The Department of Education has opened civil rights investigations into complaints that the Etiwanda School District in California and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment on campus.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed the complaint against the performing arts academy, a private college and conservatory on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
It notes that the academy imposed a “no-contact” directive after classmates placed a flyer calling for violence against Jews under a Jewish student’s dorm room door in November 2023. The complaint says administrators ignored the student’s continued reports of harassment in 2024, leading her to drop out.
“Educational institutions must take stronger stances in stopping antisemitic harassment and bullying as soon as the incidents are reported to leadership,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO and national director, said in a statement.
The pro-Israel group StandWithUs joined the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League in filing the complaint against Etiwanda, which serves more than 13,000 students in Rancho Cucamonga.
The complaint accuses the San Bernardino County public school system of failing to respond appropriately to a student hitting and choking a Jewish seventh grader, then telling her to “shut [her] stupid Jewish ass up.”
It says other students repeatedly gave the girl — who wore a Star of David while preparing for her bat mitzvah — Nazi salutes in hallways and cracked “Hitler jokes” from 2024 to 2026. It states that another classmate told her, “This wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t Jewish.”
“When a school receives reports of antisemitism and fails to intervene, it violates federal law and deeply harms the community it is meant to protect,” said Carly Gammill, director of legal policy and litigation at StandWithUs Saidoff Law.
Filed last year, both complaints ask the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to hold the institutions accountable for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law prohibits discrimination in federally funded education programs based on race, color and national origin.
Both schools face mediation proceedings and could lose federal funding over the incidents.
The American Musical and Dramatic Academy did not respond to a request for comment.
Etiwanda Superintendent Laura Rowland said the district learned about the harassment two weeks before the last school year ended on May 21 and confirmed in an investigation that “a small number” of middle school students made antisemitic remarks outside the presence of school employees.
“The students involved no longer attend the school,” Ms. Rowland said in an email.
She said the district’s response included “providing additional training for faculty and staff on recognizing and preventing antisemitism, reaffirming established classroom practices and expectations, strengthening ongoing review procedures, and expanding teacher resources.”
An Education Department spokesperson said the agency does not comment on active investigations.
In February, half a dozen parents joined the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs to file a lawsuit accusing California of allowing “unchecked anti-Semitism” throughout K-12 public schools in violation of the state constitution and anti-discrimination laws.
Etiwanda is among the school districts cited in the motion. Others include Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Campbell Union, Berkeley, Fremont and Oakland.
• Valerie Richardson contributed to this story.
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