Intense angst over César Chávez’s legacy amid sexual abuse allegations is ripping through California classrooms, prompting teachers, scholars and school systems to urgently revamp lessons about one of California’s most widely taught historic figures.
Educators at K-12 and university campuses are rewriting lesson plans, reframing discussions and preparing for difficult conversations with students about the labor leader’s life and contradictions.
Teachers say they don’t have the luxury of waiting for new state, district or university guidance. Instead, they are pivoting in real time, with little more than rapidly evolving news coverage, student input and their own judgment to guide them.
“The regular class plan went out the window,” said Kimberly Young, who teaches ethnic studies at Culver City High School and led a discussion last week on the allegations first revealed in the New York Times.
At UCLA, Chicana/o and Central American Studies faculty are grappling with how to present Chávez’s influence on social movements after they voted to cut his name from the department title. Schoolteachers are girding to address students’ questions, anger and confusion over a figure whose name and books are deeply embedded in state curriculum and celebrations.
Los Angeles librarians say they are keeping Chávez-related children’s books on the shelves. But they are preparing to field check-out counter inquiries from parents and, if asked, explain the titles were published before the allegations arose.
The California Department of Education and Los Angeles Unified School District issued statements that instructors should de-emphasize the importance of teaching about Chávez as an individual and instead focus on the farmworker’s movement that he was central to establishing. Educators throughout the state are assessing how to approach thoughtful, age-appropriate context as they navigate the unjustifiable personal conduct alleged by his accusers.
“In a time like this, you cannot avoid talking about César Chávez in the classroom,” said Gabriel Gutierrez, the chair of the Department of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies at Cal State Northridge, one of the largest programs of its kind in the nation. “We already knew he was a controversial figure, and we have to now further confront this and interrogate him head-on.”
Kimberly Young’s ethnic studies literature class at Culver City High School has recently focused on discussing stereotypes and media representation. Young recently pivoted to add the César Chávez allegations to a class discussion.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
High schools
At Culver City High School, Young’s 12th-grade ethnic studies literature class was in the middle of a unit on stereotyping, racial and ethnic representation and media literacy when the news surfaced. On Thursday morning, she asked the students if they knew of the revelations. About half did — via TikTok and Instagram feeds.
Young played a podcast on the allegations and gave students a prompt.
“I said, ‘thoughts, feelings, reactions, questions? Where are we at right now?’ And hands shot in the air.”
Students expressed anger and disgust. They said they were concerned over negative news about a major Latino figure at a time of community strife over challenges that include immigration raids. Students pointed out Chávez’s name was erased from public squares quickly while the name and image of President Trump — who multiple women have accused of sexual assault, all allegations Trump has denied — are being added to public buildings and institutions.
Young, who also oversees the school’s broader ethnic studies program, said Chávez’s name has “of course” come up in classes during her decade of teaching in Culver City. But she said ethnic studies “really tries to center voices that have been historically marginalized, so we don’t center his narrative in our classrooms.”
“It’s really important for students to not deify one historical person, one figure, but to understand the motivation and the movement,” Young said.
State curriculum and response
More broadly, Chávez is an important figure in multiple California curricula and serves as a Latino and liberal icon in a Democratic state. His legacy has been treated — until now — as safe to celebrate in schools.
His presence is especially visible around the March 31 César Chávez Day, with the state Department of Education offering extensive lesson plans, biographies in multiple languages, and service-learning activities. Lessons across grade levels highlight his civic values, personal life and influence.
Artist MisterAlek replaces a portrait of César Chávez in a mural that he created in 2021 with a portrait of Dolores Huerta at the Watts/Century Latino Organization in Los Angeles on Friday.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles Unified School District said it will continue this year to take the day off that was scheduled in observance of Chávez’s birthday.
“We are assessing the impact that it’s going to have on our educational program, specific to the holiday, as it were,” acting L.A. schools Supt. Andres Chait said last week.
State law also requires instruction on Chávez, the farm labor movement and the role of immigrants. He appears in social science standards, English lessons, and units on American heroes and biography writing.
