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A trainer who confronted raucous protests over her public help for Israel filed a lawsuit final week, claiming metropolis officers failed to guard her earlier than college students started marching by way of her Queens faculty calling for her ouster.
Regardless of the swimsuit, Karen Marder, the trainer focused within the protest, advised Chalkbeat that she is dedicated to staying at Hillcrest Excessive Faculty. This yr, she turned one of many faculty’s deans and helps oversee scholar self-discipline.
“Hillcrest is my house,” she stated. “It by no means actually was a query for me about coming again.”
It has been a tumultuous yr for Hillcrest, which garnered nationwide consideration as public colleges and universities have struggled to deal with fallout from the Israel-Hamas struggle. The episode was a flashpoint throughout a congressional listening to the place colleges Chancellor David Banks was grilled on New York Metropolis’s response to antisemitism.
On Nov. 20, college students flooded the hallways between courses in protest of a photograph Marder posted of herself on Fb holding an indication that learn “I Stand With Israel.” The picture of Marder, who’s Jewish, was from a rally she attended two days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
In response, “a whole bunch of scholars congregated exterior her classroom and all through the varsity, chanting threats and demanding her termination,” contends Marder’s lawsuit, which was filed in state courtroom in Queens. Video posted on social media confirmed college students dancing within the hallways and a water fountain ripped from the wall. On the time, Marder was locked in an assistant principal’s workplace on a special flooring watching the occasions unfold on a monitor.
Marder stated she notified Hillcrest directors on Nov. 19, a Sunday, that college students had been planning to protest the following day. However her lawsuit contends that “no concrete measures had been taken to guard” her. Though the swimsuit acknowledges that faculty officers filed a report, and police officers got here to interview her, they “weren’t current to take motion on [Marder’s] behalf.”
The lawsuit asserts that faculty officers had no plans to maintain Marder out of the classroom that day, and it was coincidental that police officers occurred to be interviewing her when the protests began, conserving her out of the fray.
Later that night, college students posted Marder’s house tackle and members of the family’ names on-line, the lawsuit alleges. The next day, Marder stated, the varsity’s principal advised her to remain house from work and use sick time. “I needed to combat with them over that,” she stated. “I wasn’t sick, I used to be in peril.” (She was later positioned on a special type of go away, in keeping with the swimsuit.)
Your entire episode triggered her “extreme psychological and emotional trauma,” in keeping with the criticism, which seeks unspecified financial damages.
A spokesperson for town’s legislation division stated they may overview the case and an Training Division spokesperson didn’t remark. Banks beforehand stated that Marder was “by no means in direct hazard.”
Throughout his congressional testimony in Might, Banks, who’s a Hillcrest alum, stated that the leaders of the protest “engaged, clearly, in an act of antisemitism” and “a quantity” of the scholars accountable for organizing it had been suspended. Town eliminated the varsity’s principal and assigned him to a central workplace job, Banks stated.
However within the fast aftermath of the episode in November, Banks struck a extra even tone — rebuking college students whom he stated behaved inappropriately however expressing understanding for his or her sturdy reactions. Roughly 30% of scholars at Hillcrest are Muslim.
“They eat their info by way of social media,” Banks stated. “And what they’re seeing every day are kids and younger individuals in Palestine … being blown up.”
Marder was given the chance to switch to a special faculty within the aftermath of the November protest. In an April USA At present essay co-authored with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Academics, Marder argued she deliberate to remain — “to attach, to hear, study, debunk misinformation and fight intolerance.”
Hillcrest trainer turns into a dean
Marder advised Chalkbeat issues have been comparatively calm this yr to date, which she credit partly to the varsity’s new principal. Below the earlier management, issues with campus local weather had reached a boiling level nicely earlier than the November protest, she stated.
This yr, she is educating only one well being class and has taken on a brand new function as a dean, overseeing self-discipline points and restorative justice packages that search to mediate conflicts as an alternative of resorting to suspensions.
“Not one scholar has stated something about what occurred final yr,” she stated.
Metropolis officers have launched some coaching efforts to assist colleges have troublesome conversations across the Israel-Hamas struggle and have promised to launch new curriculum supplies that embrace the experiences of Jewish and Muslim communities. A few of these aren’t slated to be launched till the tip of the varsity yr.
Marder stated there have solely been superficial conversations at Hillcrest to assist the neighborhood course of the battle within the Center East in addition to the turmoil on the faculty final yr.
“I’m keen to do the work with the scholars and employees in regards to the points that befell,” she stated. “That doesn’t imply I’m letting the DOE off the hook.”
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, protecting NYC public colleges. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
