Antisemitism Allegations As Drama Teacher Disciplined For Social Media

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Kendi, an author and academic focused on antiracism, had made an Instagram post three days earlier offering words of mourning for the Palestinian professor and poet Refaat Alareer.

Alareer was a professor of English Literature at the Islamic University in Gaza who inspired generations of young Palestinians to express themselves in English. He was killed along with his brother, sister and four of her children by an Israeli airstrike in south Gaza on Dec. 6, which reportedly followed weeks of death threats after he described Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks as “legitimate and moral” and compared them to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Kendi’s Dec. 9 Instagram post featured three panels with text.

“When a people are ethnically cleansed, the perpetrators usually come for the people’s writers. By targeting writers, they can kill the memory of the people. Attempts to wipe a people off the face of the earth are often paired with attempts to wipe the people from the face of history. What the Israeli military is doing in Gaza is not only a crime against humanity. It is a crime against history,” Kendi said.

Kendi said a true writer is an eternal voice from the people and it has to be silenced to truly kill a people and give rise to the denial of their existence.

“Perhaps that is why antiracist Jews are joining with Palestinians and the rest of the world to oppose all this carnage from October 7 in Israel to what has happened ever since in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said. “Jews have experienced the horror of the Holocaust, and the double horror right now of people inexplicably denying all that they have suffered. I know as a Black person what it is like for people to deny the horror of anti-Black racism, and attack the writers bringing that horror—and the antiracist resistance—to memory.”

In the third panel, Kendi recalls writer Claude McKay and his 1919 poem, “If we must die,” written in response to mob attacks by white supremacists during the so-called “Red Summer,” juxtaposing it with Alareer’s Nov. 1, 2023, poem, “If I must die.”

Kenyon said she posted content from Kendi’s feed to her Instagram “story,” which automatically disappeared after 24 hours. Although her account was set to private, she had allowed some DHS students and school club and activity accounts to follow it and see her posts, records show.

School board president reacts

On Dec. 14, District 113 Chief Human Resources Officer Thomas Krieger sent Kenyon a “notice of pre-disciplinary meeting” about her Instagram account and scheduled a meeting the next day.

But before that meeting had taken place, the board notified the community of controversy with a district-wide message from its president.

Dan Struck said the board’s first priority was the well-being of students in the district and it had no tolerance for harmful statements.

“It has come to our attention that a staff member made a post on a personal social media page that implicitly disparages the personal beliefs and human decency of a substantial portion of our student body,” Struck said.

“The staff member has taken down the post,” he added, apparently unaware of how Instagram’s “story” feature operates.

“While we cannot comment on the status of ongoing personnel matters,” Struck said, “we are taking this very seriously.”

The board president went on to quote from his remarks in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, during which a 17-year-old recent DHS graduate was taken hostage by Hamas.

Struck stood by his letter but declined to answer repeated questions about whether the rest of the board had signed off on the letter or whether it reflected the unanimous opinion of its members.

According to the district’s response to a public records request, District 113 administrators and board members received five emails from community members about Kenyon’s social media post in the month following Struck’s letter — but none before it.

Four were strongly against her comments, while one said they did not agree with the post but supported Kenyon’s right to make it.

“Let me be clear that as a Jewish person I am very hurt and disappointed by her posts and more importantly her beliefs,” that writer said. “That being said I would like to reiterate my support for her and her rights to post them. She is a phenomenal educator and leader for our students.”

Snapchat use probed

In the wake of Struck’s email to the community, Superintendent Bruce Law and DHS Principal Kathryn Anderson both received reports that Kenyon had violated the district’s social media policy for reasons unrelated to her Instagram account or the Israel-Hamas War.

“I know the email said they would look into it more but our school has a big Jewish population and from the people I have talked to they are now uncomfortable around her. A teacher is someone who you should feel safe around but many jewish students can no longer feel that around her,” according to a message to Anderson, which said Kenyon had allowed many students and parents to follow her private Instagram account.

“I also know that she uses snapchat to communicate with her students and talks poorly about students to other students which is highly inappropriate,” the principal was told.

Another community member brought up the district’s policy on Snapchat use to Law, who said it was prohibited and asked directly whether Kenyon was using it to communicate with students.

“Yes, and from what I hear they discuss things way outside the boundaries of what I consider school appropriate,” the community member said in an Dec. 15 email, offering to share more detailed texts in confidence and speak over the phone about the matter.

Kenyon and a union representatives first met with District 113 administrators for a pre-disciplinary meeting about the contents of the Instagram account on Dec. 15. She explained she had shared Kendi’s content to her account’s “story” and it expired.

That same day, Krieger scheduled another pre-disciplinary meeting with Kenyon regarding her Snapchat account, with the human resources chief asking her to preserve its contents.

At the Dec. 18 meeting, joined by attorneys for the district and the teacher’s union, Kenyon told Krieger that she had created her Snapchat account shortly after the app was released but deleted it prior to getting the notice for the meeting because she “had been receiving ‘creepy’ spam” on the app and said she could no longer access anything from the account.

The drama teacher told the administrator that all of her communications on Snapchat had been about school-related topics, such as rehearsal schedules or student tardiness, according to a Jan. 25 letter from Krieger to Kenyon summarizing the investigation.

“You indicated that you had not ever sought out a student with whom to communicate on Snapchat,” Krieger said. “Rather, students with whom you communicated had initiated contact, probably, you speculated, because its algorithm suggested you to the student as a contact, or because the student had searched for your name.”

HR finds posts showed ‘lack of judgment’

Kreiger said the investigation found Kenyon’s social media activity violated two policies. He said she failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with students by allowing students, student activity and club accounts to follow her on her personal Instagram and Snapchat accounts, and by allowing students to view inappropriate personal photos she had posted. Kenyon also violated the district’s social media policy by communicating with current students through both accounts instead of limiting it to district-sanctioned platforms, he said.

