Brighton Secondary College principal Richard Minack has again apologised in the Federal Court, this time to former students Matt and Joel Kaplan, who cited “anti-Semitism” as the reason they left the school.
Five former students – the Kaplan brothers, Liam Arnold-Levy, Guy Cohen and Zack Snelling – are suing the government-run Brighton Secondary College and the state of Victoria for negligence and failing to protect them as Jewish students under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act.
Brighton Secondary College principal Richard Minack apologised directly to two former students in the Federal Court.Credit: Justin McManus
Minack told the court he was aware of a small number of students who left the school over anti-Semitism and that the number of Jewish students had dropped at the school.
Barrister Adam Butt, speaking on behalf of the applicants, told the court that Minack had agreed on Tuesday that the school had failed the Jewish kids who left. However, Minack said: “We implemented our policies to the best of our ability with the information we had.”
Butt said Minack had never apologised to Matt or Joel Kaplan.
“I’m happy to apologise to them now if they felt that way ... I’m happy to apologise right now,” Minack said.
Butt pressed him on why he hadn’t apologised in the past two or three years. Minack said it was because he was working under instruction from the department.
“We get to a stage in litigation in the Federal Court and this is the moment? Better late than never I suppose,” Butt said.
The court heard that Snelling left the school because “it was not safe” for him to remain there. His mother, Natalie, had allegedly written to the school on multiple occasions to ask for strategies on how to keep him safe.
Butt told the court that Snelling experienced repeated anti-Semitic bullying, including being hit in the head in class, cyberbullying in which he was told he was going to die and anti-Semitic Snapchat messages. He was also allegedly lured to a park by a female student and assaulted.
Butt said the assault would have been covered by the schools’ cyberbullying procedures. Minack responded that the assault was out of school hours and was under a police investigation, it wasn’t in the school’s jurisdiction and, therefore, the students were not punished.
Former Brighton Secondary College students Matt Kaplan (left) and Liam Arnold-Levy have accused the school of ignoring complaints of anti-Semitism.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
He said the assault itself – “as horrible as it was” – did not constitute cyberbullying.
Butt put it to Minack that the school prioritised the alleged perpetrators’ wellbeing over that of the victims. However, Minack said the expulsion process for a student could take months, with the school needing to prove it had done everything it could to change the student’s behaviour, and in one case, a student was absent from school so often, it was difficult to punish him.
Butt said Natalie Snelling was told by the vice-principal, Lee Angelidis, that “our hands are tied” and “I suggest you find an alternative to Brighton Secondary”.
Minack challenged Butt, saying it was Natalie who asked for her son to be transferred and that Angelidis was trying to be “honest and helpful” to make the decision.
Minack said that “in hindsight”, developing a plan to protect Zack Snelling’s wellbeing and support him was “something we should have considered”.
The court previously heard that Matt Kaplan and Cohen – who is Israeli – allege that former Brighton Secondary College teacher Michael Lyons denied the existence of Israel and singled them out because they were Jewish.
Lyons vehemently denied this.
“It’s factually incorrect, and it would be offensive,” he told the court on Wednesday.
The trial, which is before Justice Debra Mortimer, continues.
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