In her May 18 op-ed “Antisemitism lawsuits against school districts do more harm than good,” Laura Einhorn reaches the wrong conclusion by suggesting that legal action against school districts is inherently harmful or somehow contrary to Jewish values.
Her article calls to mind the advice given to residents of Skokie, Illinois, in 1977 when neo-Nazis sought a permit to march in a U.S. town heavily populated by Holocaust survivors: Close your curtains, stay inside and the trouble will pass.
In our system of government with three branches, the judicial branch was designed by our Founding Fathers to be the last and final place to challenge injustice and to seek appropriate remedies.
Lawsuits have not been the first resort for most Jewish parents and students who face antisemitism in K-12 public schools. Rather, they are the last resort after repeated complaints, meetings and requests for intervention fail to produce meaningful action. When Jewish students are subjected to harassment, intimidation, exclusion or discriminatory treatment, schools have both a moral and legal obligation to respond. If they do not, families have every right to seek legal remedies — just as any other protected minority group would.
Einhorn characterizes these lawsuits as “lawfare” intended to silence criticism of Israel. That framing ignores a critical distinction between protected political speech and conduct that creates a hostile educational environment for Jewish students. Criticism of Israeli government policies is protected speech. Harassing Jewish students, targeting them because of their Jewish identity, glorifying violence against Jews or permitting classrooms to become openly hostile spaces is not.
The growing number of lawsuits in California did not emerge in a vacuum. Multiple school districts have faced allegations that Jewish students were mocked, isolated, intimidated or subjected to antisemitic imagery and rhetoric without adequate intervention by administrators. Some complaints involve swastikas, anti-Jewish slurs, teach-ins, walk-outs and teachers introducing overtly biased political material into classrooms. Teachers who seek to indoctrinate rather than educate need to be identified, called out and made subject to discipline. If school administrators are not willing to do this, then the only recourse left to Jewish parents is the judicial system.
Einhorn argues that lawsuits “position Jews against other marginalized groups.” In reality, civil rights protections are not a zero-sum exercise. I ask her: Do lawsuits alleging racism or discrimination against other minority groups, including African Americans, Muslims and members of the LGBTQ community, also fall under her rubric of “lawfare”? Why don’t Jewish students deserve the same protections afforded to every other minority group?
I am not persuaded by the argument that legal action reinforces stereotypes about Jewish power or influence. Civil rights litigation has long been an essential tool for vulnerable minorities seeking equal treatment under the law. Jews should not be discouraged from asserting their legal rights out of fear that antisemites may weaponize old tropes.
The answer to antisemitic stereotypes is to reject the stereotypes — not to abandon lawful efforts to protect students.
Most Jewish families do not want endless litigation. They want schools where their children can safely and openly express their identity without fear, intimidation or exclusion. Ideally, schools would address these problems proactively. But when institutions — and the leaders of those institutions — fail to meet those obligations, lawsuits are not an attack on public education. They are sometimes the mechanism that compels institutions and their leaders to live up to their responsibilities.