Omaha schools uninvite speaker amid bullying concerns

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials in a Nebraska school district have canceled scheduled talks at two high schools by a Palestinian Christian speaker due to concerns that Jewish students at one of the schools were being harassed ahead of her visit.

Nora Carmi is a Palestinian activist in Jerusalem who’s holding talks around the U.S. this year, including a stop last week at Creighton University in Omaha. She was scheduled this week to visit Millard North High School and Millard South High School in Omaha, where curriculum includes learning about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, the Omaha World-Herald reported .

Millard North’s principal received a phone call from a parent worried that Carmi would give only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Rebecca Kleeman, spokeswoman for Millard Public Schools. Kleeman said the district was prepared to proceed with the talks anyway.

But the district recently received concerns from a local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League about at least one Jewish student at Millard North being verbally harassed, according to Kleeman.

She said the district decided to withdraw Carmi’s invitation despite the unclear details of the alleged harassment.

“We could see this was a situation that was spilling out of the classroom and becoming a disruption to our learning environment,” Kleeman said. “Then we did take the action of canceling the speaker. We did not do that when the parent complained.”

She said the schools will discuss the issue and continue to talk about the Middle Eastern conflict. The district is investigating the harassment reports.

“This whole thing is very disappointing to us,” Kleeman said. “We want to (address) controversial issues and teach our students to think critically.”

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Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com