Hitler Drawing, Palestinian Flag, and Expulsion: Virginia School Sued for Horrific Antisemitism
A prestigious Virginia school faces a lawsuit for expelling three Jewish siblings after their parents reported antisemitic bullying, including a class project glorifying Adolf Hitler. The case highlights the school’s failure to address harassment and its retaliatory actions, prompting demands for accountability and reform.
The Nysmith School for the Gifted in Herndon, Virginia, faces a civil rights lawsuit filed on July 1, 2025, by parents Brian Vazquez and Ashok Roy, who allege the school expelled their three Jewish children in retaliation for reporting severe antisemitic harassment targeting their 11-year-old daughter. The complaint, lodged with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Dillon PLLC, claims violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act, which mandates a safe learning environment for all students at private schools like Nysmith, where tuition ranges from $31,500 to $46,600 annually.
The harassment began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis. Classmates taunted the girl, calling her “Israeli” and Jews “baby killers” who “deserve to die because of what is happening in Gaza,” referring to the IDF operations against Hamas following the attack. Bullies falsely claimed her uncle died in the attack, saying, “We’re glad he died,” despite his death years earlier. In October 2024, a sixth-grade history project tasked students with depicting a “strong historical leader,” resulting in a drawing of Adolf Hitler’s face, which the school emailed community-wide. The parents learned of it only after the school shared a photo of students displaying the artwork.
When Vazquez and Roy reported the bullying to Headmaster Kenneth Nysmith in February 2025, he promised action but took none. Instead, he canceled the school’s annual Holocaust survivor talk, citing potential to “inflame emotions” amid the Israel-Gaza conflict, and displayed a Palestinian flag in the gym. The flag intensified harassment, with classmates saying it proved “everyone hates Jews” and “nobody likes you.” After a second complaint, Nysmith told the parents to make their daughter “toughen up.” On March 13, 2025, he emailed, “After reflecting on our emotional conversation on Tuesday, the words used make it clear that you have a profound lack of trust in both me and the school. I felt very clearly that you do not think Nysmith is the right school for your family, and the longer we try to ignore that reality, the more pain it will cause your children,” expelling all three children high-achieving students with no disciplinary issues, mid-semester, disrupting their education as local school application deadlines had passed.
Kenneth L. Marcus, Brandeis Center chairman, stated, “The actions of Nysmith School against these three young children are disgraceful. Through its actions, the administration sent a clear message: bullying is acceptable, as long as it’s against Jewish families.” The lawsuit seeks tuition refunds, mental health care costs, punitive damages, and mandatory antisemitism training. Nysmith’s inaction mirrors a 135% rise in K-12 antisemitic incidents in 2023, reflecting broader U.S. trends.