Berkeley Unified School District’s superintendent, Enikia Ford Morthel, referred to the district’s students as “babies” in today’s House hearing on antisemitism in K–12 education.

Perhaps the term “baby” is supposed to humanize child antisemites. And while there may be some age-related grace period for ignorant children who might not understand what “From the river to the sea” means, many of the kids in BUSD are not babies and should certainly not be treated, or referred to, as such.

The Office for Civil Rights just opened an investigation into BUSD following a complaint from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League that the district has failed to respond appropriately to antisemitic protests and harassment. Jewish students have reportedly been subject to chants on BUSD campuses such as “Kill the Jews,” “Kill Israel,” “F*** the Jews” and “KKK.” A poster that read “WE GONNA FIGHT AGAINST APARTHEID” was hung on school walls.

Would you describe kids who chant “Kill the Jews” as “babies”? Best-case scenario, middle-schoolers who are testy and at the perfect age to fall prey to social contagion seriously don’t understand their words. Kids say crazy things they don’t mean all the time. But it’s reasonable to expect that children not praise mass murder in school hallways — or, at least, that if young teens do praise mass murder in school hallways, they’re dealt consequences.

Infantilizing teenagers who cry out for their classmates’ murders aids coddle-culture, which along with ethnic-studies programs that teach Marxism and terrorism, helps drive the West’s youth antisemitism problem. Calling children who should know better “babies” excuses their actions. It offers them protection — solace in knowing that what they say, as long as it makes them feel good and socially just, is fine.

Calling her students “babies” as she testified in front of Congress about their antisemitic decorum likely didn’t stem from Ford Morthel’s greater motherly instinct. If she had that, she’d have been much more enraged today when discussing the Jewish students in her district who have been subject to vile antisemitism, one of whom is a second-grader whose classroom had antisemitic Post-it notes plastered on its walls.