A much-anticipated internal report about antisemitism at elite Collegiate prep school admitted that some faculty members blamed “wealthy and influential” Jewish parents for tensions at the school following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
Finger-pointing faculty, parents and students skirted close to “one of the oldest and most pervasive antisemitic tropes,” the report, obtained by The Post, conceded.
The report was compiled in March and released on May 17.
The findings came in the wake of a November 2023 letter to head of school David Lourie and Board of Trustees president Jonathan K. Youngwood — and signed by more than 100 Jewish parents — which said the school’s internal response to the Hamas butchery “did not meet the moment.”
According to a report on antisemitism at The Collegiate School in Manhattan, some faculty members blamed Jewish parents for tensions after the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas in Israel. Gregory P. Mango
Collegiate admitted to multiple antisemitic incidents perpetrated by faculty. Robert Miller
“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 frustrated Jewish Collegiate parent told The Post.
Another parent griped that the nine-page document was a far cry from the more than 400 pages the school dedicated in a 2020 report dedicated to “combat[ing] within Collegiate the institutional and other racism that pervades so much of our society.”
The report — which also included companion findings about “Islamophobia” at the school — also revealed two never-before-publicized antisemitic incidents perpetrated by faculty.
In one case, allegedly days after Oct. 7, Middle School English teacher Dwayne Alexis was “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.”
According to two parents, Alexis accused Israel of “committing genocide” shortly after the terrorist attacks, and forced the teenagers to watch context-less video of Israel’s defensive war in Gaza.
A person familiar with the incident said Alexis only mentioned the word “genocide” as one of a range of viewpoints about the conflict.
In a second case, two upper-school teachers “were reprimanded” after asking “pressing questions” of a speaker at a school Holocaust Assembly.
“There was a Holocaust survivor invited to speak at the school and a teacher took it upon herself to press him on a seres of questions, one of which was could ‘the swastika be a symbol of peace?’” said one parent familiar with the incident.
Middle School English teacher Dwayne Alexis was relieved of his teaching duties over his classroom conduct surrounding the war in Gaza. nycteacherswhotutor.com
Collegiate, chartered in 1628, is one of the New York’s most tony private high schools.
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