A Jewish eighth-grader at Southern Hills Middle School in Boulder, Colorado, was choked with a Chromebook charging cord fashioned into a lasso by a classmate who called him a “stupid k***” — and the Boulder Valley School District allegedly did almost nothing to stop it. Now the Anti-Defamation League has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the district systematically failed its legal obligation to protect the student under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The attack on December 15, 2025, was severe enough that the Boulder Police Department launched a criminal investigation and issued a juvenile court referral for third-degree assault. The attacker received a week-long suspension. The Jewish student was reassigned to a different study hall.

That disproportion — punish the victim, shield the aggressor — runs through the entire 18-month record documented in the ADL’s complaint. The harassment began in seventh grade with antisemitic slurs on the soccer field and escalated steadily: Nazi salutes, a recess game called “Jew touch tag” in which being Jewish made you the one to be chased, classmates declaring that Jews were “dirty” and “contaminated,” and taunts calculated to invoke the Holocaust. One student told the boy, “at least my grandma didn’t spend eight years in hiding.” Another asked him, “do you get scared when someone raises their hand?” and “do you get scared when someone counts to nine?” — references to Nazi roll calls and gas chambers. A fellow student in Spanish class announced that “Hitler should have killed all the Jews when he had the chance” and separately threatened to bring his father’s gun to school to shoot people. In April 2026, another student approached the boy while he was playing basketball alone at recess and spat in his face.

The family notified school administrators each time an incident occurred and is prepared to produce email records proving it. Despite a formal founded determination of antisemitic bullying in April 2025, two police cases, a juvenile assault referral, and written demands from the parents for protective supervision, the district never instituted systemic change. When the family requested that their son not be placed in classes with his harassers at the start of eighth grade, the principal said she would do her “best” — and then did not follow through. When a no-contact order was finally put in place, the aggressor violated it on the first day and received a short suspension. The violations continued.

A teacher who witnessed the December strangulation told a Boulder police detective she never reported the assault to school administrators. That admission appears in the police report attached to the federal filing.

“The record here is overwhelming: written pleas from the student’s parents, formal school reports, and a police investigation all point to the conclusion that antisemitic harassment at Southern Hills Middle School was pervasive, escalating, and severe,” said James Pasch, ADL vice president of litigation. “Despite the family’s pleas for help to stop the harassment, the school district failed to effectively address it — a clear violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. No family should have to fight this hard to ensure a Jewish child’s safety at school.”

The student no longer wears a Magen David — a Star of David necklace — and no longer discloses that he is Jewish to anyone. His parents ultimately removed him from school entirely.

The Hebrew Bible anticipated exactly this dynamic. The book of Vayikra — Leviticus — commands: “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa” — “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:16). The Sages taught that this prohibition falls not only on bystanders who look away from violence, but on institutions charged with protecting the vulnerable. A school administration that reassigns the victim instead of restraining the aggressor, that issues no school-wide condemnation after a child is choked in a classroom in front of his peers, that places the burden of survival on a twelve-year-old Jewish boy — that administration is standing idly by.

Susan Rona, ADL Mountain States regional director, noted that 167 antisemitic incidents were recorded in Colorado in 2025 alone. The Boulder Valley School District describes itself on its website as a district of “excellence and equity.” The ADL is asking the Department of Education to require the district to implement antisemitism training for faculty and staff, issue formal school-wide statements condemning antisemitism, and establish enforcement mechanisms that actually protect Jewish students. The ADL says it hopes to enter mediation with the district to accomplish this without prolonged litigation.

Boulder Valley School District declined an interview and issued a written statement saying it “does not comment on ongoing legal matters” but “takes all allegations of discrimination and harassment seriously” and is “focused on improvements to policies, reporting systems, practices, and education efforts.”

A boy was choked in a classroom while his teacher stayed silent. His school moved him to a different study hall. He stopped wearing his Magen David. That is not a policy failure. That is a moral failure — and a federal one.