Jewish students expelled after raising concerns about anti-Semitism in school, complaint states

A legal filing with the Virginia Attorney General accuses the Nysmith School for the Gifted of expelling three Jewish siblings after their family raised repeated concerns about anti-Semitic harassment.

The complaint, submitted to the commonwealth’s Human Rights Division on July 1, describes a series of incidents involving students under the age of 12 during the 2024-25 school year. In one case, classmates reportedly surrounded a classroom drawing resembling Adolf Hitler and coerced two of the Jewish children to participate. The image was later posted to a school-wide forum.

[RELATED: PROF GIORDANO: K-12 conditions students to hate Jews in college]

Additional allegations include verbal attacks against one of the girls, whom peers called a “baby killer” following the display of a Palestinian flag in the school gym. The children were allegedly too afraid to tell their parents. When concerns were brought to school leadership multiple times, the school responded by removing all three children from enrollment, citing disruption, despite tuition already being paid for the following year.

Kenneth R. Nysmith, owner and headmaster of the school located in Herndon, Virginia, told the parents of the 11-year-old who was targeted by anti-Semitic bullying that she should “toughen up,” the complaint states. 

The Virginia Attorney General’s Office said it cannot comment on active cases, per ABC 7 News. 

This incident follows a growing wave of anti-Semitic activity in American education. Campus Reform has extensively documented anti-Semitic speech and displays on college campuses across the country. At George Washington University in Washington, D.C., students chanted pro-Hamas slogans and projected anti-Semitic messages onto campus buildings. 

[RELATED: Jewish students sue GWU over alleged failure to address campus anti-Semitism]

At Columbia University, “encampments” featured open calls for intifada, anti-Israel rhetoric, and harassment of Jewish students and faculty.

These incidents, and others like them, reflect the normalization of anti-Semitic ideology in academic environments extending from higher education into K–12 schools.

Campus Reform reached out to Kenneth Nysmith for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.