(JTA) — NY Jewish Week — The head of school at an elite Manhattan prep school has stepped down after an internal audit at the school found evidence of “religious and cultural bias” including antisemitism.
David Lourie, the head of school at Collegiate School on the Upper West Side, announced on Monday that he would be leaving his post after just four years.
Frustration with the school’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war had been bubbling since Oct. 7, according to reports in multiple local newspapers. In November, the papers reported, more than 100 Jewish parents — from a student body of about 650 — signed a letter addressed to Lourie and Board of Trustees president Jonathan Youngwood saying that the school’s response to the Hamas attack “did not meet the moment.”
Collegiate was one of several schools, locally and nationally, to land in the crosshairs of parents frustrated by how their leaders responded to the attack. While prominent universities such as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania saw their presidents grilled in Congress, more often the tensions played out as they appear to have at Collegiate: outside of public view, but with deep and sometimes transformative conflict within school communities.
At Collegiate, a K-12 boys school that lists among its graduates John F. Kennedy Jr. and the actor David Duchovny, administrators responded to the parent letter by forming a task force charged with investigating antisemitism, according to the news reports. The task force later hired an outside consultant to hold listening sessions with parents, teachers, students, alumni and trustees before releasing an audit in May.
The audit, which both the New York Post and New York Times obtained, noted that “many Jewish parents were disappointed that the Head of School did not provide a statement condemning the attacks and offering words of support for Jewish students and families at Collegiate.”
After the report was released, Lourie allegedly referred to it as “useless,” “a joke” and “a power play by Jewish families,” according to a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by Anna Carello, one of the school’s deans.
Carello claimed in her suit that she was forced into the role of heading the task force and confronting antisemitism issues that Lourie “could not be bothered handling,” the New York Post reported. She claimed that Lourie told her to meet with parents because, in part, she would be “more sympathetic” as a woman.
The internal audit also mentioned two other antisemitic incidents that allegedly occurred during the school year. In one, a middle school English teacher was “relieved of his teaching duties after presenting controversial lessons on the Middle East to his 7th-grade civics class and 6th-grade world history class.”
The New York Post reported that the lessons included accusing Israel of committing genocide and showing his class videos of the war without presenting the context of Oct. 7.
In another incident, high school teachers asked a Holocaust survivor who was speaking at a school assembly whether a swastika could be a symbol of peace, the Post reported.
The middle school teacher was let go from teaching, while the high school teachers “were reprimanded,” according to the report. However, the school provided no clarity or transparency about why they were disciplined, leaving remaining teachers confused about what they could or could not teach, according to the report.
The lack of transparency and communication from the school about its response led teachers and parents to openly blame “certain ‘wealthy and influential’ Jewish parents” for the teachers’ discipline, according to the report, which said the attitudes were “skirting close to one of the oldest and most pervasive antisemitic tropes” that Jewish people wield excessive or undue influence. The report adds that “the school did little to acknowledge, let alone quell, these rumors, which persist until today.”
Lourie did not reference the audit, antisemitism allegations or lawsuit in his departure announcement. “After four years filled with shared successes alongside challenges that required difficult and at times divisive decisions, we agreed that a new Head of School is what is best for the boys and the school community as Collegiate begins a brand new school year in the fall,” he said in an email to the school and its community members.
