Why Fighting Antisemitism in K–12 Schools Isn’t Enough

The situation in K–12 schools is far worse than most people think—and it demands a very different approach from the Jewish community than the usual repertoire of methods for fighting antisemitism.

At the North American Values Institute (NAVI), we recently uncovered video footage from an April school board meeting in Pajaro Valley, California. At that meeting, trustees were debating whether to continue to work with a consultancy that promotes an aggressively radical version of ethnic studies (they voted to keep them).

When Jewish parents expressed their concerns, they were not met with dialogue—they were met with hostility. Trustee Gabriel Medina scolded them, saying: “You only show up to meetings when it’s beneficial for you, so you can tell brown people who they are … The lies that you spewed here tonight were insane … If you want to continue to be segregationists like you were in the past, working against brown kids because you didn’t want to see them in power, I refuse to let that happen.”

Trustee Joy Flynn added: “What I’ve been a little bit taken aback by is the lack of acknowledgment of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community—power that black and brown communities don’t have.”

This wasn’t just an isolated incident. What happened in Pajaro Valley is emblematic of a deeper problem: a radical ideological takeover of school systems across the country. So the question is: What do we actually do about it?

Let me offer a thought experiment. Imagine a white nationalist group puts forward a slate of candidates in a deeply red district. They run as typical America-first Republicans but secretly plan to push a blatantly antisemitic agenda. They win. Once in power, they fire the social studies coordinator, replace them with someone who shares their ideology, and six months later roll out a new curriculum.

That curriculum teaches things like:

• “Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.”
• “Jewish claims of mass murder in what they call the Holocaust should be critically examined.”
• “Liberal American Jews helped orchestrate open-border policies to replace ordinary white people.”

Naturally, the Jewish community springs into action. Statements are issued. Letters are written. Protests are organized. Maybe the worst of the curriculum gets softened. But does anyone really believe the problem is solved as long as white nationalists remain in charge of the school board, planning their next move?

Yet this is exactly how the Jewish community is responding to left-wing extremism in blue district schools: We fight the visible antisemitism but not the ideological radicals driving it. We might succeed in removing offensive language here and there, but we’re losing the war for the institutions themselves.

We fight the visible antisemitism but not the ideological radicals driving it.

A recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Mailee Smith, “Socialists Seek Control of New York Schools,” lays this out starkly. A radical union faction aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America is seeking to take over New York’s teachers union. Their model is the Chicago Teachers Union, which they view as a success story. Under CTU control, Chicago Public Schools saw academic performance plummet and enrollment collapse.

These same radicals organized anti-Israel protests in November 2023. As Smith warns, “New Yorkers should view Chicago’s experiment with radical union power not as a utopian template, but as a cautionary tale.”

If they succeed in New York, does anyone believe we’ll be able to contain the antisemitism that follows?

I don’t care how many letters to the editor we write, how many Holocaust education programs we create, how many Title VI cases we file, how many sympathetic Democrats we persuade to speak up, or how many police we train. All of those things are worthwhile. But they’re not enough. Because we’ll be fighting symptoms, not causes. If we allow extremists who hate America, Israel and American Jews to control the institutions, we’ve already lost.

The real work is stopping them from gaining power in the first place—and if they do, organizing to defeat them the next time around. That means exposing their ideologies, holding them accountable, and encouraging mainstream candidates, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to run for school board positions and win.

That’s the only way we stand a chance.

David Bernstein is CEO of the North American Values Institute and author of “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.”