Some faculty members at the elite private Collegiate School in Manhattan blamed "wealthy and influential" Jewish parents for tensions at the school after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, according to an internal report on antisemitism.
Faculty, parents and students came close to "one of the oldest and most pervasive antisemitic tropes," the May 17 report charged, the New York Post reports.
The findings followed a November 2023 letter to head of school David Lourie and board of trustees president Jonathan Youngwood — signed by more than 100 Jewish parents — charging the school’s internal response to the Hamas attack "did not meet the moment," the outlet reported.
"People have lost confidence, there is no morality clarity, there is a pervasive anger and it is all driven by an erosion of trust," one Jewish parent told the New York Post.
The report also revealed two previously unknown antisemitic incidents involving faculty, including one that allegedly ended in middle school English teacher Dwayne Alexis being "relieved of his teaching duties after presenting controversial lessons on the Middle East to his 7th-grade civics class and 6th-grade world history class."
Alexis had accused Israel of "committing genocide" in the wake of the Hamas attacks, and allegedly forced students to watch context-less video of Israel’s defensive war in Gaza, two parents told the outlet.
In a second case, two upper-school teachers "were reprimanded" after asking "pressing questions" of a speaker at a school Holocaust assembly, the outlet reported.
"There was a Holocaust survivor invited to speak at the school and a teacher took it upon herself to press him on a series of questions, one of which was could 'the swastika be a symbol of peace?'" one parent told the New York Post.
Alumni at Collegiate, one of the New York City’s most prestigious private schools, include actor David Duchovny, rapper Lil Mabu, Caroline Kennedy’s son Jack Schlossberg, and Cornelius Vanderbilt II.
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