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\n\t\tOakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., Monday, May 1, 2017.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tOakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., Monday, May 1, 2017.<\/p>\n
Photos by Alison Yin for EdSource\t\t<\/p>\n
by John Fensterwald, EdSource<\/p>\n
Originally published by EdSource<\/a><\/p>\n Disappointed that lawsuits and complaints against school districts haven\u2019t forced change, a national Jewish nonprofit law organization is suing the California Department of Education and state officials for their failure to stem antisemitism in California schools.<\/p>\n The Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism filed the lawsuit<\/a>, its first against a state, on Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of five families whose children attended public schools in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. The complaint cites numerous state anti-discrimination laws as the basis for the lawsuit, as well as the California Constitution\u2019s guarantee that all students are entitled to equal opportunity in education.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It cites a half-dozen districts in which the alleged discrimination has occurred in the past two years. They are the Los Angeles, Berkeley, Fremont, San Francisco and Oakland Unified school districts and Campbell Union High School District, where six students at Branham High in December formed a human swastika on the football field, then posted it on social media with a quote from Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n The lawsuit cited numerous examples in which the children of the plaintiffs, most of them named, were taunted, bullied, and, in two cases, physically assaulted by other students, because they were Jewish, and instances in which teachers discriminated against them. When parents complained, according to the complaint, school officials either ignored their complaints or, in several instances, transferred\u00a0the Jewish students to another classroom or to independent study, \u201cenabling anti-Semitic hate to be taught in a Jew-free environment, with no one left to object.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe problems in K-12 seem to be widespread and deeply troubling,\u201d said L. Rachel Lerman, vice chair of the Brandeis Center. \u201cThe parents who joined this lawsuit are not just interested in their own child. They would like to see (antisemitism) addressed systemically, because it affects not just the Jewish kids, but the other kids who are taught to be antisemitic. This contaminates our society and will persist for years if it\u2019s not checked.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit calls for\u00a0investigating and addressing past misconduct, taking proactive measures to stop future discrimination, and forbidding California\u2019s schools \u201cfrom being commandeered as centers of antisemitic indoctrination.\u201d<\/p>\n Specific demands for action<\/p>\n The plaintiffs specifically are asking the\u00a0court to require the state, including the State Board of Education, the Department of Education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to:<\/p>\n Publish the number of and statewide data on antisemitism complaints, including appeals to the Department of Education;<\/p>\n Mandate antisemitism training for all teachers, administrators and academic staff in coordination with the Brandeis Center;<\/p>\n Make state funding to districts contingent on discrimination-free conduct by students, staff and third-party contractors;<\/p>\n Appoint an independent monitor with expertise in antisemitism discrimination \u201cfor each recalcitrant\u201d district to oversee enforcement of court-ordered reforms, including the half-dozen school districts cited in the complaint;<\/p>\n Appoint a committee of experts to review all ethnic studies curricula and teacher training that districts have purchased since 2021. That was the year the Legislature adopted Assembly Bill 101, which requires the still unfunded mandate for a semester-long high school course in ethnic studies. The experts would also enforce an AB 101 provision that requires districts not to use any portions of the first draft of the voluntary Model Ethnic Studies Curricula that Newsom and the state board rejected as biased and discriminatory.<\/p>\n Pro-Palestinian teacher advocates and legal organizations, together with the California Teachers Association, successfully fought inclusion of several of these oversight requirements, including the vetting of ethnic studies curricula and outside ethnic studies contractors, in Assembly Bill 715<\/a>, which took effect on Jan. 1. It reinforces current anti-discrimination laws that ban biased instruction and professional development, and will create an Office of Civil Rights and an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator to develop antisemitism resources and strategies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Opponents likely will strongly oppose the Brandeis Center\u2019s proposals. They argue that many Jews conflate opposition to the Israeli conduct of the war in Gaza with antisemitism in an effort to squelch teachers\u2019 freedom to discuss Mideast controversies.<\/p>\n Attorney Jenin Younes, the national legal director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, reiterated that position Thursday in response to the Brandeis Center lawsuit. Her organization \u201ccondemns all kinds of racial, religious, and ethnic hatred, but we are very aware that allegations of antisemitism are used to suppress criticism of Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians, and to erase Palestinian identity, expression, and existence,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile some of the allegations, if true, reflect actual antisemitism, some are quite clearly about criticism of Israel and Zionism, and the plaintiffs have opted to settle these questions via judicial fiat rather than debate and discussion, furthering AB 715\u2019s chilling effect on speech,\u201d Younes continued.