Feds bash Philly schools for enabling anti-Semitism

I once wrote, with sincerity, that Philadelphians divide their time between bragging about Philly, and trashing it.

As a columnist, I’ve done more of the latter. Because problems seem to have a longer lifetime than achievements.

Some columnists, like the famous Herb Caen, wrote what he called a series of love letters to his beloved San Francisco.

That’s not how I roll. Maybe because I was not born here, I was not immunized to the institutional rot that led Lincoln Steffens to observe the city’s politicians were “corrupt and contented” in 1904, and for Donald J. Trump to say “bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things” in 2020. (I know many of you hate Trump, and he said that about nonexistent election fraud, but somehow it fits.)

Philly has some of the prettiest views, and ugliest members of the Establishment. 

Kind of the long way around to a report rom the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that found examples of anti-Semitism — ample and obvious — in the Philadelphia School District. 

Anti-Semitism in Philadelphia public schools.

I am not a Chicken Little when it comes to anti-Semitism. In fact, while others ran around in hysteria, I have pointed out, more than once, that the actual number of anti-Semitic incidents is actually very low. Such as this 2019 column in  which I argued that even being opposed to Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic. Sometimes, yes. Always, no.

Those columns were published before Oct. 7, 2023, the massacre of Israeli civilians, which swung open the door to anti-Semitism following Israel’s ferocious response to the attack. Which was the response Hamas wanted, to turn public opinion against the Jewish state.

The pro-Hamas protestors swept into the streets and took over portions of some college campuses. And, yes, pro Hamas, not pro-Palestinian, because a) they blamed Israel for the carnage, never mentioning who started the war, and who kidnapped civilians, and b) they demanded a permanent cease fire, which would leave the Hamas murderers in charge of Gaza. And Hamas has promised they would do it again.

Amidst this civic turmoil, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) said the school district received repeated and extensive notice during the 2022-2023, and 2023-24 school years of harassment and “the district has not demonstrated. . . that the district fulfilled its Title VI obligations to evaluate whether a hostile environment existed based on the information about which it had notice.”

In plain English, the district acted like the Three Monkeys — hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Hate has no home here?

The findings were released last week as part of a settlement which requires the district to hold training on anti-discrimination policies and educate students about racial and ethnic discrimination. Plus other recommendations about training and recording complaints.

The district made no admission of guilt, but consented to the one-year agreement.

In one damning passage,  OCR wrote that although entities are obligated to maintain records regarding discrimination, “the district has not produced such records and appears to not maintain them.”

Consequences? Meh. 

Further, “OCR is also concerned that district staff members appear to have engaged in retaliation against district parents for filing the OCR complaint.”

Get that? Some staff members — who should have been fired on the spot — retaliated against parents, the people who pay their salary and to whom they entrust their children.

Just imagine what the reaction would be from, oh, let’s say the mayor, if staffers had threatened Black parents for filing a civil rights complaint.

To my knowledge, Mayor Cherelle Parker has not made a peep on this issue, and I have no way of knowing if any reporter has asked for a statement.  [For the record, the mayor’s press office ignores my requests for information.]

Other anti-Semitic incidents included Nazi salutes, swastikas drawn on doors and smart boards, anti-Semitic slurs, threats to “kill the Jews,” dressing like Nazis, and spewing fake German.

Anti-Black racial slurs were also cited.

Lincoln Steffens would not be surprised.