An elite Manhattan private school affiliated with the United Nations ignored an alleged campaign of anti-Semitic harassment against a Jewish faculty member who filed a complaint with officials, instead launching a 15-month retaliatory investigation into the Jewish teacher that pushed her out of her job, according to a new legal filing provided exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon.
Nadine Sébag, who taught French at the U.N. International School (UNIS) for 30 years, alleged in a lawsuit filed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) last week that she and other Jewish teachers faced a "workplace climate [that] was hostile toward Jewish faculty." Sébag and others claim that a Muslim colleague offered remarks about how "Jews are driven by money" alongside "vulgar references to the Holocaust," among other forms of harassment. According to Sébag, UNIS—which educates the children of U.N. members and charges up to $50,000 in annual tuition—declined to investigate any complaints from Jewish teachers and submitted Sébag to an unjust probe of her own behavior, costing Sébag her job.
"Plaintiff did not receive a single substantive response from UNIS—or from its Board of Trustees—to any of her eight detailed, evidence-based complaints documenting the antisemitic and national origin discrimination she was experiencing and requesting intervention," the filing reads. "Rather than address the misconduct, UNIS permitted it to continue and subjected Plaintiff to further scrutiny and retaliatory treatment. UNIS’s refusal to act, in contravention of its own policies and basic employer obligations, materially contributed to the hostile environment she endured."
The lawsuit comes after years of anti-Semitic radicalism within U.N.-run schools inside Gaza and the West Bank, with terror-affiliated faculty "turning classrooms into incubators of hate," the Free Beacon reported in September. The lawsuit details the spread of anti-Semitism into the United Nations' educational system in the United States as well, noting that UNIS has some of the same backers as Hamas itself. The alleged harassment, the filing states, "occurred against the backdrop of UNIS’s substantial financial relationships with foreign government donors," including Qatar, which pledged $60 million to the school in 2023. The Gulf state has a representative on UNIS’s board of trustees—a body appointed by the U.N. secretary-general—and has long sponsored and promoted terrorism and anti-Semitism.
Though the United Nations founded the school and exercises control over its operations, UNIS is registered as a nonprofit institution and is subject to New York anti-discrimination laws, according to NJAC.
Sébag stated in the complaint that the harassment started in 2022 when she began sharing an office with another faculty member, Nehad Soliman, who subjected her "to repeated antisemitism and anti-French remarks grounded in long-standing, derogatory stereotypes."
Soliman allegedly "asserted, among other things, that Jews are driven by money, that Jews control UNIS and New York, and that French people are inherently racist." Sébag said that Soliman, who wore a hijab, tried to initiate conversations about religious head coverings. When Sébag said she opposed mandatory hijab laws, Soliman filed a complaint accusing her of anti-Muslim bias, the lawsuit states, alleging that Sébag made a derogatory comment about her religion. In a closed-door meeting, though, Soliman allegedly acknowledged that Sébag did no such thing—yet the investigation continued for another nine months.
Sébag said in the filing that the combination of the alleged harassment and the school’s frivolous investigation into her conduct took a significant toll on her physical health and culminated in her "constructive termination."
Another UNIS teacher, Isabelle Chu, later reported to administrators that the same Muslim teacher "physically assaulted" her when she attempted to defend Sébag from anti-Semitic remarks. In a letter to school officials, Chu stated that Soliman "expressed anger toward Plaintiff for being Jewish; her stated belief that UNIS and New York were controlled by Jews and that, as a result, landlords, colleagues, parents, and administrators were discriminating against her because of her religion and hijab; and her repeated statements that individuals who crossed her would ‘pay accordingly.’"
Michal Urieli, a Jewish teacher at UNIS, wrote to administrators in May 2024 to report "multiple incidents of antisemitic hostility she had experienced at the school," including "vulgar references to the Holocaust and gas chambers."
Urieli said Soliman, the same professor who had allegedly assaulted Chu and harassed Sébag, had repeatedly "thrust her cellphone into Ms. Urieli’s face and compelled her to view seemingly AI-generated graphic images purporting to depict Israeli soldiers committing violence against children, while making derogatory anti-Israel remarks and demanding that Ms. Urieli respond on behalf of the State of Israel."
Urieli also reported that the school’s "Walls of Peace" project showed posters advertising an "organization publicly associated with support for Hamas, including QR codes linking to that organization."
For NJAC, the case represents "the same anti-Jewish animus" present at the United Nations seeping into its educational institutions in the United States.
"Rather than examine the reported anti-Semitic conduct, the institution turned its investigatory machinery on the Jewish faculty member who reported it," said Lauren Israelovitch, senior litigation counsel at NJAC.
UNIS did not respond to a request for comment.
