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March 5, 2025 EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Opens Antisemitism Investigation Into the University of California System Gabe Kaminsky The Department of Justice says one of the largest public university systems in the country may be discriminating ‘against employees who are or are perceived to be Jewish or Israeli.’ Originally Posted In: https://www.thefp.com/p/exclusive-doj-opens-antisemitism < Back The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the sprawling University of California system over concerns about antisemitism, The Free Press has learned. In a letter sent Monday evening to the UC system and seen by The Free Press , the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division informed UC president Michael Drake of its investigation. “Our investigation is based on information suggesting that since at least October 7, 2023, the University of California may be engaged in certain employment practices that discriminate against employees who are or are perceived to be Jewish or Israeli,” wrote DOJ officials Mac Warner and Michael E. Gates in the letter. “Accordingly, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division has authorized a full investigation to determine whether the University of California is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination as set forth above.” “We were recently notified of the Department of Justice’s decision to initiate a civil rights investigation in the University of California system,” a spokesperson for the UC system told The Free Press . “We want to be clear: the University of California is unwavering in its commitment to combating antisemitism and protecting everyone’s civil rights. We continue to take specific steps to foster an environment free of harassment and discrimination for everyone in the university community.” The investigation comes on the heels of the DOJ forming a task force in February made up of representatives from the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to combat antisemitism. That follows the executive order President Donald Trump signed in his first days in office allocating federal resources to address “the explosion of antisemitism” on college campuses. The order, moreover, directed the DOJ to take immediate action to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.” The antisemitism task force is being led by Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney and recent Fox News contributor. It is under the auspices of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, an office that Trump tapped attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, to lead. This UC investigation comes less than 48 hours after the Trump administration announced a review of federal funding to Columbia University, which had been a hotbed for anti-Israel activism since October 7, 2023, and where dozens of students were arrested last spring for participating in encampments and taking over a campus building. As The Free Press reported yesterday , Trump’s antisemitism task force is looking into more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia as part of the review—led by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration. The investigation follows a “Dear Colleague” letter sent by the Department of Education’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights two weeks ago which warned universities that the department “will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions.” The letter states the department will “vigorously enforce the law on equal terms” to any K-12 or higher education institution which receives federal funding. -------------------------------------- Gabe Kaminsky is a reporter at The Free Press. Send him tips: gabe@thefp.com . Additional reporting by Frannie Block. Previous Next

February 3, 2026 ZOA Settles Antisemitism Lawsuit With Cherry Hill School District (NJ) Mia Resnicow The complaint alleged that school officials retaliated “harshly, undeservedly and outrageously” against the student for making complaints of bullying and harassment. Originally Posted In: https://www.jewishexponent.com/zoa-settles-antisemitism-lawsuit-with-cherry-hill-school-district/ < Back The Zionist Organization of America announced on Jan. 20 that it reached a settlement in its lawsuit against Cherry Hill Public Schools in New Jersey. In June 2024, the ZOA filed a complaint on behalf of a Jewish student at Cherry Hill High School East and his parents relating to the conduct of the school and the school district in response to alleged harassment, intimidation, bullying and free speech violations of said student. “I think one important aspect of this resolution, that I think applies to other cases, is the importance of educating your school community about the problem of antisemitism, helping the community understand how antisemitism can be expressed today, making it clear to your school community that the district or the university will have zero tolerance for antisemitism, however it’s expressed, and that is going to hold wrongdoers accountable,” Susan B. Tuchman, the director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, told Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. The