Berkeley school district named in lawsuit over alleged antisemitism in public schools | Local Schools

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is suing California for allegedly tolerating anti-semitism in its public schools.

Berkeley Unified School District is named in the lawsuit, alongside other California school districts. This is the first time a state has been sued over claims of systemic antisemitism in its public schools, with the complaint citing increased antisemitism after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

“The parents of Jewish children have filed hundreds of reports through the administrative process, and those reports have gone unanswered,” said senior litigation counsel for The Brandeis Center Jeffrey Lang. “We think it will set a decisive precedent, establishing that states can’t ignore districts that allow discrimination to persist.”

The Brandeis Center is seeking that the defendants review all state ethnic studies curricula and make state funding contingent on the enforcement of anti-discrimination policies, in addition to other requests. Defendants named in the suit include the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education and Tony Thurmond, the current state superintendent of public instruction.

Plaintiff Ilana Pearlman is bringing suit on behalf of three of her children who formerly attended BUSD schools. Two of her children were later pulled and put into Jewish private schools due to “biased anti-Semitic learning environments,” according to the complaint.

Pearlman’s ninth grade son, referred to as “A.D.” in the complaint, was allegedly subjected to “violent” imagery from his art teacher of a “giant fist punching through” barbed wire fences in the shape of the Star of David, according to the complaint. The incident occurred about a week after the Oct. 7 attacks.

In addition, Pearlman was mocked and interrupted while speaking about alleged antisemitism at BUSD during a school board meeting and was later allegedly doxed by a community member, with the help of a district employee, according to the complaint.

“The idea that a Jewish parent can bring to the attention of the school board that discrimination is going on and the school board doesn’t even protect her to hear her complaint … suggests an indifference to discrimination and an unwillingness to take it seriously,” Lang said.

The complaint specifically appeals to violations of the Free Exercise Clause, which guarantees the right to practice religion without discrimination, and the Equal Protection Clause.

This is not the first time complaints have been filed against BUSD by the Brandeis Center. In November 2025, following a complaint filed by the Brandeis Center, BUSD was investigated by the U.S. House Committee on Education & the Workforce, which claimed BUSD allowed the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students. In May 2024, BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel testified in front of the same committee over alleged antisemitism.

The California Department of Education declined to respond, stating it was unable to comment on pending litigation.

“There seems to be widespread agreement that it’s important for the state of California to step in to ensure that students in our state schools do not have to learn in hostile environments,” added Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at UC Berkeley.