Best Practices for Combating Antisemitism in K-12 Schools

Over the course of the past several years, and particularly in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks, there has been a disturbing rise in antisemitism in K-12 schools. According to ADL’s most recent Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, in 2024 there were 860 antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools. The environment in many K-12 schools continues to expose Jewish children to concerning levels of hate and harassment.

We all have a role to play in confronting and countering antisemitism early and aggressively, whenever and wherever it emerges.

As a leading provider of antisemitism training for students and educators in K-12 schools, ADL is ready to support school districts and education professionals across the country in this critical work.

Outlined below are ADL’s recommendations of best practices to guide state education departments, education professionals, and school administrators in their work to counter antisemitism in their K-12 schools.

1. Clearly define antisemitism and ensure consistent application.

Antisemitism is a complex and nuanced form of discrimination that is often not well understood. This is in large part because antisemitism is more than just a form of religious hatred. It can take the form of:

• Racialized bigotry, such as swastikas, Nazi salutes, or Holocaust jokes based on white supremacist or extremist ideology.
• Bigotry grounded in conspiracy theories, such as conspiracies featuring myths about Jewish power, money, and control.
• Anti-Zionist[1] harassment or discrimination, such as excluding Jewish students from school activities based on their actual or perceived historic, cultural, religious, and/or ethnic identification with Israel.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition has become the preeminent definitional tool used to identify and evaluate manifestations of antisemitism today, and it includes useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel acts that cross the line into antisemitism. It is also the definition that the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education is required to consider when investigating Title VI complaints of antisemitic harassment and discrimination in K-12 schools.

We urge school districts across the country to use the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism and its contemporary examples when evaluating and responding to reports of antisemitic harassment or discrimination in K-12 schools.

2. Educate students, teachers and community members about antisemitism and ensure robust Holocaust education in school.

Many school districts either do not include content in their curriculum that is focused on Jewish history, identity, and culture, or have proposed or considered adopting content that veers into antisemitism and/or extreme anti-Israel bias. This is particularly concerning at a time of rising antisemitic incidents across the country. School districts must ensure that topics like Jewish identity, Jewish history and manifestations of antisemitism are properly incorporated in K-12 curricula and training efforts.

Schools should take similar steps to ensure that Holocaust and genocide education are covered in the classroom. Holocaust and genocide education is an effective, proven lever to combat antisemitism in society; and yet, unfortunately, the Holocaust is still not universally addressed in K-12 curricula. It is therefore not surprising that recent surveys have found an alarming lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among younger generations. This is deeply concerning, as the latest research from ADL’s Center for Antisemitism Research (CAR) suggests a direct relationship between deficiencies in Holocaust education and an increase in prejudicial, antisemitic beliefs.

Fortunately, there is broad public support for expanding Holocaust education: A 2023 ADL survey revealed that more than 90 percent of Americans believe high school students should learn about the Holocaust, with 87 percent agreeing that high school students should learn about antisemitism throughout history and in the present. At the same time, an ADL poll looking at antisemitic attitudes in America found that respondents whose schools taught specifically about the Holocaust harbored the least antisemitic prejudice, compared to those who learned about the Holocaust elsewhere.

We urge school districts to:

• Offer antisemitism awareness education/training.
• Incorporate into the curriculum content focused on Jewish history, culture, and identity.
• Adopt Holocaust and genocide curricula offerings.
• Provide mandatory antisemitism awareness and Holocaust education professional development trainings for all educators.

3. Clearly communicate and enforce the law and all District policies and protocols, including student and employee codes of conduct and anti-bullying, anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, and ensure robust reporting mechanisms and procedures for investigation of complaints are in place.

It is critical that all school districts have clear and transparent non-discrimination, anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies (including policies pertaining to cyberbullying); clear and transparent mechanisms for students, parents, teachers and staff to report hate incidents and acts of antisemitism to school administrators; procedures for investigation of incidents; and clear and transparent communication protocols so that students and families are consistently informed about the steps taken in response to reported incidents.

Schools must also be mindful of cases where student speech creates or contributes to a hostile environment for Jewish students or causes a material and substantial disruption in school. In such cases, in order to protect the rights of all students, schools may need to take corrective action.

We urge school districts to create and consistently enforce robust and comprehensive policies and/or procedures to timely and effectively respond to antisemitic discrimination, harassment and bullying in K-12 schools, and to take steps to ensure transparency regarding the enforcement of these policies to the extent allowable under law.

4. Encourage schools to take proper steps to ensure curricula does not amplify antisemitism or delegitimize/demonize the State of Israel or its existence.