complaint alleged that school officials retaliated “harshly, undeservedly and outrageously” against the student for making complaints of bullying and harassment. “The antisemitic threats, harassment and intimidation were so offensive, severe and pervasive that they created a hostile environment for [the student] limiting his ability to participate in and benefit from High School East’s programs and activities,” the ZOA stated in the filed complaint. After Oct. 7, 2023, students at Cherry Hill High School East allegedly came to school wearing keffiyehs, waving Palestinian Arab flags, and shouting “Free Palestine.” The Jewish student took two short videos of the other students, expressing his opinion that the students were endorsing Hamas. According to the complaint, the videos did not violate any of the school’s rules or policies. The complaint also alleged that the Jewish student’s friend overheard Arab Muslim students in the school bathroom discussing a plan to jump the student for taking the videos. After reporting the incident to school officials, the school officials allegedly failed to address the threats. Another incident described in the filing involved the Jewish student being harassed in the school’s cafeteria by other students, and then being taken to speak with school officials, who allegedly threatened the student, telling him, “If you post any more videos, you’re out of here.” A day later, the student was suspended for four days in October 2023. The complaint also alleged that school officials publicly blamed the student for one of the incidents, saying that someone was putting misinformation on social media, causing problems at school. According to the complaint, no actions were taken against the other students. Under the settlement, which was executed in May 2025, the school district is required to expunge any information and evidence relating to disciplinary action taken again the Jewish student, continue to provide education on antisemitism as part of its mandatory Holocaust education, commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day annually, and during the week of Holocaust Remembrance Day starting on April 21, 2025, maintain a table of books in the district’s libraries that commemorate Jewish history. Additionally, the settlement required the school district to issue a statement on its website promising that all perpetrators of antisemitism would be held accountable in the district and include data about the rise in antisemitic incidents in New Jersey. The statement also included the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. According to Tuchman, after the settlement was executed, the ZOA and the school district disagreed on one of the terms of the settlement. The settlement agreement stated the school district was required to issue a statement and post the statement on its website. “When we said that, it was with the knowledge that the district regularly issues statements to the community, whether it’s by email or by letter,” she explained. The ZOA brought the matter to court in June 2025, and then the court’s decision was released last month, and, Tuchman explained, “determined that simply posting the antisemitism statement on the website was a fair reading of the party settlement agreement.” Overall, Tuchman said the ZOA is very pleased with the outcome of the settlement agreement. “It shouldn’t have to take a settlement agreement to get the district to educate the community about this area’s problem of antisemitism, which infected its own district,” Tuchman added. “But overall, yes, we are very pleased with the outcome.” Cherry Hill Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment from Philadelphia Jewish Exponent prior to publication. Previous Next

December 31, 2025 MVLA school district approves new graduation requirements Giuseppe Ricapito The Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District voted to modify the graduation requirements of the class of 2027 and beyond to reflect its truncated ethnic studies requirement. Originally Posted In: https://www.losaltosonline.com/schools/mvla-school-district-approves-new-graduation-requirements/article_453220d5-2430-4726-b787-b9b4b3c3af28.html < Back At a meeting on Dec. 15, the board unanimously voted to approve its updated graduation requirements. The change drops the social studies graduation requirement from 40 credits to 35 credits, reflecting the drop in the ethnic studies requirement from 10 credits to 5 credits. Elective credits are increased from 55 credits to 60 credits. Graduation requirements will remain 220 credits. The board of trustees voted 3-2 at an Oct. 27 meeting to cut the required social studies course, beginning with the 2026-2027 school year. Support for shortening the requirement came from trustees Vadim Katz, Catherine Vonnegut and Alex Levich. Trustees Esmeralda Ortiz and Thida Cornes cast the dissenting votes. Ethnic studies is currently a year-long course at the district that teaches students about the study of race, contributions of people of color in the United States and contemporary social movements. “This is what the board has already voted for,” Superintendent