In the state’s ethnic studies curriculum, Chávez is taught alongside other key figures such as Dolores Huerta and Filipino American labor leader Larry Itliong, with emphasis on the broader farmworker movement and its diverse contributors.
In a statement Thursday, the state education department said “schools and educators are encouraged to teach about the farm workers’ movement as a struggle that is greater than one man, and the California Department of Education will be updating educational resources in order to support this shift.”
Lessons depend on age
While open discussion of the allegations may be appropriate for older students, elementary students need a different approach, said Cal State Northridge professor Theresa Montaño, a Chicano and Chicana studies scholar who helped develop the state’s ethnic studies curriculum.
For young children, “I would explain that something serious happened and that adults feel it’s time to take Chávez’s name off institutions like schools and holidays.”
Among Pomona Unified transitional kindergarten teachers, there’s little talk so far about how to approach the Chávez holiday, which state lawmakers are also looking to rename in honor of farmworkers. Ana Tramp, a TK teacher specialist, expects many will skip the topic.
In transitional kindergarten, “the core themes focus on fairness and helping others,” she said, avoiding any direct conversation about one individual.”
“It makes you rethink, ‘How am I going to present these individuals that represent certain character traits that we want our children to grasp or to live up to, right?’” Tramp said.
Joanna Fabicon, who has lectured on contemporary children’s literature at UCLA, added that educators, librarians and publishers must all grapple with the allegations against Chávez and decide how to move forward.
“What do they do now?” Fabicon said. “Do they do retractions? New editions? Do they look at other leaders in the movement who’ve been eclipsed by César Chávez?”
For now, the allegations won’t change the Los Angeles Public Library’s children’s book selections, said Phoebe Guiot, associate director of youth services. Families can decide whether to check them out.
“The library’s role is to maintain diverse collections, even if some content might be objectionable,” Guiot said, noting materials can be reevaluated upon request.
Higher education
Chávez was part of the wider Chicano movement that inspired the creation of university Chicano studies departments. Faculty and students are reacting swiftly — and not all agree.
At UCLA, professors in the Chicana/o and Central American Studies program — its founding dates to a 1993 hunger strike modeled after ones Chávez did — voted to remove his name from the department. Leaders took a bust of him out of a conference room.
But he won’t be erased from teaching, said department chair Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda.
“We’re going to need to update the discourse and see him not only as this towering moral figure but as a flawed man,” he said. “That also teaches us that some of the greatest moral figures can be deeply flawed and that we have to be forever vigilant and demanding.”
Workers cover up a mural honoring César Chávez in the César Chávez Cove at the César Chávez Business and Computer Center at Santa Ana College on Thursday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In his introductory course, the professor often starts class by showing slides that highlight a Chávez quote: “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”
The quote will remain in his lesson, Hinojosa-Ojeda said, because he has never seen it as being about “Chávez the man.” The quote is about “the power of critical education and social empowerment,” he said.
Luis Sotillo, a PhD student in the program, said a larger reckoning is needed. He pointed to Chávez’s treatment of undocumented immigrants, whom the leader accused of threatening union power in a 1970s effort to report them to federal authorities. Chávez also faced critique for trying to discredit his opponents by accusing them of being communists, a practice known as “red-baiting.”
Sotillo said “the valorization of César Chávez in our department has been a point of contention since before I even arrived.” He said long-standing questions about Chávez’s record “led a lot of us to turn away from his folkloric status.”
At Irvine Valley College, English professor Lisa Alvarez also still plans to talk about Chávez’s legacy as the March 31 holiday approaches. She volunteered for the United Farm Workers as a young woman, was arrested alongside Chávez and other activists at a Nevada Test Site protest in 1987 and attended his funeral.
She’ll be updating her PowerPoint slides “to talk about this figure and what we can learn about what he did for and apparently what he did to people.”
“It’s always good for the truth to come out,” Alvarez said. “Especially if it’s a hard truth.”
Staff columnist Gustavo Arellano contributed to this report.