“It is without question that the content in question, both in regard to the Dr. Kendi quote and photographs where you are [redacted by district for privacy reasons] has undermined your ability to maintain the standards set forth above, and has undermined the trust that parents have in us to provide a safe and appropriate climate for instruction,” Krieger said.

“In addition to the violations of Board policy detailed above, your actions demonstrate a significant lack of judgment on your part regarding your role as a licensed teacher and the obligation you have to our students, in that you permitted private postings about your political views and personal life to become inextricably connected to your professional role, causing harm to students and families and significant disruption to the educational process.”

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The administrator’s use of the terms “harm” and “disruption” are key, as they are the focus of Supreme Court precedents applied by judges to determine whether schools can limit speech of government employees or in school settings — known as the “Pickering Balancing” and “Tinker” tests.

Krieger’s Jan. 25 written reprimand directed Kenyon to remove students from her social media accounts, deny all future requests and only communicate with students through district-approved platforms, warning that she could face additional discipline if she failed to do so.

Records show Kenyon had a business meeting on Jan. 19 but has been on leave since that day. An automatic replay from her district email account described it as a “temporary leave of absence.”

Parents slams ‘slanderous’ letter, president resigns

During the Feb. 6 meeting of the District 113 board, eight people spoke in support of Kenyon during public comment, including both of her parents.

Debbie Ruscitti, Kenyon’s mother, said she had never encountered such hatred and never would have imagined that her daughter would face accusations of antisemitism from her fellow Jews.

“If you’re calling her antisemitic, you’re calling me antisemitic, and that is not OK,” Ruscitti said.

Ruscitti said the board know that parents were harshly criticizing Kenyon when Struck sent out his “slanderous” letter to the community

“You’ve allowed parents to continue to bully her, parents who today are outwardly making rude comments on social media about her mental health leave. Really? Tell me, what is your DHS protocol for bullied students?” she said. “The board helped feed the anger of those spiteful people I speak of.”

Rich Ruscitti, Kenyon’s father, said Struck’s letter was defamatory, discriminatory and wrong. He encouraged the board president to apologize to his daughter and retract the letter. Ruscitti also accused Krieger, the school human resources chief, of using a past trauma as part of the allegations against her.

“You are responsible for the antisemitic slurs Britnee has endured,” Ruscitti said. “You have instigated this firestorm in a community that is already on edge with world events. You have thrown more aggression at them.”

Lena Goretsky Winters, a parent of three students at DHS, said Struck’s letter had divided the community and led to the bullying of students who do not share his political view.

“Anyone who defended her was called an antisemite and Jewish Hamas supporters,” Winters said. “We have been threatened to the point that a group of us went to the police are now on high alert. And all of that is happening in our mostly Jewish community because this board felt compelled to make its political view.”

Pam Handmaker, a parent of a student in the DHS drama program, said Kenyon’s leave affected her child’s mental health.

“There are other teachers who talk with their students on social media. There are other teachers who have vitriolic antisemitic posts on their social media on their social media that are public,” Handmaker said. “Why is no one talking about them? And for the record I’m not saying we should be .”

The parent acknowledged she might not know the whole story but questioned the need to reprimand Kenyon so publicly.

“She made a choice and she shared a post that clearly this district, this administration, this board thought was so extreme they had to go public with. She has been bullied,” she said. “She was called ‘filth.’ A mother in this community used that word on her for one post, and the bullies are celebrating her mental health crisis.”

The day after the meeting, Struck submitted his resignation.

Struck said his resignation was not requested by the board and was not a response to comments from the public. The former board president felt he could not longer serve as a board member “effectively or in good conscience,” he told Patch in an email.

“I have not retracted and have no reason to apologize for anything I said or did on the Board and I acted within the scope of my responsibilities the entire time I was on the Board,” he said. “I resigned based on my deeply held convictions which lead me to the unfortunate conclusion that I could no longer serve.”

‘Unilateral’ messages that ‘unfairly malign and disparage’

Current District 113 Board President Anne Neumann told Patch that Struck wrote the letter and signed it within his authority as president of the board.

But she noted it was different from a Feb. 14 statement signed by the entire board, which was down to six members after Struck’s resignation.

“Social media posts and messages, including those sent unilaterally by board leadership, that unfairly malign and disparage any member of our District 113 community, are not condoned by us and do not foster the safe educational environment that we strive to provide,” it said.

“Recently, we have experienced a myriad of global and national events that have tested our limits in deciding what is or isn’t appropriate in how we communicate,” the joint statement continued. “We anticipate that civil discourse will continue to be an issue as global tension escalates and we head closer to the 2024 presidential election. We know we have students and staff directly and indirectly impacted by these events.”

Neumann said it was critical to understand the difference between personal and professional social media accounts for staff. Any accounts that identify staffers as District 113 employees or coaches should be dedicated to content specific to that activity and appropriate for students.

“If the social media account falls outside those criteria, under board policy all other employee-owned accounts are personal,” she told Patch. “[Employees’] personal accounts have all the protections the First Amendment provides.”

Kenyon could not be reached for comment on the matter, and her mother said she was unable to do so. In her application for the job in Deerfield back in 2019, she addresses the tensions of the time in response to a prompt about her understanding of race, culture and diversity.

“Regardless of personal political beliefs, it’d be difficult to deny the fact that we live in a polarized environment,” Kenyon said.

“Our country is filled with more public hatred than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime” she said. “Seething remarks are thrown around like candy at a parade, and individuality is on the defense.”

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