Eric Volta said at the meeting. District officials previously noted that the school sites may develop new offerings in social studies electives to avoid staff cuts accompanying the reduction of its ethnic studies requirement from a year to single semester. At the Dec. 15 meeting, district staff members offered their own recommendations to bridge the drop in social studies requirements. Dave Campbell, president of the district teachers association, presented a staff plan to recommend the requirements of one semester of ethnic studies and one semester of world studies for freshmen. “Adopting this sequencing aligns with community feedback requesting a robust and globally focused freshman experience,” he said at the meeting. “It reduces ethnic studies to one semester in a way that minimizes disruption for students and prepares them for more rigorous coursework in their sophomore year and beyond.” Campbell said the course coverage would follow the Holocaust, World War II and Latin American history. He said the option offered clear reliable course pathways rather than variable elective enrollment. Nate Bowen, social studies department coordinator at Mountain View High School, said at the meeting he hoped any changes would be the least disruptive to students and teachers. He referred to the proposal as “vital.” “It’s going to help bring my department much needed stability and a sense of normalcy,” he said of the proposal. Volta said previously that department heads and educators at individual school sites are developing the potential social studies elective options for eventual consideration by the district. A timeframe was not provided for board consideration of the teachers’ social studies proposal. Previous Next

May 4, 2026 Brandeis Center files Title VII complaint against the National Education Association Haley Cohen The leading Jewish legal group alleges that the country’s largest teachers’ union has repeatedly discriminated against its Jewish members Originally Posted In: https://jewishinsider.com/2026/05/brandeis-center-national-education-association-title-vii-complaint/ < Back A leading Jewish legal group has filed a bias complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the National Education Association, alleging the country’s largest teachers’ union violated civil rights law by discriminating against its Jewish members, Jewish Insider has learned. The complaint, filed Monday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, highlights several incidents in which the NEA - which represents over 3 million educators - allegedly breached Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees, resulting in the spread of antisemitism in K-12 public schools. “Students are arriving to college much of the time already having antisemitic views,” Marci Miller, Brandeis Center’s director of legal investigations, told JI. “We needed to look at the K-12 space to see where this was originating, and we saw that a lot of the false narratives and antisemitic tropes were originating from local teachers’ unions - and in a lot of cases it came from the top, the NEA, which is the umbrella union.” Last summer, the NEA’s Representative Assembly passed a resolution to boycott the Anti-Defamation League’s Holocaust education materials after union delegates complained the ADL’s definition of antisemitism was too strong. While NEA’s board of directors unanimously voted to reject the measure that would’ve ceased relations with the ADL, Jewish educators and parents continue to remain uneasy about rising antisemitism within the union. The 297-page complaint highlights several concerns in the NEA’s 2025 handbook , a 434-page report outlining the organization’s “visionary goals” and “strategic objectives.” Among these examples is official handbook language for International Holocaust Remembrance Day that removed Jews as the primary targeted victims of the Holocaust, reframing the genocide as a generalized tragedy, the Brandeis Center said. The handbook stated that the “NEA shall promote the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 annually on its website and through other appropriate media to recognize the more than 12 million victims of the Holocaust from different faiths, ethnicities, races, political beliefs, genders, and gender identification, abilities/disabilities, and other targeted characteristics. ” Although the language was later revised following public backlash, the NEA did not issue an apology for the erasure of Jewish history from its handbook materials and provided no corrective guidance to members or affiliates. On Oct. 8, 2025, one day after the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, the NEA sent a mass email to its membership celebrating Indigenous lands and distributing a “Native Land Digital” map that erased Israel entirely, labeling the territory solely as Palestine and linking to materials associated with organizations that have expressed support for Hamas’ attacks. After public backlash, the NEA removed the resource and issued a statement that the external resource did not meet its standards, but it did not advise members to stop using the materials or issue an apology to Jewish members. According to the complaint, Jewish