OAKLAND – An Oakland Unified School District teacher “created a hostile environment” for Jewish students by hanging anti-Semitic posters near and inside their classroom in fall 2023, according to the results of an investigation released this week.
The third-party probe stemmed from a complaint Oakland-based attorney Marleen L. Sacks filed against Arvind Reddy, an English teacher at Montera Middle School.
In a letter Monday, OUSD Ombudsperson Gabriel Valenzuela told Sacks the investigation ultimately determined Reddy violated a school board policy that requires teachers to ensure all sides of a controversial issue are impartially presented.
In this case, the posters focused on the deaths of Palestinians and calls to free Palestine and did not provide any information from either Israel or supporters of Israel, according to Valenzuela. The policy violation, he noted, warranted corrective action.
“Due to the confidential nature of personnel information, the district cannot share with you any details regarding that corrective action,” Valenzuela said. “However, as of the date of this letter, Reddy is no longer employed as a teacher for the district.”
The posters “created an environment in which Jewish and Israeli students were labeled as being complicit in the harm Reddy associated with Israel,” according to Valenzuela.
“Regardless of intent, their posters had the impact of isolating certain students in their classroom and making them feel unsafe,” Valenzuela said.
One of the six witnesses interviewed for the probe described having a “visceral reaction” to the posters and avoided the hallway they were hung in, according to Valenzuela. Another witness perceived at least one of the posters as a “call for ethnic cleansing,” he said.
The teacher declined to be interviewed for the investigation but acknowledged in a written statement that “they took a firm stance against Israel’s actions related to what they described as the ‘genocide’ of Palestinian individuals,” according to Valenzuela. Reddy could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
Jewish students were not the only ones to object to the posters.
“The variety in age, religious background and affiliation with the district of those who complained indicates that the posters were reasonably perceived to be anti-Semitic and divisive,” Valenzuela said.
According to Valenzuela, Reddy was unwilling to work with the school and the district to “come up with solutions that would make Reddy comfortable and soothe the campus environment.”
In a statement, Sacks said “it was obvious the teacher’s actions were inappropriate and discriminatory.”
Sacks also criticized the school district for not completing the investigation sooner.
“It should not have taken over a year to make these findings,” Sacks said. “Dozens of Jewish families have already fled the district because of ongoing anti-Semitism and anti-Israel indoctrination. Offensive posters and flags continue to be displayed in teacher classrooms, school hallways and administrative offices, and the district is doing nothing about it.”
Sacks said she has filed more than a dozen other similar complaints but has yet to hear anything back.
Oakland Unified School District officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week from the Bay Area News Group.