Boulder Valley School District Superintendent Rob Anderson on Tuesday proposed changes to the district’s bullying and discrimination policies to explicitly recognize antisemitism, part of a broader response to a federal complaint that has rocked the district. The complaint alleges the district failed to protect a Jewish student from nearly two years of harassment.
“When BVSD fails to respond effectively to issues of hate appropriately and consistently, it creates fear within our community that all students are not safe,” Anderson told the Board of Education on Aug. 11.
“I apologize to our community for failing to ensure the appropriate systems and procedures were in place to better protect students.”
The complaint was filed June 11 with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights by the Anti-Defamation League on behalf of a Southern Hills Middle School student. It alleges that school officials failed to stop nearly two years of antisemitic harassment of the student even after school and district investigations concluded that the student faced a hostile environment.
The 52-page complaint describes spitting, repeated antisemitic slurs, three alleged assaults and a game students allegedly called “Jew touch tag.” According to the complaint, the district investigation confirmed bias-motivated bullying based on the student’s Jewish identity.
The most serious alleged incident occurred in December 2025, about eight months after those investigations. While a teacher was briefly out of the classroom, a student tied a computer charging cable into a lasso, threw it around the Jewish student’s neck and pulled him backward from a chair while using an antisemitic slur, the complaint alleges.
The teacher heard the slur and witnesses later described what happened, but the teacher did not report the incident, according to the complaint. Police later issued a juvenile summons for third-degree assault, according to police data. The accused student was suspended for the remainder of the week, the complaint alleges.
The filing also alleges that the student’s family copied Anderson on urgent emails after two assaults that led to police involvement but received no response from Anderson or other district staff. In one instance, the family asked Southern Hills Principal Melinda Murphy to separate the student from two students involved in documented bullying. Murphy allegedly replied, “We will do our best.”
The Office for Civil Rights did not respond to questions about the status of the complaint. Randy Barber, a spokesperson for BVSD, said the district is involved in pre-investigation mediation with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the ADL.
The Board of Education did not vote on the proposals Tuesday.
Proposed policy changes
The proposals come amid a broader debate over how BVSD handles discrimination and bullying complaints.
A law signed by Gov. Jared Polis on June 1 establishes new standards for discrimination complaints. Under the law, schools may violate state law if they fail to address harassment based on a person’s protected status.
As part of its requested remedies, the ADL called on the district to incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into its discrimination and bullying policies. BVSD’s proposed policy incorporates the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism but not its accompanying examples, which include certain statements and actions involving Israel.
The proposed policy defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and says it can include rhetoric or physical acts directed at people, property, Jewish institutions or religious facilities.
The proposal would also allow disciplinary action against employees who fail to “take appropriate action and/or report student incidents of bullying, discrimination, or harassment.”
Another proposed change would require schools to “consider the impact of removing the targeted student from everyday school activities” while investigating bullying complaints. Schools would also have to minimize the consequences targeted students face from missing class time or school activities during an investigation.
Anderson said he plans to propose changing the district’s discipline matrix for repeated harassment or bullying to include “removal of repeat serious offenders from their schools, not the victims.”
He said the district is also proposing a new Title VI District Response Team to review incidents, support affected families and connect them with resources, along with a Title VI Advisory Council to help guide district strategy and give community members a formal role.
To “ensure appropriate accountability,” Anderson said he is including the plan’s implementation among his goals for the 2026-27 school year, with a public report scheduled for next spring.
Calls for reform and disagreement over the ADL
During Tuesday’s meeting, dozens of speakers were united in condemning antisemitism but differed over whether the district should work with the ADL on the policy changes.
Several described antisemitic, anti-Latino, anti-Asian and anti-Black harassment in district schools. Some renewed calls for an independent oversight panel to review bullying reports.
“Develop a deep and tender curiosity about this issue,” Rabbi Charna Rosenholtz, president of the Boulder Council of Rabbis and Cantors, told the board. “Don’t think you understand it. Want to know more and explore your own biases because that will help us free up this issue.”
