The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into the New York City Department of Education on Thursday over allegations that Jewish students faced discrimination because of actions by a group of pro-Palestinian teachers.
This marks at least the second Title VI civil rights investigation into the nation's largest school district — across two presidential administrations — triggered by reactions to the Israel-Hamas war.
The Office for Civil Rights said it has received multiple reports that a group of district employees called NYC Educators for Palestine held a "teaching seminar" series on “Palestine, Zionism, and Resistance.”
"The so-called 'NYC Educators for Palestine' allegedly teach children as young as five about 'contemporary and historical Palestinian resistance,' that Zionists are 'genocidal white supremacists,' and to support the federally designated terrorist organization Hamas and its 'martyrs' (i.e. dead terrorists)," the Education Department said in an April 23 statement.
"Complaints received by OCR allege that these actions in NYCDOE teach and sow hostility and hatred towards Jewish students, potentially creating a hostile environment," the statement said.
Dominique Ellison, spokesperson for New York City Public Schools, said in an April 24 email to K-12 Dive that it had received the department's notice of investigation and is reviewing it. Referring to NYC Educators for Palestine, Ellison said the group "is not connected to New York City Public Schools," Ellison said.
Education Department steps up Title VI probes
Beginning in November 2023, the Education Department under the Biden administration initiated a number of civil rights investigations into school districts and colleges under Title VI, the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. The probes came in response to reports of increased antisemitism, Islamophobia and other discrimination in public schools and on college campuses after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023.
Among the first few such investigations was one into New York City Public Schools over alleged Islamophobia, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination related to the war.
At the time, then-NYCPS Chancellor David Banks said in a community email that it was a "challenging moment" for educators. "The question can arise as to where the line lies between our responsibilities as public school district employees, and our personal lives and views," he said.
Banks urged district employees to keep “expressions of their political views" separate from their jobs and not to indicate that they’re speaking in their official capacity. Employees can, however, express their own views outside of the workday and workplace “in a way that does not cause disruption” to the school, he said.
Trump administration prioritizes antisemitism charges
The Trump administration's new investigation into New York City educators' conduct comes over two years after a wave of teacher and student activism nationwide that followed the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. That year, on the K-12 level, reported protests were largely pro-Palestine or advocating for a cease-fire.
“No child should be taught by his or her teachers to hate their peers," said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey in a Thursday statement announcing the probe. "Neither should Jewish children be taught that being Jewish somehow makes them inherently guilty or proponents of hate and violence."
Starting an investigation doesn’t mean Title VI has necessarily been violated, and probes can take months or sometimes years to resolve.
The Biden administration, for example, began resolving its Title VI Israel-Hamas-related investigations around September 2024, or almost a year after launching its first investigations.
One such settled investigation found Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools failed to determine if a Muslim student of Arab/Palestinian ancestry faced a hostile environment. The case arose from an incident where a school counselor allegedly told a student asking for water, “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
The Biden administration’s OCR said the district failed to determine whether the student faced a hostile environment despite being notified, including by the student's family and retained lawyer, “that the student himself no longer felt welcomed or safe at school and that district community members perceived the incident as reflecting an escalation of animus directed at Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab students.” Instead, Ann Arbor Public Schools tried to resolve the situation as a “personnel matter.”
While the Trump administration in the last year has been upfront and strong in its stated desire to protect Jewish students from discrimination, no such imperative has been evident in publicly shared investigations into or statements on Islamophobia on school or campus grounds.
The Education Department has not provided comment in response to multiple requests from K-12 Dive since last year about the administration's stance on preventing Islamophobia in schools amid the reported rise of both antisemitism and Islamophobia in schools.
The Biden administration had, by contrast, in the same breath denounced both antisemitism and Islamophobia, including in a November 2023 Dear Colleague letter warning schools of their duty to prevent and address discrimination against Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Israeli and Palestinian American students.
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