The House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s recent report, “Antisemitism in K-12 Schools,” found that, in the School District of Philadelphia, “employees—from teachers to senior staff—foment antisemitism in the district” and that they “have been responsible for drafting district curricula.”
asserted
they → find → curricula
The result it finds is predictable: The SDP’s curricula “promote ideology justifying violent resistance and legitimize radical groups that incite antisemitism.”
asserted
that → find → antisemitism
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The report helped complete a story pieced together by journalists, activists, and investigators for years.
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report → complete → years
Specifically, how a small group of strategically positioned radicals took over the SDP, the ninth-largest school district in the country.
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group → position → country
The basics are simple: A man named Ismael Jimenez, a leading figure in local teachers’ organizations and with allies in numerous organizations, was appointed social studies curriculum director for the SDP.
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man → name → SDP
For years, Jimenez and a handful of allies, including Keziah Ridgeway, a woman once suspended for making violent threats against Jewish parents, and Hannah Gann, recently outed as the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal,” ran circles around an outdated administrative structure.
asserted
Jimenez → include → structure
Decision makers either sympathized, were intimidated, or failed to grasp what was happening.
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what → sympathize → ?
SDP Superintendent Tony Watlington failed to provide sufficient supervision.
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Watlington → fail → supervision
Antisemitism in the SDP became more pronounced after Oct. 7, 2023.
asserted
Antisemitism → become → Oct.
In early 2024, a group of local parents, along with the Anti-Defamation League, filed a civil rights complaint with the Education Department, alleging prevailing antisemitism.
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group → file → antisemitism
The Biden administration investigated and found that the SDP had received “repeated, extensive notice of harassment … that could create a hostile environment,” but failed to take sufficient remedial action.
uncertain
that → investigate → action
The SDP reached a resolution agreement with the department that required more monitoring and training during Biden’s waning days.
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that → reach → days
But problems persisted.
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problems → persist → ?
Curricula, already problematic, got even more radical.
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Curricula → get → ?
Ridgeway, back from suspension, openly hung “Free Palestine” posters in her classrooms that included QR codes that linked to terrorist propaganda.
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that → hang → propaganda
The SDP’s affiliations with problematic organizations deepened rather than recede.
Contributing factors include
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factors → deepen → organizations
But the single most important cause happened a dozen years ago.
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cause → happen → ?
In 2014, a group known as the Caucus of Working Educators was formed within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, an activist unit with the goal of winning power in the union.
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group → know → union
The CWE put up slates of candidates for offices, including Jimenez for senior and technical vice president.
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CWE → put → president
It also provided professional development courses, denouncing “opportunist corporate consultants,” and instead providing courses on “Transcending Resistance, Igniting Revolution,” and the like.
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It → provide → Revolution
Its office seekers struck out.
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seekers → strike → ?
But that didn’t stop them from getting involved in fringe politics, such as demonizing Teach For America, a program that leads to thousands of young teachers joining schools, as a “neoliberal effort” to “replace unionized teachers,” who they claim are disproportionately minorities, with “inexperienced teachers,” who they claim are mostly white.
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they → stop → teachers
In 2021, instead of admitting defeat, the CWE formed an outside activist organization known as the Racial Justice Organizing Committee.
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CWE → admit → Committee
The RJOC soon issued a list of 10 “demands” of the SDP, including “Culturally Responsive Curriculum,” an allusion to the sort of politicized, antisemitic curricula that have been tearing California apart with lawsuits and legislative emergency maneuvers.
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that → issue → lawsuits
While the RJOC started out as a nonprofit organization, its status had ceased by 2024, but the organization continued to operate.
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organization → start → 2024
No substantive explanation was given, nor were its finances explained.
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finances → give → ?
Around the same time, Philadelphia Educators for Palestine popped up.
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Educators → pop → Palestine
A “collaboration” between the RJOC and a group called “Building Anti-Racist White Educators,” it is functionally a new face on the RJOC, made up almost entirely of the same people.
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it → call → people
Leaked texts suggested that involved teachers would simply change which group they worked under depending on the circumstances.
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they → suggest → circumstances
Equally important, Jimenez, a “core member” of the RJOC, became the director of social studies curriculum for the SDP in August 2022.
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Jimenez → become → August
Jimenez had been making incendiary statements, particularly aimed at Jews, for years, saying in 2014 that “Hamas was created after years of Israeli land grabs on agreed borders and repression.
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Hamas → make → borders
I view Israel as an extension of European colonial power and it is the duty of people who are victims of colonialization to resist.”
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who → view → colonialization
This rhetoric did not recede after his promotion.
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rhetoric → recede → promotion
On a podcast with Sharif el Mekki, a controversial SDP contractor who runs his own nonprofit group, he took a similar position, saying Oct. 7 “didn’t happen out of the blue” and resulted from people who “feel like their voice has been denied.”
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voice → run → people
The host tried to nudge Jimenez into condemning Hamas’s murders, but Jimenez repeatedly refused.
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Jimenez → try → murders
Nor did Jimenez reserve his ire only for Israelis, saying after a Jewish woman was murdered by a terrorist in Boulder, Colorado, that “the groups who align themselves with American savageness should not be surprised when the savageness is turned on you.”
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savageness → reserve → you
Local Jewish groups publicly criticized Jimenez, but he remained at his post.
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he → criticize → post
Jimenez’s radical sentiments were not solely aimed at Jews.
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sentiments → aim → Jews
A poster on the door of his office in the SDP reads that “Assata Shakur is welcome here.”
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Shakur → read → SDP
Shakur was convicted of murdering a policeman, escaped from jail with the help of armed supporters, and spent four decades in Cuba as a fugitive before her death last year.
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Shakur → convict → death
…and 63 more, not listed.
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