NYC schools chancellor responds forcefully to Capitol Hill grilling

NEW YORK (PIX11) — At the same testimony table from which two college presidents testified and subsequently lost their jobs, New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks addressed a congressional panel on the same subject that led to the college presidents’ demise: antisemitism in education.

This time, leaders of some local school districts — all in very politically blue areas of the country — were in the hot seat. Berkeley, California and Montgomery County, Maryland’s top education officials were seated next to the leader of the country’s largest district, New York.

Chancellor Banks fielded a variety of questions from the bipartisan panel. The most contentious ones came from Republicans, and they mentioned one school, Hillcrest High, in Jamaica Hills, Queens, in particular.

Specifically, they focused on an incident last November in which witnesses said Hillcrest students rioted, and shouted antisemitic slurs so intensely that a teacher had to move to an office from her classroom in order to feel safe. The school’s principal was removed from his job, but is still in the public schools system. It’s a point on which Republican lawmakers focused.

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“How can Jewish students still go to school knowing he is still on your payroll?” asked Brandon Williams, a member of Congress from Upstate New York. “Your payroll, sir,” Williams emphasized. He also referred to Hillcrest as “Open Season on Jews” High School.

“I know whose payroll it is, sir,” Banks replied, “and it’s not ‘Open Season on Jews’ High School,” Banks continued, regarding the secondary school from which he had himself graduated.

“It’s called Hillcrest High School, and that’s the name of the school,” said Banks, “and at that school, we considered his leadership not strong enough…”

Rep. Williams and Banks then had a back and forth in which they talked over each other.

“He’s no longer the leader of that school,” Banks concluded.

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Another upstate Republican member of the panel also provided the most contentious line of questioning. Elise Stefanik, who made a reputation for herself in the very same hearing room last December with a grilling that ultimately led to the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigning.

She was among the last to question Chancellor Banks, and among a variety of  things she addressed, she talked about antisemitic statements made by students at Origins High School in Brooklyn, during various parts of this school year.

“What disciplinary actions have been taken against those students?” Stefanik asked.

“This is the one case that has troubled me the most, Congresswoman,” Banks replied.

“So what have the enforcement actions been?” she asked.

“We have in fact suspended a number of students at that school,” said Banks. “I have visited that school after these allegations have come up, I’ve met with parents, staff, family, students. I’m deeply troubled by what has happened there, we are going to get to the bottom of this, I can’t say more because it is now under litigation,” he said.

Over the course of the two-hour hearing, the New York Republicans’ questions were the most challenging. Some of the committee members, including Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who is a former educator, praised Banks and the other school leaders who testified.

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Reaction from Jewish family groups was far from praise.

“What he says is meaningful,” said Gerard Filitti, general counsel of the Lawfare Project, which is the parent organization of the #EndJewHatred movement. “The problem is he needs to act on that,” Filitti added.

He said that the school system has not been transparent when it comes to how it deals with incidents of antisemitism.

“We still don’t know how many students, when they were suspended,” he said. “It’s all been a great mystery.”

However, an education policy analyst who’s been a critic of the chancellor in the past, said that Banks’s overall performance had been strong.

David Bloomfield, a professor of education at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, said that Banks clearly laid out that Holocaust history is part of the New York curriculum in 8th, 10th and 11th grades, and that antisemitic incidents are firmly dealt with.

“The fact that Congress members could take pot shots at really just two schools in a 1700-schools school system,” Bloomfield said, means “no blood spilled by Chancellor Banks.”

The city’s public schools have experienced nearly 300 concerning incidents since the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, according to Banks. At least 42% of those incidents were antisemitic and 30% were Islamophobic, Banks said.

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