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Carmel, which promotes itself as a picturesque, affluent “village by the sea,” may not be a place where you’d expect ugly antisemitism in the public schools.

But that’s exactly what Jewish students have faced there, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which also finds that the school district did not do enough to protect those students.

The Department of Education concluded its investigation in late July into the Carmel Unified School District regarding antisemitic incidents, finding that the district had violated Jewish students’ civil rights.

In a July 23 letter sent to Superintendent Sharon Ofek, the OCR states that 15 incidents over the course of the past three years — along with the schools’ inadequate response to them — constituted violations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin, “including shared Jewish ancestry,” under any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. 

Ofek, who is Jewish, was hired in January to lead the small school district with around 2,300 students in K-12 since serving as interim superintendent since last August.

The incidents included swastikas on bathrooms, classroom desks, a student’s skin and a ruler handed to a Jewish student in class, all of which were reported during the 2021-2022 school year to administrators, according to an OCR press release on July 26. School administrators received more reports of swastikas during the 2023-2024 school year, the OCR stated, as well as a report of a student saying they wanted “to kill all Jews and burn them in their homes.”

Three days after the letter was sent to Ofek, the OCR reported that it had reached a resolution with the school district that would go into effect in stages, starting immediately. 

According to the text of the agreement, Carmel USD must comply with a long list of restorative and preventive measures. 

First, the district has 60 days to review all incidents of harassment covered in the OCR report and to determine what further action, if any, is needed in each individual case. The district must complete those remedies within another 30 days and provide details to the OCR.

Second, the district must revise its policies and procedures related to such harassment, disseminate the information clearly to students, parents and staff, including information on how future incidents can be reported and addressed, and report back to the OCR.

The resolution also directs Carmel USD to conduct a survey of the “school climate” regarding antisemitic harassment during the coming academic year; develop and implement training for all administrators, faculty and other staff in recognizing and reporting student harassment based on race, color and national origin; and conduct an internal audit of such reporting over the next two academic years, which will be sent to the Office of Civil Rights. 

The American Jewish Committee applauded the resolution, declaring in a July 26 statement that the OCR’s findings “sends an unequivocal message that the district has fallen short in its obligations to Jewish students and their families,” and welcoming Carmel USD’s response to the OCR letter, in which “CUSD conceded that through its failure to adequately address repeated acts of antisemitic vandalism, it created a hostile environment for its Jewish students.”

Carmel resident Shel Lyons, whose oldest child graduated from Carmel High School in 2023, applauded the OCR’s findings, which she told J. by email in late July “validated” everyone who was “subject to discrimination in Carmel schools.” Lyons added that she is “sincerely hopeful that this finding will spark positive and immediate change in our beautiful schools and community.” 

The district has fallen short in its obligations to Jewish students and their families.

American Jewish Committee

In 2021, Lyons sued Carmel’s River School, an elementary school in the district where her son was in third grade, for not allowing her to display a large, inflatable menorah at the school’s Christmas tree lighting. She withdrew her federal lawsuit after the judge refused her motion for a restraining order by noting that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that a Christmas tree is not a religious symbol. 

Nevertheless, in her ruling, Judge Beth Labson Freeman wrote that Lyons’ allegations of the school’s “systemic endorsement of Christian beliefs” over the years were “very serious,” and “the feelings of exclusion experienced by the minor children are particularly troubling.”  

Now living abroad with her husband and children, Lyons told J. in an Aug. 2 email that her menorah incident and others she knows about, all of which were reported to Carmel USD and the Office for Civil Rights, were not included in the list of antisemitic incidents ruled on by the OCR.

“I think OCR purposefully limited their report to either incidents that were self-reported [by Carmel USD], or the one that they had documentation for, so that CUSD couldn’t argue,” she told J.  “So it’s almost impossible to know the whole story because they are kept under wraps unless the person [affected] comes forward.”

A girl who was told by another student that Jews should burn in their homes has undergone mental health treatment “largely due to the fact that she was bullied and subjected to horrible antisemitic rhetoric with a death threat,” the girl’s mother told Lyons.

Mira Nissim was a special education instructional aide at Carmel High during the 2021-2022 school year and witnessed several of the incidents in the OCR report. For example, she was in a class where a chemistry teacher discovered an SS symbol and swastika carved into a student desk. 

“He was really shaken,” she told J. “His wife and kids are Jewish, and he was wearing a Hanukkah tie” and wondered whether the graffiti was related to that. 

Nissim, who grew up in Carmel, said she witnessed other incidents and talked to the principal “multiple times, urging him to take more action,” she said. He told her there was little he could do, she said. 

Nissim was terminated at the end of that school year, which she attributes to her outspokenness on the issue. She has submitted her own complaint to the OCR. 

“So it wasn’t just students, but teachers as well,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”

Ofek responded to the OCR complaint and the resolution agreement as the superintendent and on a personal level.

“I am deeply heartbroken by the recent incidents and profoundly disappointed that destructive and counterproductive attitudes were allowed to persist within Carmel USD,” she told J. by email Tuesday. “I want to make it clear that there is no room for discrimination of any kind. I believe in fostering a cooperative and productive culture, which begins with how we raise our children and is further influenced by our educational environment. As a Jewish-American, I can unequivocally state that this type of culture will not be tolerated under my leadership. I have the full support of the Board and the community to work towards creating an environment where students and staff feel safe and welcomed.

“To the victims, I want you to know that I stand with you and am here to support you. It is imperative for our school community to know that my door is always open to address these issues. Anti-Semitism and discrimination in all its forms are unacceptable especially in our schools.”

Correction, Aug. 7: The photo above, which originally showed Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana, has been replaced.