Berkeley schools increasingly spark disgust in those who believe Jews are people, too. 

The name “Berkeley” is becoming more and more comparable with the term “antisemitism.” This comes as no surprise, as the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Unified School District foster some of the most vile instances of antisemitism on school grounds in the United States.

On Tuesday, the House Education and the Workforce Committee launched an investigation into UC Berkeley for its consistent track record of antisemitism and lack of enforcement of civil rights protections for Jewish staff and students. 

What triggered this investigation was a hostile pro-Palestinian mob’s assault on a Jewish lecture on Feb. 26 addressing how the Israel Defense Forces can more effectively defend civilians. The violent protesters besieged the UC Berkeley auditorium, broke its windows and doors, and assaulted its Jewish attendees while chanting “intifada intifada” and “Jew Jew Jew.”

Due to this radical incident, and many others like it that have occurred on UC Berkeley’s campus for the past few months, Jewish students claim discrimination toward Jews “has gotten worse” and refer to their university as “the most antisemitic environment in the United States, possibly west of Gaza.” 

Of course, much of the university’s staff shares equal, if not more, blame for these attacks. Progressive educators telling their students that all human conflict essentially boils down to conflict between an oppressed and an oppressor are easily going to fit groups like Hamas and Israel into those categories, respectively, as they often do with race and sex. 

In late November, Berkeley professor Daniel Boyarin spoke at a conference in Germany addressing the Israel-Hamas War. He accused Israel of “authoritarian, racist, military conduct” for defending itself against jihadist terrorism.

UC Berkeley is, unfortunately, not the only Berkeley that features teachers training their students to become antisemites. On Feb. 28, two days after the lecture attack, the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint that BUSD schools have not only failed to punish but have regularly encouraged antisemitic attacks on Jewish students throughout the last four months. 

Featured in their report are countless examples of teachers referring to Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” in classes, as well as students chanting “f*** the Jews” and bullying Jewish peers for their looks. One could not identify more blatant discrimination than that. 

Perhaps the most vile incident was at an elementary school named after Malcolm X. A teacher instructed second graders to write messages like “stop bombing babies” on sticky notes and slap them on the door of the school’s only Jewish teacher. 

Due to countless and frequent situations such as these and the refusal of school boards to enforce basic civil rights for their Jewish students, well over 30 Jewish families have chosen to transfer out of the school district. 

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On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists breached the defenses of southern Israel, massacred over 1,200 innocent Jewish citizens, and took over 250 captive. Since then, campuses across America have chosen to join the dark side.

Rather than condemn murderers and rapists, Berkeley staff and students at the university and K-12 levels have allowed antisemitism to thrive. How progressive.

Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.