At a two-hour Home listening to on antisemitism in public faculties on Wednesday, the New York Metropolis faculties chief, David C. Banks, made one factor very clear: He was able to struggle.
Mr. Banks, a local New Yorker who leads the nation’s largest faculty district, in a Democratic stronghold, emerged as a principal goal of the Home Republicans who known as the listening to. They sought a repeat of prior congressional hearings that helped fell two Ivy League faculty presidents and exacerbated a disaster for one more.
However Mr. Banks turned it right into a second of his personal — taking an unyielding, fiery tone, denying accusations that his district had responded poorly to hateful incidents and, at occasions, unapologetically talking over and pushing again in opposition to members of Congress.
In a single heated trade, Consultant Brandon Williams, a Republican of New York, questioned why Mr. Banks had reassigned, however not fired, the principal of a New York Metropolis highschool the place college students raucously stuffed the halls in protest after a Jewish educator posted assist for Israel on social media.
Calling it “Open Season on Jews Excessive Faculty,” Mr. Williams requested, “How can Jewish college students go to highschool understanding that he’s nonetheless in your payroll?”
“I do know whose payroll it’s, sir,” Mr. Banks shot again. “And it’s not ‘Open Season on Jews’ faculty,” the chancellor continued. “It’s known as Hillcrest Excessive Faculty.”
Mr. Banks and two different faculty district officers — from Montgomery County, Md. and Berkeley, Calif. — appeared to lean on their expertise navigating powerful questions from dad and mom, lecturers and college students whereas testifying earlier than a subgroup of the Home Committee on Schooling and the Workforce.
In a fraught few years for public training, districts have been convulsed with debates over pandemic faculty closures, the instructing of race and the dealing with of pronouns for transgender college students. For a lot of leaders, contentious conferences — the place dad and mom and educators criticize faculty insurance policies late into the evening — are merely part of the job.
The general public faculty district leaders largely sidestepped a few of the pitfalls that haunted the presidents of Harvard and the College of Pennsylvania, who misplaced their jobs after giving cautious and lawyerly solutions late final 12 months, and the president of Columbia, who confronted a rebel on her house campus after taking a conciliatory tone in a listening to final month.
In contrast, Mr. Banks — carrying a New York Metropolis public faculties pin on the lapel of his navy go well with — appeared to place ahead a protection of public training.
The chancellor mentioned his demeanor was knowledgeable partly by the character of his position, main a various district of greater than 900,000 youngsters. Along with forcefully pushing again in opposition to Home Republicans, Mr. Banks additionally invoked private tales to explain his struggle in opposition to bigotry.
And whereas faculty leaders have been coached for his or her congressional testimony by groups of white-collar legal professionals and crisis-communications gurus, Mr. Banks mentioned that he primarily ready with high deputies and shut mates like Mayor Eric Adams.
“The complexity of New York Metropolis prepares you for moments like this,” Mr. Banks mentioned at a information convention after the listening to.
The 2 different faculty district leaders additionally appeared comparatively assured. Enikia Ford Morthel, the superintendent of Berkeley faculties, who was an administrator for San Francisco public faculties by way of the pandemic, adopted her personal unapologetic stance, referring to college students in her district as her “infants” and smiling as she fended off questions.
Karla Silvestre, the college board president in Montgomery County, spoke little, and appeared to keep away from main blunders.
All three public faculty leaders acknowledged incidents of antisemitism of their districts, and pledged sturdy responses. Mr. Banks famous that in New York, officers had disciplined a couple of dozen workers members and faculty leaders and suspended a minimum of 30 college students.
One Republican consultant, Kevin Kiley of California, grilled Ms. Ford Morthel over Berkeley’s connections with a contested community of lecturers, lecturers and consultants who assist classes which might be important of Israel. Ms. Ford Morthel known as the group a “thought associate,” however mentioned that Berkeley had not bought curriculum from the group, and was utilizing curriculum created in-house.
Supplies created by Berkeley lecturers have been additionally the topic of intense questioning from Mr. Kiley, who identified that Ms. Ford Morthel had acknowledged earlier within the listening to that the contested phrase “from the river to the ocean” might be thought-about antisemitic. He questioned why the phrase had been included in a lesson plan by Berkeley lecturers, saying that it was no marvel college students used the phrase, after being taught it in class.
Consultant Aaron Bean, Republican of Florida and chair of the subcommittee, mentioned after the listening to that he thought-about it “a starter dialog” on the problem of antisemitism in public faculties. He dismissed a query about Mr. Banks’s forceful pushback in opposition to Republican efforts to painting the college leaders as failing to deal with the problem.
“We mentioned we have been going to have an open dialog,” Mr. Bean mentioned. “I believe it was very efficient. Our aims have been shining the sunshine that that is certainly occurring. Quite a lot of of us say it’s not occurring.”
Nonetheless, by the tip of the listening to, Republicans didn’t appear to have landed a breakout second.
Consultant Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who was a fiery questioner of the faculty presidents, centered on the Hillcrest Excessive Faculty episode, and the choice to take away the college’s principal and reassign him to a put up within the Schooling Division’s principal places of work, relatively than hearth him outright. “We’re getting lip service,” she mentioned, “however an absence of enforcement, an absence of accountability.”
But even she couldn’t appear to completely crack the chancellor’s confidence.
“You mentioned you fired the principal,” Ms. Stefanik mentioned, urging him to “verify the testimony.”
“I by no means mentioned I fired the principal of Hillcrest — you verify the report,” Mr. Banks countered.
(Each have been, to a point, technically right. Ms. Stefanik’s colleague, Consultant Lisa C. McClain, Republican of Michigan, had requested, “So that you fired the folks?” Mr. Banks replied, “Sure,” however shortly clarified: “We take away folks, completely.”)
Mr. Banks additionally sought to make use of his background to undercut Republican assaults. He mentioned that as a Black man who understands the “historical past of racism in America,” he was aware of the significance of preventing all types of hate, together with antisemitism.
He additionally described how his personal youngsters discovered about antisemitism from their neighbors — who he mentioned have been Holocaust survivors in New Jersey — and recalled a “profoundly transferring” go to to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
It was not clear on Wednesday whether or not Mr. Banks and the opposite two public faculty leaders would totally escape backlash at house. Some Jewish dad and mom of their districts have mentioned that college directors are doing too little to handle antisemitism, and are placing their youngsters’s security in danger.
However in Washington, all three have been helped by blunders from Home Republicans, who at one level requested whether or not any college students had been expelled or “fired.”
“We don’t hearth college students,” Mr. Banks mentioned, fast to catch the error.
Later, he accused lawmakers of in search of a viral second, and mentioned the true answer was within the work the New York Metropolis public faculty system was doing on daily basis: educating younger folks.
“In the end, if we actually care about fixing for antisemitism — and I imagine this deeply — it’s not about having ‘gotcha’ moments,” he mentioned. “It’s about instructing.”
Dana Goldstein, Heather Knight and Annie Karni contributed reporting