Schools should ensure that lesson plans are free from antisemitic bias toward Jews or the State of Israel, and that they do not unintentionally amplify or perpetuate antisemitic beliefs or attitudes in a school community that could create or contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students. It is critical that lessons on Middle East history, Israel, Palestine, Judaism and the Holocaust are taught in a fact-based and pedagogically sound way. ADL has a number of resources that can be used to support schools, including a guide on recognizing bias when Israel is in the headlines.

Antisemitic or biased language should be addressed immediately to prevent adoption or escalation. No lesson or classroom conversation on Middle East history or a related topic should contain any of the following:

• Content suggesting that any population of residents in the region should be eliminated or displaced from where they live.
• Use of nationalities or other group identifiers (such as Zionists, Israelis, Palestinians, etc.) as slurs or pejoratives.
• Use of dehumanizing names or comparisons (like “vermin,” “savages”).
• Generalizations about all people in an identity group.

We urge school districts to ensure that all lessons on Israel, Judaism, Jewish people and the Holocaust do not contain negative bias that amplifies antisemitism or delegitimizes or demonizes the State of Israel.

5. Speak out and take other corrective actions when antisemitism creates a hostile environment for Jewish students.

Schools must issue clear statements condemning antisemitism when antisemitic incidents occur and treat antisemitism with the same seriousness as other forms of hate and discrimination. When a school district experiences an antisemitic incident, one of the most important steps that district and school leadership can take is to call it out publicly in a swift, clear and direct manner. And when Jewish students are subjected to discrimination, exclusion, or harassment that creates a hostile environment, school district leadership should be prepared to make clear that such actions will be investigated and appropriately addressed. Antisemitic behavior regardless of the source causes real harm – not simply hurt feelings – to both the targeted student(s) and the community as a whole, which must be addressed.

It is important to remember that even when an antisemitic incident involves protected speech, schools need to take corrective action to remedy a hostile environment that is created by the speech. In addition to condemning antisemitism, remedial steps could include:

• Providing counseling and support to the students who were harassed.
• Offering counseling to the offending students regarding the harmful effects of their conduct.
• Hosting a school assembly to discuss antisemitism and its harmful impact.
• Reiterating the school’s or district’s values and culture of being welcoming, inclusive and respectful of students of all races, colors, and national origins.

In addition, school districts can:

• Train teachers and administrators, including the district’s leadership team, on how to recognize, report and address antisemitic incidents.
• Create an age-appropriate program to educate students about the history and dangers of antisemitism.
• Conduct outreach to parents and community groups (like ADL) to learn ways to prevent future antisemitic harassment.
• Depending on the underlying facts, the District may be legally required to take action reasonably calculated to redress the hostile environment.

We urge school and district leadership to speak out strongly and unequivocally in the wake of antisemitic incidents, and to take appropriate remedial actions in response.

6. Ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment for Jewish students and employees.

In order to create welcoming and inclusive learning environments, school districts should take reasonable steps to accommodate students’ and employees’ religious observances, background, and beliefs. This includes:

• Regularly assessing the experiences of Jewish members of the school community through a climate survey that addresses, at a minimum, the prevalence of antisemitic discrimination/harassment, the willingness of students and employees to report incidents to school personnel, the perception of the school’s handling of reports/complaints of antisemitism, and suggestions for improving the school’s response to reports/complaints of antisemitism. Use this data to inform and improve, where necessary, policies and procedures for reporting discrimination/harassment and responses.
• Accommodating students who may miss school for a religious observance by providing students with an excused absence and a reasonable amount of time to make up any missed work.
• Encouraging teachers, athletic directors, and other programmatic heads to avoid scheduling major events (tests, tryouts, etc.) on religious holidays like the Jewish Sabbath and the Jewish High Holidays (including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur).
• Ensuring that student dress code policies provide appropriate accommodations for religious garb.
• Providing reasonable accommodations to support students with dietary needs due to religious beliefs or observances.

We urge state education departments and school districts to review and/or update their religious accommodation policies or guidelines to help foster equitable and inclusive learning environments for all students.

Additional Helpful Information

Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction published a guide entitled “Preventing and Responding to Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Discriminatory Harassment in Schools.” It includes reminders of school districts’ obligations for preventing and responding to hate, bias and discriminatory harassment, and resources specific to antisemitism and Islamophobia.

We encourage school administrators and educators to review this this letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on schools’ obligations under Title VI to address discrimination against Jewish students. OCR has additional Fact Sheets on Protecting Students from Discrimination Based on Shared Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics and Combating Discrimination Against Jewish Students which provide specific examples of school action or inaction that could potentially violate Title VI, and you may find OCR’s Questions and Answers on Executive Order 13899 (Combating Anti-Semitism) and OCR’s Enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be particularly useful.