members reported facing harassment at the NEA’s 2025 Representative Assembly, a convening of the organization’s top leaders from around the country - the same group that voted to censure the ADL. Allegations included Jewish delegates being physically surrounded and shouted at by anti-Israel advocates; delegates laughing after a Jewish delegate referred to the murder of an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor in the Boulder, Colo., antisemitic firebombing attack; and delegates physically intimidating and disrupting the Jewish Affairs Caucus when the executive chair tried to speak. The complaint also alleges that the NEA engages in systematic discrimination by utilizing discriminatory racial quotas and preferences, a practice that harms Jewish members who are excluded from preferred racial groups, denying them equal access to opportunities and full participation in union governance. “NEA is not taking enough steps to make Jewish teachers, Jewish members feel comfortable in the NEA,” said Miller. “They may have taken some minimal steps but haven’t really responded to complaints from members.” The complaint comes as NEA is under investigation by the House Committee on Education and Workforce, as well as the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, following allegations that its policies and materials have fostered an environment conducive to antisemitism in K-12 schools. Previous Next

April 24, 2025 The Ethnic Studies to Antisemitism Pipeline: Pajaro Valley Edition Mika Hackner The ideological lens of Ethnic Studies, with its obsession over systems of power and its binary moral structure, aligns all too easily with antisemitic conspiracism. Originally Posted In: https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/380976/the-ethnic-studies-to-antisemitism-pipeline-pajaro-valley-edition/ < Back On Wednesday night, often to cheers and applause, school board members of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), in Santa Cruz County California, berated and accused the Jewish community of using its wealth and privilege to maintain power at the expense of black and Hispanic communities. The comments were made during a PVUSD meeting centered on whether to renew its contract with Community Responsive Education (CRE), an organization led by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, to provide professional development for Ethnic Studies. Tintiangco-Cubales is a member of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) and an original author of the California State of Education’s model Ethnic Studies curriculum. The curriculum had to be revised after widespread concerns over antisemitic content. As a result of those changes, Tintiangco-Cubales subsequently removed her name from the finished product. PVUSD had a previous working relationship with CRE when they developed PVUSD’s Ethnic Studies framework and helped with curriculum development and teacher training. This relationship was severed after Tintiangco-Cubales’ public rejection of California’s model ethnic studies curriculum. Since then, activists have fought for PVUSD to reinstate its contract with CRE. Thanks to California’s AB 101 legislation, Ethnic Studies will soon become a graduation requirement for California’s high schoolers. As activists were quick to point out in last night’s meeting, Ethnic Studies is not Multicultural Studies; it is not the study of different communities and their contributions to the United States. As it is written and applied, Ethnic Studies is about identifying systems of power and oppression and learning how to dismantle them. Systems do not materialize out of thin air. They are built. They are designed. If our liberal society is a “system of oppression” then it must have been purposefully designed by oppressors to maintain power. Ethnic Studies teaches a Manichean worldview of good and bad, oppressor against oppressed, powerful and powerless. That kind of simplistic thinking has always been a happy hunting ground for the antisemite and the conspiracist. It is no surprise, then, that as Ethnic Studies gets adopted in K-12, there is a rise of antisemitism in schools. And this was perfectly displayed by the school board members who voted to approve the CRE contract last night. Trustee Joy Flynn, for example, assured the Jewish community that there was no hint of antisemitism in CRE’s work while simultaneously claiming that the Jewish community has economic power and white privilege that they are not using to benefit the wider community. Trustee Gabriel Medina went further, addressing Jewish community members in the audience: “You only show up to meetings when it’s beneficial for you, so you can tell brown people who they are…the lies that you spewed here tonight were insane … if you want to continue to be segregationists like you have in the past …” A teacher in PVUSD said, in regard to antisemitism in the CRE curriculum, “It would be disrespectful to me, to every teacher who has been in this training, to every student, if you were to say ‘We don’t believe you, we believe this one minority’ and maybe the fact they gave money to certain campaigns helps.” He went on to say “Turns out I’m part Ashkenazi Jew, so if that ups my favoritism, please renew CRE.” This last remark was met with jovial laughter. This wasn’t just offensive — it was revealing. Open antisemitism like this may shock, but it shouldn’t surprise. The ideological lens of Ethnic Studies, with its obsession over systems of power and its binary moral structure, aligns all too easily with antisemitic conspiracism. Tragically, it seems that PVUSD has adopted this worldview wholesale. Let’s hope other districts don’t follow their lead. Dr Mika Hackner is Senior Research Associate at the North American Values Institute. She has been published in Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, the Washington Post, Quillette and the Jewish Journal. Previous Next

