One of the most elite private schools in Minnesota is under fire after its head of school gave a tepid public response—and failed to hold his faculty to account—after a virulently antisemitic cartoon was approved by a teacher and displayed as part of an 8th grader’s social studies project on “Taking a Stand.”
The grotesque cartoon, which has since been removed, was displayed at St. Paul Academy and Summit School (SPA) in mid-May. It depicts an ICE officer with an Israeli flag on his chest, pointing his smoking gun downward at a bleeding, dead body clinging to a Palestinian flag. The officer is instructing a class of masked shock troopers, wearing American flag patches, to, “Shoot first. Block the ambulances. Call the victims a terrorist.”
It was not until the image was spotted by a horrified parent and then appeared on the viral social media account StopAntisemitism that the tri-fold project board displaying the antisemitic cartoon was removed and the school issued a statement from the head of school, Dr. Luis Ottley—as well as the “director of intercultural life” and the middle school principal—explaining the school’s response to the incident.
Ottley wrote that the school was “examining our process to ensure that the final posters have taken into account how they may be viewed from multiple perspectives in a way that’s consistent with our core values of community, kindness, and belonging,” adding that “our students are encouraged to take intellectual risks” and that “on occasion, if the work of learning results in the harm of another community member … our job is to help them learn from their mistake.”
The cartoon is by the Brazilian artist Carlos Latuff, who has long been accused of antisemitism and whose cartoon depicting an Arab as a concentration camp inmate won the $8,000 second place prize at Iran’s 2006 International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, sponsored by the country’s state-run newspaper, Hamshahri. The competition was followed by Iran’s Holocaust denial conference. The ICE cartoon displayed at SPA was first published on Latuff’s Instagram page in January with the caption,”From Palestine to Minneapolis, Israel and ICE use the same violent playbook.”
The version of the cartoon displayed at SPA directed readers to Mondoweiss, an American anti-Israel website that sells “From the River to the Sea” tote bags and t-shirts for $30 each. Also for sale is a “BDS Ampersand T-shirt” for $20.
Outraged SPA alumni and parents who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon said the incident and the school’s response was the latest in a series of events that alienated Jewish students and families in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist rampage. SPA, where tuition is $41,000 a year (the author of this report is an alumna), describes itself as “one of the top independent schools in the country.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, which has been in communication with SPA administrators over the past several years, told the Free Beacon that the organization “believes that this incident is deeply concerning and should not have occurred. At the same time, it does not erase the substantial progress SPA has made in recent years through genuine engagement, learning, and partnership with the Jewish community.”
But parents also say the school’s slippery response obscured key facts about the incident itself—in particular, that students were required to upload the images used in the project to an online folder to be previewed by their teacher, Andrew Roy, for approval before they were put on public display. Roy studied anthropology, religion, and women’s studies at Oberlin College, where he wrote his thesis on role-playing games.
Ottley did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether Roy had approved the display of the image. Roy referred a request for comment regarding whether he had approved the display of the image to the school’s director of communications, Megan O’Rourke, who declined to comment.
O’Rourke passed along a subsequent statement from Ottley to SPA families indicating that “there will be changes to the review of these projects, with closer oversight by a team of faculty members with consultation from the Office of Intercultural Life” and that “we remain committed to cultivating an environment where both students and adults can learn from their mistakes.” (The Office of Intercultural Life is led by Dr. Eddie Moore, a diversity trainer and founder of the Privilege Institute and an annual White Privilege Conference. He has delivered three-hour lectures that he describes as “CrossFit” courses for diversity, “specifically looking at white supremacy and institutional racism.”)
Ottley did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether students should have to tolerate the display of antisemitic imagery while adults “learn from their mistakes.”
The May incident, sources who spoke with the Free Beacon say, followed others that have upset Jewish parents in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, including a high school math teacher donning a keffiyeh in the classroom on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack. Ottley did not respond to a request for comment about whether the school considered that an appropriate form of political expression.
In the months following Oct. 7, the school also invited an anti-Israel professor from the University of Minnesota, Shri Alon, to address the entire Upper School, offering what she described as “introductory remarks” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Free Beacon reviewed an audio recording of those remarks.
In those remarks, delivered on Dec. 11, 2023, Alon—who signed a 2025 letter accusing Israel of “systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure” and whose publications include “The Ongoing Nabka and the Grammar of History”—described Israel as a “settler colonial” state in which Jews “replaced the native population with a settler society.”
Ottley did not respond to a request for comment about how Alon was selected to speak to students.
Among the misconceptions that exist about the conflict, she said without evidence, is that it is a product of Arab antisemitism. “In fact throughout history Jews living in Muslim communities have faced far less violence than Jews living in Christian communities, which is something that is often forgotten,” Alon told the students. “This conflict starts with the modern invention of Zionism, the idea that Jews should have their own state.”
In her discussion of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas, which she described as “resistance groups,” she did not mention that Hamas, and some factions of the PLO, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are U.S.-designated terrorist organizations responsible for the deaths of American citizens. In the years before Oct. 7, she said, Hamas, “would fire rockets into the south of Israel in response to some Israeli provocation or what was perceived as an Israeli provocation” and made the baseless claim that, prior to Oct. 7, the group “tried to open negotiations [with Israel] which Israel has ignored.”
In the wake of Alon’s remarks, Ottley declined to speak with outraged Jewish parents as a group, instead agreeing to one-on-one conversations in which he told at least one parent that he did not consider Alon’s remarks antisemitic and that “there can be more than one truth,” sources told the Free Beacon.
The school has in recent months come under criticism from parents over overtly political conduct by teachers and administrators, most notably involving ICE. SPA is a short walk from the church that was stormed by fired CNN star Don Lemon and other left-wing protesters during the ICE surge that convulsed the Twin Cities this past winter.
In late February, on the occasion of the school’s annual Winter Dance, SPA circulated “ICE protocols,” reassuring families that the premises would be staffed with security guards who would bar the doors, make sure all students were safe inside, and refuse entry to any federal immigration authorities who might try to disrupt the dance. After the posting received media attention, the school sent parents a note saying that “a parent leaked this email to alternative conservative news sources” which “compromises the safety of the dance” and that “we are evaluating our options.”
The reference to a parent leaker and “conservative media” may reflect the school’s evolving approach to parents concerned about antisemitism or the school’s adherence to left-wing orthodoxy. To that point, concerned SPA parents have cited a change to the school’s enrollment contract for the 2026-2027 academic year that they say threatens to chill parent dissent about what they perceive as the rise in antisemitism over the past several years.
Under the new contract, students in good academic standing may be expelled if a parent “expresses strong disagreement with school policies,” “threatens or files litigation,” “interferes with school operations,” or “engages in conduct deemed disruptive” on or off campus. The determination of what constitutes “strong disagreement” or “conduct deemed disruptive” shall be “in the School’s sole and reasonable discretion,” the contract states, and “There will be no refund of tuition where such dismissal occurs, and any unpaid balance is payable in full according to the terms of this Contract.”
Ottley did not respond to a request for comment about whether this includes speaking to the news media.
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