<\/p>\n The lawsuit refers several times to the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum<\/a>, which some authors of the banned first draft of the state\u2019s model curriculum have repackaged into an alternative curriculum. Five years later, elements of the \u201cliberated curriculum\u201d are taught in the districts cited in the lawsuit and used in dozens of others. The Palestinian conflict with Israel is a theme of a liberated high school ethnic studies course, which characterizes Israelis as white and Israel as an oppressive settler colonialist nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lerman said that rogue teachers who are violating districts\u2019 rules for teaching controversial subjects or using biased \u201cliberated\u201d curricula that are fostering students\u2019 prejudice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe view is that Israel is a demonic entity and should not have a right to exist,\u201d she said, \u201cand people who support Israel are also monsters and need to be shunned. The next thing you know, the kid next to you is being called Jew instead of by her name.\u201d<\/p>\n Parents charge mistreatment<\/p>\n The lawsuit lays out ugly allegations of antisemitism:<\/p>\n At Los Angeles Unified\u2019s Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, B.R., the son of Dawn and Michael Rosenfeld, was called a \u201cshitcan Jew\u201d and faced \u201cHeil Hitler\u201d salutes. Rather than disciplining the offending students, the school kept B.R. safe by moving him to a segregated space during lunch. Then, running track during physical education classes, \u201cbullies yelled, \u2018Let\u2019s get the Jew,\u2019 and beat him unconscious,\u201d the lawsuit said. The school didn\u2019t suspend any of the attackers, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n In 2024, a third grader identified as \u201cStudent B\u201d planned to sing a song by an Israeli Eurovision contestant at a talent show at Kester Elementary in Los Angeles.\u00a0 According to the lawsuit, a teaching assistant told her not to perform with the poster she had prepared that included a picture of the Israeli flag because \u201cIsrael is a racist apartheid state, and by supporting Israel, you are being racist.\u201d The next year, Student B was the only child not accepted for the school talent show, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n One week after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Jews in Israel, the art teacher at Berkeley High School of Ilana Pearlman\u2019s ninth grade son, A.D., \u201cboasted to the class about his latest artwork: an image of barbed wire fences in the shape of a Star of David 13 with a giant fist punching through it. A.D. was shocked \u201cby the imagery, the lawsuit said. The next day, the teacher promoted a walkout to support Palestine, where there were \u201cF\u2014 the Jews\u201d chants. Instead of addressing the antisemitism, administrators\u00a0\u201cbanished him to the library and student health center\u201d during the class, after Pearlman complained, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n Escalating tensions after Oct. 7\u00a0<\/p>\n Antisemitic incidents in California have been on the rise \u201cat a shocking speed in recent years,\u201d the lawsuit said, quoting Newsom, who noted that Jewish hate crimes made up 62.4% of all reported hate crimes attributable to religious bias in 2022.<\/p>\n Since Oct. 7, 2023, and the two-year Israeli army seizure of Gaza, during which tens of thousands of civilians and Hamas soldiers have perished, parents\u2019 formal complaints against the districts have escalated.<\/p>\n The lawsuit said that districts have ignored or minimized the harm months after the 60-day statutory deadline for responding. There is a large backlog of appeals before the Department of Education.<\/p>\n A notable exception is a strong finding last month<\/a>, in which the department ordered Oakland Unified\u2019s board to discuss findings and actions taken to prevent antisemitism; principals to send letters to families addressing antisemitism at their specific schools; and schools to hold student assemblies on the Holocaust and the harm caused by antisemitic imagery.<\/p>\n Lerman said the center and parents can no longer wait for the state to act. \u201cCalifornia is just chock-full of anti-discrimination statutes \u2014 probably the state with the most, and I\u2019m proud of that as a Californian,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not proud that we\u2019re not enforcing them when it comes to antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a double standard, she said. \u201cIf this was another group \u2014 gay children or Black children or Native American children, the state would\u2019ve found a way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Follow the Vanguard on Social Media \u2013 X<\/a>, Instagram <\/a>and Facebook<\/a>.\u00a0 Subscribe <\/a>the Vanguard News letters.\u00a0 To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org\/donate<\/a> or give directly through ActBlue<\/a>.\u00a0 Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.<\/p>\n Categories: Breaking News<\/a> Civil Rights<\/a> Education<\/a> State of California<\/a> Tags: Antisemitism<\/a> California Department of Education<\/a> Civil Rights Lawsuit<\/a> Jewish students<\/a> Los Angeles Unified School District<\/a> Louis D. Brandeis Center<\/a>