Category Archives: Antisemitism

Trevor Greene, HoCoJAG President urges HCPSS to Protect Jewish Students

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Following the Office of Civil Rights’ determination that HCPSS has inadequately handled antisemitism complaints, Trevor Greene from HoCoJAG urges the school system to demonstrate its commitment to protecting Jewish students. As part of the testimony presented to HCPSS, we are calling for four immediate actions, including engaging national experts, adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, amending Policy 9020.D, and mandating universal training for faculty and staff. Read the full testimony here. Watch the full testimony here.

HoCoJAG calls on HCPSS to demonstrate its commitment to protecting Jewish students with 4 immediate actions.

What you need to know about the Office of Civil Rights Letter to HCPSS

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Every student deserves a school environment where they feel safe, respected, and free to learn without fear of harassment or discrimination. The OCR agreement is an essential step in ensuring this for Jewish students in Howard County Public Schools. You can find the letter to Superintendent Barnes here.

Key points:

    • Recognition of Harm: The OCR’s findings validate the experiences of Jewish students and families who had repeatedly reported feeling unsafe or marginalized due to antisemitic bullying and harassment.
    • Requiring Transparency: The OCR agreement requires HCPSS to start properly tracking and reporting incidents of hate/bias including to OCR so that systemic issues are not swept under the rug.
    • Training and Mitigation: We welcome the OCR agreement, but are concerned that the same team that ignored or dismissed the problem for so long may now be tasked with implementing the solution. HoCoJAG believes training and mitigation must be guided by nationally recognized experts on K-12 antisemitism such as the CAMERA Education Institute, The Brandeis Center, the Anti-Defamation League, or the American Jewish Committee.
    • Accountability: HCPSS must hold faculty, staff, and student organizations accountable for acts that create a hostile environment for any protected class. Violations of HCPSS bullying, harassment, and anti-discrimination policies must come with consequences. 
    • Title VI Responsibilities: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act requires schools to counter a hostile environment for any protected class (including Jews) regardless of how that environment was created. OCR is very clear that even if the hostile environment is caused by protected political speech, it does not relieve the school of its obligations.

    The K-12 Antisemitism Crisis

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    HoCoJAG and Temple Isaiah are proud to welcome Rebecca Schgallis of the CAMERA Education Institute to Howard County. Ms. Schgallis is an educator and renowned expert on K-12 antisemitism. She will be presenting information that every Jewish parent should know on Sunday October 20th at 9:30AM. The event is free, but registration is required. Please sign up here.

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    Hate/bias crime reporting

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    HoCoJAG sent a letter to the Baltimore Banner in response to an article that mistakenly indicated that Black men and women are most likely to be victims of hate/bias crimes. Although it’s a bad competition to win, Jews are actually most likely of any group to be victims of hate/bias crimes, both statewide in Maryland and locally in Howard County. The letter provides the detailed statistics and supporting resources to demonstrate this. We ask the Banner to help increase awareness of the severity and extent of antisemitism.

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    Anti-Israel display at Lakefest

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    HoCoJAG sent this letter to the Columbia Association regarding a disgraceful anti-Israel display at this past weekend’s Columbia Lakefest festival. The ostensibly non-political festival focused on young children and featured anti-Israel propaganda from the Aya Montessori school. HoCoJAG expects CA to uphold the mission and values of James Rouse: a Columbia where all residents can feel safe, welcome, and included. Jewish children should not be subjected to sectarian anti-Israel propaganda that many will find antisemitic. Columbia must return to being a place where hate has no home.

    *Note: Our original letter included a reference to the Howard County Arts Council. We edited this letter to remove all references to the Howard County Arts Council, as we learned they were not involved in this event. We apologize for this error.