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 maturity.”
Jewish community advocates were unmoved by the chancellor’s response, saying he still has not taken responsibility for what happened at the school.
Citing reporting from the New York Post, Sorolle Idels, chair of the Queens Jewish Alliance, said the teacher had to hide in a locked room from hundreds of students.
“The police were not there right away,” she said in an interview. “I’m sorry that it conflicts. The police did not come right away. The chancellor is playing ‘Monday morning quarterback.’”
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on its response to the incident.
President of the United Federation of Teachers Michael Mulgrew said in a statement, “The UFT has been working with the individual teacher, school safety, the DOE and the NYPD since last Monday. The union will continue to send staff to the building.”
Mayor Eric Adams posted on X last week referring to the incident as “vile,” adding, “We are better than this.”
Banks, who was flanked on Monday by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and state Assemblyman David Weprin, said he spent much of the day talking with students. He characterized them as equally misinformed about current events they consume only through social media.
“What they are seeing on a daily basis are children and young people in Palestine and Palestinian families being blown up,” he said. “All of a sudden, they saw this image of the teacher that says, ‘I stand with Israel.’ The students articulated to me, they took that as a message that ‘I’m affirming whatever is happening to the Palestinian families.’”
Banks said he planned to call a meeting with all school administrators in the system and direct them to have in-school conversations between students to “unpack” what he calls “perilous times.”
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