Lawsuit filed against Palo Alto school district over ethnic studies

Parent Alan Crystal and the Louis D. Brandeis Center, a law firm that works to fight antisemitism, filed a lawsuit against the Palo Alto Unified School District on July 21, alleging that the Board of Education violated the Brown Act by passing an Ethnic Studies graduation requirement.

The Brown Act is the state’s open meeting law that ensures government agencies like school boards meet in public, give notice of those meetings and refrain from gathering a majority outside of meetings to discuss district-related topics, among many other limitations.

Districts across the state are grappling with backlash after attempting to follow through on a 2021 state mandate to create an ethnic studies requirement. Palo Alto Unified is no different and for months has endured controversy through social media posts, failed recalls and complaints after adopting the course on January 23.

Crystal filed a Brown Act complaint against the board on Feb. 21, claiming it passed the requirement a year early and that board President Shana Segal spoke with a majority of board members about the course outside of the meeting.

“I don’t think this should be a legal matter. I think the board should look at this, realize what’s happened and want to rectify it,” Crystal said in a March interview with this publication.

He had hoped that the board would pause its ethnic studies requirement or redo the vote, he said. But the complaint was later dropped, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

“The DA’s Office determined the available evidence was insufficient to find a violation of the Brown Act as alleged by Mr. Crystal,” Sean Webby, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, told this publication.

Now, Crystal, who has raised three kids in the district, filed a Brown Act lawsuit instead.

District officials pushed back against the complaint.

“The allegations misrepresent the facts, misapply the law, and politicize a local curriculum decision,” Superintendent Don Austin wrote in a message to this publication. “This appears to be the next step in an unsuccessful local attempt to allege Brown Act violations to stop the implementation of Ethnic Studies courses.”

The lawsuit makes the same claims as the Brown Act notice, alleging the board of education adopted the course a year early, without telling the public.

“They purported to ‘confirm’ that completion of ethnic studies would ‘remain a graduation requirement beginning with the Class of 2029,'” stated a press release from Brandeis. “No such graduation requirement existed at the time of the January 23, 2025, meeting, and, therefore, no such graduation requirement could be confirmed.

At a September 12, 2023, meeting, former school board members expressed interest in creating the new Ethnic Studies requirement for the Class of 2028. Ultimately, board members agreed with staff recommendation to create the Ethnic Studies requirement for the Class of 2029. The board did not officially vote at the meeting.

“I’d say we would be open to hearing an adjustment to the timeline if you suddenly decide you’re ready to go sooner,” former board member Jennifer DiBrienza said at that meeting.

At the next school board meeting on October 10, 2023, the board passed the new requirement through its consent calendar, which means there was no further discussion on the item. The item stated the ethnic studies course requirement would begin with the class of 2029-2030, a year later than discussed in the previous meeting.

The Palo Alto Unified School District said this was a typographical error but the lawsuit claims it intentionally misled the public.

“The suggestion that the Board ‘pushed through’ this requirement without proper notice is simply false,” Austin wrote in a statement. “The vote occurred in public, the agenda was posted in compliance with the Brown Act and public input was provided over an extended period of time.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the district let specific groups in the room during the Ethnic Studies board meeting and that board members met in private to discuss the course.

Crystal and the law firm said they agree that the ethnic studies course has the potential to educate students to “build a more just society,” according to the lawsuit, but argued that Palo Alto’s course may cause discrimination.

“PAUSD’s actions are part of a concerning trend emerging in K-12 schools where board members act behind closed doors and without the required public notice in order to approve K-12 curriculum that may be controversial, inflame bigotry, and even be unlawful,” Brandeis Center CEO Kenneth Marcus wrote in a statement.

While the complaint was filed in February, the Brandeis Center joined the lawsuit on July 21, filing an amended complaint on behalf of both itself and Crystal.

The district believes the lawsuit represents a pattern “across the entire state from those who do not support the course in various formats and configurations,” Austin wrote.

“We will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and stand behind both the transparency of our process and the value of the course itself,” he wrote.