Three Jewish students were expelled from a Virginia school after their parents complained about the school’s failure to respond to repeated instances of antisemitic harassment, a lawsuit filed Tuesday claims.
One of the children, an 11-year old student at the Nysmith School for the Gifted, was allegedly targeted with “severe and pervasive” harassment for being Jewish, with students calling Jews “baby killers,” and saying “they deserve to die because of what is happening in Gaza,” according to the lawsuit. When the girl’s parents brought the incidents to the headmaster’s attention, they were told their daughter needed to “toughen up” before all three of their children were expelled from the school mid-semester.
The Nysmith School, located in Herndon, Virginia, is rated among the best schools in the world by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. The school also boasts that its standardized test scores “consistently placed in the top 2% of schools nationwide” since 2000.
The school did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The anti-Jewish themes were also allegedly perpetrated by the school itself, the lawsuit claims. At one point, children in the sixth grade history class were instructed to collaborate on a drawing of a “strong historical leader.” The image that was drawn, and later sent around in a community-wide email, featured “the unmistakable face of Adolf Hitler.”
The owner and headmaster of the school also allegedly hung a Palestinian flag in the school’s gym after the parents had already reported several incidents, at which point the bullying of their daughter grew more intense, the lawsuit claims.
Shortly after the parents brought their complaints to the school’s leaders, the annual Holocaust memorial program was canceled due to concerns “the event might inflame emotions within the Nysmith School community in light of the Israel-Gaza conflict,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims the school and its leaders showed “deliberate indifference to, and incitement of, significant and pervasive discrimination” and are asking for the school to receive formal antidiscrimination training.
Antisemitism has run rampant at schools and on college campuses across the country following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Many schools have been put under federal investigation for allowing and sometimes encouraging anti-Jewish events.
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