November 23, 2025 The Ideological Erosion of College Readiness Tamar Caspi & Sharon Ceresnie Sorkin California’s Ethnic Studies mandate, which took hold over the past five years, coincides with a sharp decline in statewide test scores for grades 3-8 and 11 in English Language Arts and math. While activists spent years crafting curricula that demonize America, Israel, Jews, and the West, students were robbed of the opportunity to master fundamentals. Originally Posted In: https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2025/11/23/the_ideological_erosion_of_college_readiness_1149189.html < Back A stunning new report from the University of California, San Diego documents what many educators have feared: incoming college students are less prepared than ever. This “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of incoming college students isn’t limited to advanced subjects; it’s hitting the bedrock of learning: literacy and numeracy. These are the skills upon which all higher-order thinking depends. The report points to pandemic disruptions, the removal of standardized tests like the SAT, and grade inflation masking academic weakness. But these are symptoms, not causes. The deeper problem is an ideological takeover of America’s K-12 system -- an approach that dismisses standardized tests as “products of white supremacy” and inflates grades to preserve the illusion of success. It’s an approach that relies on a teaching philosophy that promotes activism in the classroom for causes like decolonization (“down with America”) and anti-racism (solving racism with more racism), all at the expense of core academic proficiency. No one made this clearer than Cecily Myart-Cruz, head of Los Angeles’s teachers union, who said : “ It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.” California’s Ethnic Studies mandate, which took hold over the past five years, coincides with a sharp decline in statewide test scores for grades 3-8 and 11 in English Language Arts and math. While activists spent years crafting curricula that demonize America, Israel, Jews, and the West, students were robbed of the opportunity to master fundamentals. This is a cautionary tale for the rest of the country. Minnesota ’s ethnic studies mandate will take effect in 2026–27. Michigan has considered similar proposals. Nationally, ideologically-driven curricula like Rethinking Schools -- endorsed by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union -- are spreading rapidly. If California’s experience is any guide, academic decline will not remain a regional problem. The irony is painful: these ideological experiments claim to uplift minority and disadvantaged students, yet they harm them most. Low-income families, English-language learners, and first-generation college aspirants suffer when schools trade core skills for political agendas. Recent research shows widening excellence gaps; even high-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling further behind. The ripple effects are not trivial: mastery of basic mathematics is a gatekeeper for access to STEM pathways, and strong reading comprehension is essential for civic and informational literacy. A high school diploma that no longer signals readiness wastes time and money for students and the state, and it undermines social mobility. Public education’s primary duty is to teach what is demonstrably necessary for the next stage of life. If mandatory ethnic studies courses or ideologically organized curricula prevent that duty from being fulfilled, they must be rethought. The modern university and the modern high school exist in a contract: high schools certify that graduates possess the fundamentals needed to succeed in college, and colleges admit on the expectation that those fundamentals exist. But the UCSD data show that even admitted students with “acceptable” high school credentials may still lag significantly in readiness. Schools must recommit to the basics: coherent writing, mathematical reasoning, scientific analysis, and evidence-based thinking. Schools should publicly track and report not just representation goals and qualitative indicators of representation, school climate, discipline, and engagement, but also measurable growth in reading, mathematics, science attainment, and readiness for tertiary education. And inflating grades to make students look more successful than they actually are only exacerbates the problem. While there may be some inherent biases in the tools we use to measure