New York City’s education department says it has suspended multiple Queens high school students after hundreds roamed the hallways last week, calling for the removal of a Jewish teacher because of her support for Israel, Schools Chancellor David Banks said.
Speaking on Monday afternoon, Banks said some 400 students swarmed the halls of Hillcrest High School on Nov. 20 “targeting” the teacher after she posted a picture to social media of herself holding a sign in support of Israel in relation to the Israel-Hamas war. Though not all of them, he added, knew what they were doing in the hallways.
“Many of the students who were running and jumping had no idea what was even going on,” Banks said at a press conference arranged to address community concerns. “When they were asked by the principal and the members of the administration why were you participating, they said, ‘I don’t even know, I was just out there, everybody else was out there running around, so I was out there running around too.’”
On Saturday, the New York Post reported that a teacher hid in a locked office as “radicalized kids rampaged through the halls.” Banks pushed back against such a characterization, faulting the media for spreading what he called “misinformation.”
School Principal Scott Mulchesky said the teacher was called downstairs to speak with police before the planned protest and was never in any direct danger.
“This notion that this place is radical, and these kids are radicalized and antisemitic is the height of irresponsibility,” he said.
Two students also spoke to reporters on Monday and said the protest spun out of control after those who weren’t part of its organizing acted erratically.
“Not everybody in that brawl was a Muslim or was antisemitic,” said Muhammad Ghazali, Hillcrest’s senior class president who helped plan the protests days prior. “It was meant to be a peaceful protest from the very beginning, but some of these students lack…
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