, director of Legal Initiatives for the Brandeis Center, said in the news release.
The FCS spokesperson said that the school district recognizes that the tragedy of Oct. 7 and the continuing war in the Middle East generated strong feelings. School leaders communicate with parents and students to build respect and maintain a focus on learning.
The complaint alleges that teachers and other school officials have tolerated and take part in the harassment.
The Brandeis Center has also filed a federal complaint against Berkeley Unified School District and is suing the New York Department of Education and the Santa Ana Unified School District for unaddressed anti-Semitism. The Brandeis Center also secured a recent win concerning its complaint against the Community School of Davidson public charter school in North Carolina.
The FCS website’s back-to-school page for the 2024-2025 academic year states that harassment offenses include antisemitic language in its Student Code of Conduct section.
