During a House Education Committee hearing Wednesday, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) spoke about New York City's Department of Education's response to teachers accused of promoting antisemitism.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I go to the great state of Utah, Mr. Burgess, you're recognized for five minutes.
00:03 Thank you. It's a first of all, thank you for witnessing being here today.
00:10 Is one thing to hear about the bigoted behavior present on today's college
00:14 campuses. It's utterly appalling to hear the activist teachers.
00:17 They're doing the same in our classrooms, spreading the vitriol of hate to our
00:21 children in classrooms throughout our nation.
00:23 Unfortunately, and often too often, these carriers of hate are teachers and school
00:27 administrators. And this is going down to our kids that are supposed to be teaching.
00:31 Children as young as second grade are being taught to hate Jews.
00:34 Questions, how does this come about?
00:37 Mr. Banks, I have a quick question.
00:38 In the press release shortly after the events of Hillcrest High School, where
00:44 students stormed a building demanding a teacher's resignation and attempted to
00:48 enter the teacher's room where she said, she hid, where she hid, you said this
00:53 notion that this place, these kids are radicalized and antisemitic is the height
00:58 of irresponsibility.
00:59 Do you think that these kids were not radicalized?
01:05 Do you stand by that statement?
01:06 First of all, let me say this.
01:07 Hillcrest High School is the school that I graduated from.
01:09 So that school is very personal to me.
01:11 I only have a few minutes. This statement.
01:13 Do you still stand by this statement?
01:14 My statement at that time was that, yes, I stand by that statement.
01:20 The entire school was not radicalized.
01:22 All right. So if this was a black teacher and these are kids coming in because of
01:27 her skin, because her background, hiding out for two hours in a classroom, these
01:32 are high school kids.
01:33 I know that.
01:33 Would you still say that this is not radicalized?
01:36 There's something wrong with this.
01:37 Those kids engage the kids who were responsible, who led that effort, engaged
01:42 clearly in an act of anti-semitism.
01:44 I'm really not to touch the case.
01:47 My question is, if this is a black teacher being threatened and pushed by some
01:52 white bigots, would you still say that these kids are not a problem?
01:57 That's not being radicalized by hatred?
01:59 If that if it was black, if it was a black teacher that was being targeted,
02:04 absolutely unacceptable.
02:06 And this was unacceptable.
02:07 OK, so let me ask you this.
02:08 Were there any were there any?
02:10 I'm sorry. Were there any consequences?
02:14 I mean, I'm hearing nice words, really nice words here.
02:17 Teaching, redirecting, directing.
02:20 What I'm missing is discipline and I'm missing the word fired.
02:24 Has anything happened to these kids that that did this to this?
02:28 This teacher's hiding up for two hours.
02:30 I'm not sure if you heard clearly from what I said.
02:32 What I said was very clear.
02:34 We suspended a number of students who were the leaders at Hillcrest High School,
02:38 number one. Number two, we removed the principal of that school for a lack of
02:43 leadership and oversight.
02:44 I don't know how to make it much clearer.
02:46 I condemn clearly what happened at Hillcrest was a complete act of
02:50 anti-Semitism. It will not stand on my watch.
02:53 We responded.
02:55 OK, and I don't know how to make it any clearer.
02:56 No, thank you so much. I'm glad to hear somebody was fired in that.
02:58 Was the teacher, was the principal fired or just transferred to another school?
03:02 The principal was removed from the school.
03:04 Was he taken to another school or was he not in another school?
03:07 No, he's not in front of any more children.
03:09 Ms. Martha, the Brandeis Center has reported at most misguided
03:15 administrators have attempted to resolve problems involving teachers by moving
03:18 Jewish students and Israeli students into new classes.
03:22 As a result, anti-Semitism is normalized.
03:28 Quick question, how does this work?
03:32 So you find teachers that are bigots and instead of firing them, you transfer them
03:38 to another school where they can still remain bigots.
03:40 Is that the way this works?
03:41 I'm a little confused by the question you started with students being moved and then
03:45 you went to teachers being moved.
03:46 I'll tell you that it's not something that we normalize.
03:49 It's not something that we agree with and we take action every time.
03:51 Is there any concern?
03:52 I'm just trying to understand how this works.
03:56 We have teachers that are teaching hate to our kids and showing it.
04:00 And our students are feeling fearful for this.
04:03 Are they fired or did they transfer to another school?
04:06 It appears that they are just moving to another place.
04:08 In this case here, I guess that's the question I have.
04:12 How is this being resolved?
04:14 If we have a concern or a complaint about anti-Semitism or any form of hate, we take
04:19 it very seriously.
04:20 We investigate and we take action pending the outcome of that investigation.
04:24 OK, all right.
04:25 So I guess the action is not firing.
04:26 It's just moving to some place.
04:27 The word of action is very subjective, obviously.
04:30 Mrs. Silvestri, real quickly, there's been several complaints filed by the Department
04:36 of Education of Civil Rights.
04:38 And again, what resulted in one administrative leave and the three others merely being
04:45 transferred. I'm going to ask you the same questions.
04:47 How is this working out?
04:48 Do we have a process in which you can actually get bad teachers out of the classroom, bad
04:53 administrations that are teaching our kids to hate like this?
04:55 Are we addressing that at all?
04:57 In all of those cases, the teachers were put on leave so that we could do a thorough
05:02 investigation. Disciplinary action was taken.
05:05 I guess I'm just concerned.
05:11 We want results.
05:12 We want discipline. We see what's happening to our kids.
05:14 And we've not taken out the cancer, which these teachers coming in, administrators
05:18 that's pushing down their hate every day in these classrooms is a bad day for our kids.
05:23 So are we getting rid of any of these people or just taking action or other actions?
05:28 Disciplinary action has been taken on all of those cases.
05:31 And they understand they understand any other further action will lead to up to
05:36 determination.
05:37 Representative Owens.