Published by WTOP news on 7/7/2025 Three kids who attended a Fairfax County private school were expelled after their parents complained about antisemitic bullying, according to a new complaint filed with the Virginia Attorney General’s office. In the 22-page filing, Brian Vazquez and Ashok Roy said their 11-year-old daughter faced antisemitic harassment at The Nysmith School for the Gifted. They learned about it when one of her classmates told his parents. Their complaint alleges they urged the head of the school to intervene, but that nothing was done to address the bullying. Kenneth Nysmith, head of the school, said the allegations are false. Earlier this year, the parents learned other kids in their daughter’s class “called Jews baby killers,” according to legal documents. They said their daughter was told that all Jews “deserve to die” because of the war in Gaza, according to a new complaint filed with the Virginia Attorney General’s office. The allegations are described as a violation of Virginia’s Human Rights Act. When the parents spoke to Nysmith about the alleged bullying, they said Nysmith vowed to handle the issue quickly. But, the complaint said nothing happened. The parents alleged the school put up a Palestinian flag in its gym. After that, the parents told Nysmith that the bullying and harassment became worse, but the head of school just told their daughter to “toughen up” before ending the meeting. On March 13, Nysmith told the parents in an email that all three of their children would be expelled immediately. In that email, Nysmith wrote that “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. “In our meeting, 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,” Nysmith wrote in the email. Jeffrey Lang, senior litigation counsel with the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed the complaint, said the kids loved the school and the parents were active in the school community. They had already paid for tuition for the following year at the time they were told not to return, Lang said. “The kids were just devastated,” Lang said. “They have lost their sense of confidence, their sense of security. They kept asking what they had done wrong and whether, if they apologized to the headmaster of the school, they’d be allowed to go back.” Nysmith declined an interview request from WTOP, but said in an email that the allegations are untrue. The school’s attorney was briefed on all the details of the case and agreed they needed to be removed from the school, he said. In a statement, Nysmith said the school celebrates the diversity of its student body, doesn’t tolerate hate or harassment and is focused on supporting students and community members. “With that diversity, however, comes complexity,” Nysmith said. “The global events that shape our world, specifically the ongoing conflict in Gaza, can, and does impact our students and their families in very personal, emotional ways. We have families at Nysmith on both sides of the conflict.” The complaint includes a drawing that it considers proof that the school allowed antisemitism in the girl’s classroom. The picture appears to show Adolf Hitler and “was followed by a pattern of persistent and severe antisemitic harassment of Complainants’ young daughter.” However, Nysmith said the image has been “misrepresented.” The project, he said in a statement, was based on Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” Students were tasked with identifying and analyzing the traits of positive and negative leaders. “Students were assigned different body parts to create a symbolic ‘composite leader,’” Nysmith said. “One limb included an image of Hitler; another included President Obama. The purpose of the exercise was not to glorify any historical figure, but to foster critical thinking and discussion around the characteristics of leadership through history. The inclusion of controversial figures was meant to provoke analysis, not admiration.” Moving forward, Nysmith said, the school will increase oversight of children’s projects. Meanwhile, Lang said a resolution to the complaint would be for the school to apologize and then add a definition of antisemitism to its nondiscrimination policies, “and to make meaningful change to ensure this and other forms of bullying don’t persist in the future.”