academic success, research shows these tests are critical predictors of success in higher education. According to researchers at Brown University , while disparities do exist in standardized test outcomes, these disparities cannot be solely blamed on test biases. NAEP ’s own interpretive guidance makes clear that demographic variables correlate with scores and do not by themselves establish causality. Doing away with meaningful grades and standardized tests entirely only does a disservice to the very students the ideologues aim to lift up. We should, of course, strive to make measurement tools as unbiased as possible, but we must do this without sacrificing the ability to measure, and thereby promote, meaningful achievement. This is an educational emergency. Every American who believes in equal opportunity must resist the ideological capture of our schools. In order to lift up all students to meet their highest potential, we should be fighting against the ideological takeover in America’s K-12 system. Curricula should unite, not divide. Schools should prepare students for success based on skills, not activism. If we fail to act, we risk sacrificing an entire generation’s potential on the altar of politics. The UC San Diego report should serve as a wake-up call. Academic preparedness is not a partisan issue; it is a national imperative. If we want students to thrive, we must restore rigor, accountability, and a shared commitment to excellence. Anything less is a betrayal of the very students these ideological experiments claim to serve. Tamar Caspi is a co-founder of PeerK12, a San Diego-based grassroots movement defending Jewish civil rights. Sharon Sorkin is the Director of Community Engagement at the North American Values Institute. Previous Next

March 19, 2026 The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), in collaboration with PeerK12, announced on Thursday the launch of the San Diego Jewish American Heritage Month Student Contest. CAM & PeerK12 Staff Submissions Now Open for San Diego Jewish American Heritage Month Student Creative Originally Posted In: https://combatantisemitism.org/cam-news/submissions-now-open-for-san-diego-jewish-american-heritage-month-student-creative-contest/ < Back PRESS RELEASE Thursday, March 19, SAN DIEGO, CA – The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), in collaboration with PeerK12, announced on Thursday the launch of the San Diego Jewish American Heritage Month Student Contest. The creative competition - full details of which are available HERE - is open to all high school juniors and seniors from San Diego County who plan to attend a two- or four-year college or university. Jews have played an integral role in the great American story for nearly four centuries, richly contributing to the nation’s culture, economy, and civic life. From the early colonial period to contemporary times, Jewish citizens have been at the forefront of advancing and defending American freedom, security, prosperity, and innovation, while maintaining a strong faith-based communal identity. The history of San Diego is no different, with Jewish pioneers arriving in the mid-1800s and quickly becoming an inseparable part of the growing port city’s social fabriC. The San Diego Jewish American Heritage Month Student Contest offers participants an opportunity to explore this history and its lasting influence by submitting essays in three categories: Jewish Individuals Who Shaped America, Jewish Leadership; Partnership in Advancing Social Cause, and Jewish Ideas and Cultural Contributions to Society. “We receive reports every day of antisemitic incidents in K–12 schools across San Diego - it’s a clear call to action,” said Tamar Caspi, co-founder of PeerK12. “This contest gives Jewish and non-Jewish students alike a proactive, educational way to build understanding and take a leadership role countering hate in their schools.” The contest launch comes just two days following the San Diego City Council adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which CAM welcomed as a “landmark moment” for the city. “After San Diego took an important stand against antisemitism with the adoption of the IHRA definition, we’re excited to launch this contest to engage students in learning about Jewish American heritage and its impact on our country,” said CAM Jewish American Heritage Director Lenore Zach. “This is an incredible moment - not just to teach history, but to help shape how it’s understood and carried forward by the next generation.” Entries will be accepted through Friday, May 22. Up to $30,000 in scholarships will be awarded. Winners will be recognized at a JAHM reception in San Diego in May. CAM’s partners for the project include PeerK12 and Tikvah Fund. A similar initiative is being led by CAM in Iowa this year, as well as Virginia last year. For more information and to submit an entry, please visit: jahm.combatantisemitism.org/sandiego2026 or peerk12.org/jahmcontest2026 . ### The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) , whose Global Advisory Board is chaired by former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, is a global coalition uniting more than 850 partner organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals across diverse backgrounds to fight antisemitism in all its forms. By mobilizing communities, advancing innovative tools, and working with governments and civil society, CAM drives collaborative action to protect Jewish life and uphold democratic values worldwide. PeerK12 (Partners for Equality and Educational Responsibility in K-12) is dedicated to unapologetically fighting institutionalized Jew-hatred in K-12 education. Founded in 2021, the grassroots movement operates on the front lines within school districts by defending Jewish civil rights, confronting extremist agendas, and protecting merit-based education through legislative accountability, policy advocacy, and legal enforcement. Previous Next

