An art class poster advocating violence against Israel. A pro-Palestinian walkout that left Jewish students feeling threatened. “Kill the Jews” uttered in classrooms and hallways.
Rising incidents of antisemitism in elementary, middle and high schools, particularly in the Bay Area, have alarmed students and parents. Some families are even considering leaving their public school districts.
A new program focused on California seeks to provide pro-bono legal assistance to such families through a web-based “helpline” backed by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs and four major law firms.
“Students shouldn’t have to hide who they are for fear of reprisal at their schools,” James Pasch, ADL’s senior director for national litigation, told J. on Tuesday. “Our goal is to change the environment so that does not become a new normal in California, or anywhere in this country.”
The website, launched Feb. 29, connects parents with attorneys who will evaluate the students’ experiences. Pro-bono legal help isn’t guaranteed, but the law firms will assess the reports to see whether legal action can be taken and will respond within 48 hours, Pasch said.
“You’ll get a full call from one of those trained attorneys to do a longer legal intake,” he said.
The attorneys represent major players in the legal world: Covington & Burling, Dechert, and Akin, all of which have offices in San Francisco, and Davis Polk, with an office in Menlo Park.
“It’s an important pro-bono priority for us to do whatever we can to eliminate hate, antisemitism from schools,” said Daniel Shallman, managing partner of Covington & Burling’s Los Angeles office.
Students shouldn’t have to hide who they are for fear of reprisal at their schools.
After the initial intake, there are several possibilities for what happens next.
“It could involve referral to look to a lawyer to handle a case if it’s a potential claim against a school to school or a teacher,” Shallman said. “It could involve including that information in a complaint to the government, whether it’s Department of Education, federal level or state level.”
If legal action isn’t the right course, there are other possible outcomes, Pasch said.
“It could be referred back to one of our ADL regional offices or to StandWithUs … so that it still gets a response on a policy level,” he said.
In January, ADL published a report on antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas massacre in Israel, and Jan. 7. ADL reported 256 antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools nationwide during that period, up from 105 during the same three months a year earlier.
While antisemitism is a concern across the country, the website is focused on California because of the high number of reported incidents, Pasch said.
The Brandeis Center and ADL have already taken action in the state. In February, they jointly filed a complaint, urging the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to begin an investigation into the Berkeley Unified School District for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race and national origin in programs that receive federal funding.
In January the Department of Education opened Title VI investigations of San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District.
Shallman said in centering on California, the helpline is serving as a test program for the rest of the country.
“This pilot is for testing what kind of resources we might need, what the volume is going to look like if we were to expand this nationwide,” he said.
Pasch hopes the program can get schools to listen to students and families and take antisemitism more seriously.
“Our goal is to ensure that students don’t feel like they need to remove or hide their Stars of David while they walk down the hallways,” he said.