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A Fairfax County, Virginia, private school agreed to overhaul its policies, undergo five years of external monitoring, and issue a public apology after expelling three Jewish siblings whose family reported severe antisemitic bullying.
A Fairfax County, Virginia, private school agreed to overhaul its policies, undergo five years of external monitoring, and issue a public apology after expelling three Jewish siblings whose family reported severe antisemitic bullying.
The Nysmith School in Herndon will also pay the family nearly $150,000 to cover attorneys fees and other costs associated with the incident as part of a settlement.
The settlement, announced Tuesday by the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, follows a discrimination complaint alleging the Nysmith School ignored escalating harassment, and then removed the victims from the school entirely.
Jeffrey Lang with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, oversaw the case.
Lang said the family’s ordeal began when one of their sixth-grade daughters, age 11, became the target of a group of students who he said repeatedly harassed the girl because she is Jewish.
“She was being called a baby-killer,” Lang said. “She was told that Jews and Israelis are all baby-killers, that they were glad about what happened on Oct. 7. Just really awful things.”
The student was too afraid to tell anyone, until, according to Lang, a classmate became so disturbed by the bullying that he reported it to the girl’s parents.
In February, the parents met with the head of the Nysmith School and asked for an intervention. The headmaster promised to “investigate and take action, but nothing happened,” Lang told WTOP.
Over the next three weeks, the harassment reportedly escalated. The parents met with the headmaster again for help, and this time, he allegedly told the parents that their daughter “needed to toughen up.”
Two days later, all three siblings, two sixth-grade twins and their 8-year-old brother, were expelled from the school.
“Not only was that daughter expelled,” Lang said, “but their other two children, who had no idea what was even going on, were also expelled that same day.”
The family had attended Nysmith for four years.
“It was their world,” Lang said. “And in a day, it was taken away.”
A statement from the Brandeis Center said “The school fostered an environment that allowed anti-Semitic harassment.”
Earlier this year and before the alleged bullying, the daughter’s teacher asked the class to work together on a drawing depicting what makes “strong historical leaders.”
“The students produced a picture that featured the portrait of Adolf Hitler, and the Nysmith School posted a photo of the children showing off their drawing to the school community,” the Brandeis Center said.
In addition to name-calling, Lang said there was a group that launched a campaign to isolate the middle-school student socially.
“They were shunning her and saying, ‘We hate you.’ For an 11-year old in sixth grade, it was just crushing,” Lang said.
Kenneth L. Marcus, the chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, wrote in a statement, “Justice has been served” for the family.
As part of the settlement agreement, the Nysmith School will “adopt new nondiscrimination polices,” including clearly defining what antisemitism means, establishing a committee to investigate discrimination complaints, hiring an independent monitor and providing antisemitism training to administrators.
The school will also reimburse the family for expenses incurred because of the expulsion, and the school’s headmaster, Ken Nysmith, will also issue a public statement, expressing “regret for expelling the children,” the Brandeis statement said.
“These steps are critical as antisemitism in K-12 education continues to rise,” Marcus said.
The family will not be returning to the Nysmith School.
WTOP has reached out to the school for comment.
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Abigail Constantino
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