Lisa Kunkel, a parent of two Flatirons Elementary students, said the district should address antisemitism but should not partner with the ADL. She and other speakers argued that the organization treats criticism of Israel as inherently antisemitic, potentially chilling political speech.
“The antisemitic incidents described in the ADL’s Title VI complaint are of deep concern, and they warrant a district response,” Kunkel said. But, she added, “The ADL is not a neutral civil rights organization.”
Board members responded by pledging reform.
“We are here for our students and every student, every single one, deserves to feel equally safe and welcome and like they belong for every minute of every day,” Board President Nicole Rajpal said during the meeting.
Board Vice President Alex Medler said the district needs both policy changes and measurable ways to determine whether they improve outcomes.
“How will the person who takes my seat after me know that we are in a better place two or six years from now than we are today?” Medler said.
I can only hope that the teacher and principal involved in perpetuating these despicable acts have been fired, and I believe that the superintendent should be held accountable and potentially fired as well. And how is it that the student who attacked his classmate with a computer cable wasn’t expelled? There is no place in our schools for this kind of behavior, and it sounds like the school is more concerned about protecting the bully than the victim.
I testified and listened to the entire hearing. I’m going to guess that 3/4 of people said the district needs to teach kids not to discriminate but specifically said the ADL was far too political and one-sided to do the training. Perhaps one quarter sided with the ADL. Here’s what I said:
I’ve lived in Boulder for 48 years.. I’m sad to hear of these incidents.
My Jewish mom fled Nazi Germany with her family at age 7. But because they were conflated with “enemy aliens,” she and her sisters were denied entry into the US for eight more years.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the ADL wants, intentionally and dangerously conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Here Is the best way I can untangle this:
Almost nobody hated the Nazis because they were Christian. And almost nobody hates Israel because it is Jewish. People have come to hate Israel because it has come to emulate the Nazis.
Or, listen to Einstein, who was thoroughly against Zionism:
“As far as my experience goes, they [Jews] are in fact no better than other human groups, even if they are protected from the worst excesses by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot perceive anything ‘chosen’ about them.” This So-Called God letter was printed yet again in 2018 by the New York Times when it sold at auction for almost $3 million. See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/nyregion/einstein-god-letter-auction.html
It is now evident that power has corrupted the rulers of Israel, at least. Please do not give them power at BVSD.
The UN recently concluded that Israel targets children and systematically tortures them. Please do not subject our students to this influence.
Hi Evan, Please check your political biases at the door when it comes to our kids. I also listened to the whole meeting and there were two broad groups who spoke.
Group 1 were concerned parents of all identities, desperate for solutions to ensure their kids don’t face identity based discrimination and violence of any kind. The majority of those parents spent little to no time criticizing or even mentioning the ADL or the IHRA antisemitism definition – that wasn’t what was important. They want their kids to be happy and safe in schools in Boulder County.
Group 2 showed up in keffiyeh scarves and shirts with inflammatory and divisive slogans (e.g., “Zionism is Fascism”). They were the same faces who have disrupted city council meetings for the better part of 3 years. They spent the majority of their time talking about a conflict 7k miles away and brought their biases and political positions not to advocate for how to protect students, but to advocate for their political narrative to be the dominant one in our school district. Many no longer had students in BVSD but wanted to make sure their views were pushed on other people’s children.
Most importantly, Group 2 failed to provide an alternative to ADL programming or the IHRA. They also failed to demonstrate how their proposal to eliminate these programs or change these definitions would prevent identity based bias and violence. And to be clear, much of their argument is based on a faulty premise: the IHRA definition plainly states that “…criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
And finally Evan – if you will repeat the awful libel about Israel targeting children then you must also acknowledge the recent Palestinian Islamic Jihad obituaries for the child soldiers it forced into the conflict. (https://honestreporting.com/child-soldiers-announced-by-gazan-terrorists-are-getting-younger-as-media-continues-to-turn-a-blind-eye/)