In a strongly worded ruling, a federal judge has denied a motion by an
upstate New York school district to dismiss a lawsuit by the families of
several Jewish children who had claimed
they were victims of pervasive antisemitic harassment.
The children had described being subjected to years of antisemitic
bullying, slurs and other intimidation in the Pine Bush Central School
District, about 90 minutes north of New York City. The lawsuit also claimed
that administrators had failed to adequately respond to the harassment.
The school district had vigorously contested the lawsuit, and sought its
dismissal in the cases of three of the five children. The district argued that
it had responded properly to the allegations, holding anti-bullying assemblies
and meting out discipline where appropriate.
But the judge, Kenneth M. Karas of Federal District Court in White
Plains, in refusing to dismiss the 2012 lawsuit, wrote in an opinion issued on
Tuesday that a jury could reasonably find that the children had “suffered
severe and discriminatory harassment, that the district had actual knowledge of
the harassment, and that the district was deliberately indifferent to the
harassment.”
