The School District of Philadelphia building (Photo credit: wikicommons/It’s Our City)
The National Jewish Advocacy Center and the Deborah Project have issues with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Both Jewish groups have filed a lawsuit alleging that the office did not craft a serious agreement with the School District of Philadelphia to eradicate antisemitism in the district. The suit also says that OCR neglected to “enforce even that inadequate agreement,” according to a press release.
Philadelphia’s public school district includes almost 200,000 students across 330 schools. In December 2024, it accepted a Voluntary Resolution Agreement after an OCR investigation into possible violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. As part of the agreement, the district pledged to update policies regarding the reporting, documenting and investigating of possible antisemitic incidents. It also promised staff training, education for students on discrimination and an audit of past harassment complaints.
The groups now suing the OCR described this agreement as “superficial” in their release.
“The federal government has a basic legal obligation under Title VI to protect students from discrimination,” said Rachel Sebbag, litigation counsel with NJAC. “The agreement failed to address the root causes of antisemitism in the district, and then the government failed to enforce it. Jewish students are paying the price.”
The NJAC and the Deborah Project are nonprofit organizations that advocate for Jewish civil rights and protect against discrimination, according to the release. Their plaintiff in this case is the Gevura Fund, a nonprofit organization that works to “address antisemitism and promote accountability in public institutions.” In this case, the Gevura Fund includes district parents whose children have faced consistent antisemitism.
They have faced antisemitism even in the 15 months since the agreement was signed, according to the release. That’s why the groups also criticized the OCR for a lack of enforcement in their complaint.
“Before and after the Title VI case in Philadelphia, the Gevura Fund has heard from parents, teachers, and students about the hostile environment for Jews in the city’s schools,” said Tina Snider, president of the Gevura Fund, in the release. “Many are afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. It’s time for the government to be held accountable and for Jewish children to attend school without fear of bullying or harassment.”
“Distraught Jewish parents are telling us that their children are being victimized in Philadelphia’s public schools. That is the direct consequence of the federal government’s failure to hold district leadership accountable,” added Jerome Marcus of the Deborah Project. “The government must step up and do what it is legally required to do — impose behavior-changing penalties for the district’s failure to enforce essential policies which ensure that all children can learn without fear of harassment and physical threats.”
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the NJAC, said it was important to hold OCR accountable for both entering and failing to enforce the agreement.
“If the government wants credit for resolving discrimination complaints, it has to also do the hard part, which is enforcement,” Goldfeder said in a JNS report on the suit. “Otherwise, the students they are supposed to protect are left exactly where they started.”
“While lawsuits over the Department of Education’s broader Title VI enforcement failures are not new, this approach represents a novel effort to hold the Department accountable for entering into, and then failing to enforce, its own OCR resolution agreement in a Title VI antisemitism matter,” he explained in the release. “Civil rights law cannot be performative, and an unenforced agreement is not worth the paper it was signed on.”