A recent Montgomery County Public Schools graduate filed a federal complaint alleging that the system failed to mitigate years of antisemitic harassment against him, including a telephoned bomb threat.
The complaint, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, accuses MCPS of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs. It references two executive orders, signed by President Donald Trump, affirming that antisemitism falls under the purview of Title VI as a form of ancestry-based discrimination.
The unnamed Orthodox Jewish student faced online harassment and in-person ostracization during his senior year at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to the complaint. The complaint also alleges that the student received a bomb threat from a blocked caller while he was home with his siblings. Immediately after the caller hung up, fireworks were set off outside the student’s home.
The student met with his principal to discuss the harassment. While the complaint acknowledges that the school provided “some protection” to the student, it did not address the hostile environment generated by the discrimination. The student “continued to fear confrontation or physical harm, left school early when overwhelmed, and attended as little as possible.”
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The complaint situated the student’s experience within a broader pattern of antisemitic discrimination across MCPS. In May, antisemitic graffiti was found spray-painted onto the wall and roof of Greenwood Elementary School. In September, a student found a swastika drawn on a desk at Walter Johnson High School. Following that incident, 40 rabbis signed a letter urging the MCPS Board of Education to address the “current crisis of skyrocketing school-based antisemitism” in the district.
The Brandeis Center called for MCPS to review the handling of the student’s complaints, issue a statement condemning antisemitic harassment, and mandate training for faculty and education for students regarding antisemitism. It also requested that MCPS incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which deems certain criticisms of Zionism or Israel to be antisemitic, into district policy.
“Montgomery County Public Schools is aware of the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights,” a spokesperson for MCPSwrote in a statement to The Washington Sun. “As this is an ongoing matter, we are unable to provide further comment at this time.”
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