Lower Merion’s school board is pursuing antisemitism training in wake of equity backlash. Here’s what to know.

Lower Merion’s school board will pursue antisemitism training and will also evaluate the effectiveness of the district’s equity work, the board’s president said Monday, after a board debate last month about the equity policy drew intense community backlash.

At a board meeting Monday, president Kerry Sautner sought to assure community members the board had heard their comments in the wake of the discussion, which Sautner previously described as containing “antisemitic statements and racist implications.”

“Every single one of the people up here is willing and able to listen,” Sautner said.

But dissent was still present. Board member Abigail Lerner Rubin on Monday called out “the antisemitic remarks made against the Jewish community on Sept. 6 and again on Sept. 16, at this board table,” while a community member accused the board of ignoring “the elephant in the room” — referring, she said, to board member “Kimberly Garrison’s antisemitic remarks.”

Garrison — who is the subject of an online petition calling for her resignation — did not comment Monday at the meeting. She did not immediately respond to a reporter’s request for comment Tuesday.

Here’s the background on the controversy and what the district says it’s doing going forward:

The equity policy was the topic of a committee meeting Sept. 6, when board members met to consider what the district’s solicitor described as minor revisions to comply with new federal law.

But the conversation shifted to which students were protected by the policy. One board member, Rubin, expressed concern that the policy language was exclusionary. As other members pressed her to specify who was excluded, Rubin, who is Jewish, said that antisemitism was on the rise. Rather than specifying “historically marginalized” groups, she said, she wished the policy applied to “all” students.

Other board members pushed back on her comments. The chair of the committee, Anna Shurak, said that the district needed to acknowledge systemic racism, and that the experiences of white students in the district were different from those of students of color.

Garrison — who is Black and said “racism and antiblackness has always been in fashion” — said that she “totally disagreed” with Rubin’s perspective. “I know quite a bit about Jewish history,” she said. “There was a time before Jewish people decided that they were going to join the group of white people …” After Rubin interrupted Garrison, telling her “that’s not really true,” Garrison cited statistics indicating the majority of American Jews identify as white.

At a school board meeting a week and a half later, Garrison stood by her remarks, saying she was not antisemitic but “had made objective comments about the demographic population of the United States.” She said she had been harassed online since the committee meeting and would not “succumb to a public witch hunt brought about by people who take exception to the truth.”

Some community members who spoke during that meeting accused the board of minimizing antisemitism — calling Garrison’s comments, in particular, offensive and unacceptable. Others defended the equity policy and urged the board to continue its work toward eliminating achievement gaps for students of color.

Garrison has continued to face calls to step down. A petition circulating on Change.org with more than 2,500 signatures asks the board to remove or censure her, accusing her of spreading “misinformation suggesting that Jewish people have not been marginalized.” (It’s unclear who started the petition; the name does not appear to be affiliated with a Lower Merion resident.)

At a policy committee meeting earlier this month, Danielle Shaw, representing Lower Merion’s Jewish Families Association, read a letter the group had sent to the school board, saying that Garrison’s comments “reflect a deep misunderstanding of Jewish identity and contribute to the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes” that “belittles and diminishes the challenges facing our community by suggesting we choose to be white.”

Shaw, who said the Jewish families group had been “completely and utterly ghosted” by the board, called on Sautner to issue a statement expressing concern over Garrison’s comments and “acknowledging the harm to the Jewish community.” She also asked the board to remove Garrison from chairing its legislative and finance committees, and to formulate “a clear plan, with specific dates and timelines,” to implement antisemitism training.

Shaw — who said she was upset the debate had “turned this into a Black vs. Jews struggle” — objected to district spending on a facilitator for its Committee to Address Race in Education, when “we’re struggling to get even free-of-charge antisemitism training” in place.

On Monday, Sautner described some plans for training and community conversations. She said she had asked another board member, Jason Herman, to research antisemitism trainings; Herman said he had spoken to four organizations over the last month and would bring his findings to the board “so that we can determine what would be the best fit for our needs.”

Sautner also said the district would be partnering with the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. Lower Merion’s acting superintendent, Megan Shafer, said the museum would be “working with us to cocreate content that will be meaningful to our students and staff.”

And Lower Merion will also be “looking at evaluation practices” around its racial equity work, Sautner said. She said the board aims to partner with an outside organization with expertise in that area, and would provide an update at the next board meeting.

During public comment Monday, Adrian Seltzer, a community member representing the Main Line NAACP as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said she appreciated Sautner’s remarks.

Describing the “pain and frustration within our communities” following recent board meetings, Seltzer said: “Remarks made about Jewish people and their perceived proximity to whiteness have understandably caused offense. At the same time, we recognize the deep frustration within the Black community regarding systemic inequities” and “long-standing disparities in education.” Seltzer said antisemitism and racism were “real, persistent threats that must be addressed in solidarity.”

In comments submitted online, another community member, Michele Vessal, said Seltzer “does not speak for or represent the entire Jewish community” and expressed frustration with district leaders regarding their response to Garrison’s remarks.

“You expect us to let it go without you publicly addressing it, and no consequences have been made,” Vessal said.