As the fallout from the war between Israel and Hamas grows, the head of the embattled Berkeley public school district is being summoned to Washington, D.C., to testify before members of Congress amid accusations of anti-Semitism in her schools.
Berkeley Unified Superintendent. Enikia Ford Morthel said Monday she would travel to the nation's capital for a hearing on May 8 to answer questions from elected officials in the latest chapter of congressional investigations into campus anti-Semitism that previously contributed to the resignations of presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The hearing in the House Education and Workforce Committee, chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R.N.C.), comes as the 9,100-student district fights accusations that it has become a non-profit desired for Jews since the Hamas attack of October 7. about Israel and Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza.
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League filed a federal complaint with the Department of Education alleging “severe and persistent” harassment and discrimination against Jewish children enrolled in Berkeley schools. He said school leaders “knowingly allowed” a “viciously hostile” anti-Jewish environment.
The center, led by a former Department of Education undersecretary for civil rights under President Trump, has filed similar complaints against several higher education institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania and Wellesley College. He also sued officials at the University of California and UC Berkeley in the fall over allegations of anti-Semitism on campus.
Last week, a Jewish parent in the Berkeley district, Yossi Fendel, also sued the district, saying it failed to adequately respond to his requests to publish ninth-grade teaching materials on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That lawsuit was filed with the Deborah Project, a legal group that focuses on anti-Semitism in schools.
The Brandeis center and the Deborah Project did not respond to requests for comment.
Pro-Palestinian parents in the district, including a Jewish group called Jewish Parents for Collective Liberation of the Berkeley Unified School District, have said that people filing complaints confuse anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. As a result, they have widely labeled pro-Palestinian activity, such as lectures on Israelis and Palestinians and student protests, as anti-Jewish, according to pro-Palestinian parents.
Morthel will be joined in the audience by New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks and Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education President Karla Silvestre. The school districts, which are among the largest in the United States, have also seen intense activism over the war between Israel and Hamas and reports of anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim or anti-Arab incidents.
A Berkeley schools spokeswoman said Morthel, who previously worked at schools in San Francisco and Hayward, “did not seek this invitation.”
“As our superintendent has shared many times, Berkeley Unified School District celebrates our diversity and opposes all forms of hate and othering, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” spokeswoman Trish McDermott said in a statement.
“We strive every day to ensure that our classrooms are respectful, humanizing and joyful places for all our students, where they are welcomed, seen, valued and heard. “We will continue to center our students and care for each other during this time.”
The Jewish Parents for Collective Liberation of the Berkeley Unified School District, which includes about 60 parents, said Monday that the May hearing is “part of the Republican MAGA war on education.”
“Jewish children are safe and thriving in Berkeley's diverse schools,” the statement said. “As Berkeley Jewish parents, we reject the notion that there is rampant anti-Semitism in our schools; That simply is not true. “A handful of parents have painted a false picture of our city in the national media, fueling the right-wing national attack on education.”
“These congressional hearings are not about the well-being of Jewish students,” the group continued. “This is part of the Republican MAGA war on education that is restricting public school students' right to learn.”
