The Fairfax County public school system denounced two high schools’ Muslim Student Association chapters on Monday for publishing social media videos that imitate hostage-taking and depict violence as part of a recruitment pitch to attract participants to their programming. 

The school system, in a statement to Jewish Insider, said that if the involved students are found to have violated school conduct codes, they will be “held accountable for their actions.” But they announced no disciplinary measures yet, despite widespread outcry from Jewish community leaders in the Northern Virginia suburb.

“FCPS has been made aware of social media videos featuring high school student organization members that are neither school nor division approved,” a spokesperson for the school district told JI. “These videos depict violence, including kidnappings, with victims being hooded and placed in the trunk of a car, among other things. Acting out these types of violent acts is traumatizing for many of us to watch and, given world events, especially traumatizing to our Jewish students, staff, and community.” 

The statement goes on: “FCPS would never consider these videos to be appropriate or acceptable content. Any students found to be violating our Student Rights and Responsibilities will be held accountable for their actions.”

The videos were published on Instagram last week by MSA chapters at two elite FCPS schools,  Langley High School and Thomas Jefferson High for Science and Technology. Both videos invited students to join a club meeting and pretended to kidnap those who did not want to participate. 

The Langley MSA video, which portrayed a kidnapping of students by throwing them into the trunk of a car, has since been deleted. 

The Thomas Jefferson MSA clip, which was taken offline after JI reported its existence Monday afternoon, was filmed in a classroom where a student wearing a keffiyeh asks other students if they plan to attend the meeting. When two students say no, two other students approach them, cover their heads with keffiyehs and carry them away to the other side of the room, as they pretend to scream that they are being kidnapped. 

In the following scene, the two students say they are attending, one of whom is wearing a sweatshirt with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza filled in with the colors of the Palestinian flag. The video ends showing the “kidnapped” students laying down, one on the floor and one in a plastic bin, and text that says, “no one was harmed in the making of this video.” 

Langley High School administration did not respond to JI’s request for comment about the video, while Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology administrators declined to comment, redirecting the inquiry to the county. 

“We are appalled that some FCPS high school students used unauthorized social media accounts bearing FCPS school names to imitate hostage-taking and violent deaths. It is never appropriate to make light of such horrific acts, but it is especially callous and cruel to do so when Hamas continues to hold the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages more than two years after committing the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust,” Guila Franklin Siegel, the JCRC of Greater Washington’s chief operating officer, told JI. 

“The trauma that all families impacted by the Israel-Hamas war have experienced over the past two years remains fresh. Making light of violence during a time of war is beyond the pale.” 

“FCPS must determine whether students have violated school conduct codes with this behavior, and if so, discipline them accordingly,” continued Siegel. “The district should take any steps necessary, including legal action if needed, to ensure that school names, images, and logos do not appear on unauthorized social media accounts. School officials must communicate transparently and with moral clarity to the entire school system about these incidents. All people of goodwill should be horrified by this.” 

Siegel called the school system’s response to several recent antisemitic incidents “slow and nontransparent,” and urged FCPS to “do more to properly address such behavior.”

The MSA posts come weeks after students at several Muslim student organizations at Fairfax County high schools organized “Keffiyeh Week” protests timed to the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, encouraging classmates to wear the scarf associated with the Palestinian movement.