Texas Jewish student kicked off robotics team for anti-Semitic joke
Anderson High School, Austin, Texas. Image by wikicommons
(JTA) — A Jewish student in Texas was kicked off his high school’s robotics team after he made an anti-Semitic joke at his own expense.
The student filed a federal lawsuit against Anderson High School in Austin, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
According to the lawsuit, the student found some coins on the floor of the robotics lab in November 2018. “Guess I’ll pick them up since I’m the Jew,” the student said. His comments were reported to the team coach.
The student was kicked off the team several months later after it qualified for the world championship competition, according to the lawsuit, which does not name the student.
The team coach also refused to give the student a letter of recommendation, but did write a letter to the national robotics organization “attempting to blackball (the student) from robotics competitions forever,” the newspaper reported.
The lawsuit contends that the student “was singled out for making a self-deprecating joke about Jewish culture, while other students using offensive language about race, or sexual orientation or disability are not.”
The post Texas Jewish high school student kicked off robotics team for anti-Semitic joke appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
