California school district settles lawsuit over allegedly antisemitic ethnic studies courses

The Santa Ana Unified School District agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by several Jewish advocacy groups for allegedly violating open meeting laws by secretly developing ethnic studies courses that the organizations said were “infected with antisemitism.”

As part of the settlement, SAUSD schools will stop teaching the ethnic studies courses after the current school year until they are redesigned with public input. The district is also required to acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a “controversial” topic, per the settlement.

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The settlement reads, “Materials that, for example, teach, state, or imply that the Jewish people do not have a right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor) or teach, describe, or refer to double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation shall not be used unless taught through an appropriate critical lens.”

“Santa Ana Unified School District is pleased to announce that it has reached an amicable resolution of the lawsuit filed by the Brandeis Center,” SAUSD Superintendent Jerry Almendarez said in a statement. “There were some misperceptions that led to the filing of the lawsuit and those misperceptions have now been cleared up. At no time has the District supported the teaching of instructional content to students that reflects adversely on any group on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, or national origin as alleged in the lawsuit. The settlement of this lawsuit affirms that principle and resolves any misunderstanding that may have occurred.”

The SAUSD school board approved ethnic studies courses in 2023 that taught about colonialism and cultural appropriation, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In September 2023, a group of Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, filed a lawsuit against the school district, alleging that the approved curriculum taught “false and damaging narratives about Israel and the Jewish people.”

The lawsuit alleges that SAUSD’s ethnic studies courses “include one-sided anti-Israel screeds and propaganda that teaches students — falsely — that Israel is an illegitimate, ‘settler colonial,’ ‘racist’ country that ‘stole’ land from a pre-existing country called Palestine and engages in unprovoked warfare against Palestinian Arabs.”

The suit also alleged that the ethnic studies courses were developed behind closed doors by a committee handpicked by the superintendent, violating the state’s open meeting laws. The Ralph M. Brown Act gives the public the right to attend and participate in the meetings of public entities.

“The public was deprived of its legal opportunity to address the content of these courses before the Board approved them, because the Board failed to give the community the legally required opportunity to learn about the content and comment on it at public meetings of the Board,” the lawsuit alleged.

Carly Gammill, director of legal policy at the nonprofit StandWithUs said the settlement is important to ensure that Jewish students do not become targeted and “generations of students are not indoctrinated with false and hateful information.” StandWithUs, a nonprofit Israel education organization, provided legal support in the lawsuit.

“My hope is that they will do what ethnic studies is actually intended to do, which is to promote multiculturalism, not to promote bias, favoritism or disfavor views regarding one group or another, but in fact, to talk about the ways in which different communities have contributed to various aspects of life in California,” Gammill said.

Acknowledging that the Israel-Palestine conflict is controversial, Gammill said, ensures that SAUSD will include all voices and multiple perspectives and narratives.

“This is very meaningful to me to know that antisemitism isn’t being secretly brought into our local classrooms, you know, under the guise of ethnic studies,” said Marci Miller, director of legal investigations at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “We entirely support ethnic studies. It should be told from all of the perspectives that it needs to be told from. It shouldn’t be used as a cover for biased materials.”

Miller said she hopes other districts learn from this suit that transparency is important and will be enforced.

“When future courses are developed, there will be full transparency, and the public and parents and any groups who have a stake will be included in the development of the curriculum before it’s approved,” Miller said. “What’s done in the dark allows for a lot more bias and inappropriate material to come in, and that’s why it’s so important that we have these laws like the Brown Act, which requires everything to be done in public.”

CAIR-LA Legal Director Amr Shabaik said he is concerned that SAUSD will cease to teach ethnic studies courses that highlight the stories and histories of marginalized people, most specifically the experiences of the Palestinian people.

“Anytime anyone mentions Palestine, there are these targeted attacks. This is just another example of that, unfortunately,” Shabaik said. “The Nakba, the displacement of Palestinians in 1948, the history leading up to the displacement of Palestinians and how that continues to this day with the genocide and exile or apartheid systems put in place, or illegal occupation of Palestinian lands — those are real, actual experiences and events, and that’s really what ethnic studies is intended to center and tell the stories of, to discuss the systems of oppression and marginalizing.”

It is crucial, Shabaik added, that school districts, including SAUSD, continue to center the voices of communities that have been historically oppressed and marginalized in their ethnic studies curriculum.

“Especially here in Orange County, there is a large Arab American population,” Shabaik said. “What is the message you’re sending to your students when you continue to sideline them, not include their stories, tell them impliedly or explicitly that they are less than, that their stories aren’t important? That is devastating and damaging to a student, especially given the fact that ethnic studies is intended to address much of that.”

The settlement is an attack on education, truth and justice, said Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director of the Arab American Civic Council.

“At a time when Palestinians are experiencing a genocide, it is more important than ever for students to learn about their history and struggles,” Al-Dabbagh said. “Our schools should foster critical thinking, not bend to political pressure that seeks to silence marginalized communities.”