August 12, 2025 The Mamdani Index Dillon Hosier How to spot the next anti-Israel political star before it’s too late. Originally Posted In: https://www.jns.org/the-mamdani-index/ < Back The victory of New York state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral primary surprised many observers. He was outspent and lacked the traditional power brokers. He still won. A well-organized and politically extreme movement is beginning to reshape national politics, fostering anti-Israel positions early in the careers of state and local officials. For the pro-Israel community, the mission is urgent and clear: Build nimble and effective state and local pro-Israel networks. And do it now. That work is beginning through a collaboration that pairs Israeli-American Civic Action Network’s (ICAN) state and local monitoring and research with the Jewish Leadership Project’s network of activists. Guided by ICAN’s analysis, this network can focus on emerging threats and begin responding in key communities, laying the groundwork for coordinated and effective action before anti-Israel figures get too entrenched. Mamdani’s record did not appear overnight. We at ICAN first took notice of Mamdani in July 2023, when he introduced the “Not on Our Dime ” Act as a state legislator, targeting pro-Israel nonprofits while promoting rhetoric and alliances that signaled extreme radicalism. Unfortunately, in that pre-Oct. 7 summer, our warnings never had the chance to be acted upon. For several years, our organization has been building a framework for state and local political research to monitor and report on the public affairs activities of elected officials. Mamdani’s candidacy underscores the need for such a system. It operates as a political threat index—focusing on state and local officials - and identifies, tracks and scores anti-Israel positions before they mature into national influence. State and local politics are often a game of musical chairs, where political careers are made. Today’s city council member becomes a state legislator. Today’s state legislator becomes a member of Congress or the mayor of a major city. We can now track these officials, assessing the direction, pace and substance of their political trajectory in real time. The scale is significant, but quantifiable. At the state level, there are 7,383 legislators, and at the local level, a little more than 19,000 city councils, 16,000 school boards and 3,000 county governments. Anti-Israel coalitions understand this math and have targeted these offices for years. Our index distills years of research and analysis into five areas: First, substance: what officials say about Israel, Gaza, the BDS movement and antisemitism in speeches, interviews and written statements. Second, volume: how often anti-Israel messaging appears and whether it spikes around crises. Third, policy: votes, sponsorships and amendments that target Israel or Israeli-American civil society. Fourth, coalitions: links to groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SPJ), as well as participation in related events. Fifth, patterns: how positions escalate over time and how networks reinforce those shifts. This index goes beyond a scorecard. We examine the whole official, including social-media activity and engagement patterns; constituent newsletters and press releases; event attendance; and endorsements, given and received. The aim is to identify leading indicators that voting records alone will hide. Just two weeks after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in Richmond, Calif., after hours of public testimony, Mayor Eduardo Martinez advanced a resolution accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment and urging a ceasefire. Richmond became the first city in the United States to adopt a ceasefire resolution - a symbolic yet influential move that was repeated by dozens of municipalities in the weeks that followed. Earlier this year in Massachusetts, State Representative Erika Uyterhoeven filed H.2984 to direct the state pension fund to divest from companies supplying military equipment to Israel unless those firms pledge to stop. The measure singles out Israel in statute and gives advocates a nationwide test case in a mainstream legislature. In Maryland, State Delegate Gabriel Acevero introduced the “Not on Our Dime ” Act. The bills would expose Maryland-registered nonprofits that support Israel to civil suits and penalties, including loss of charitable status. These are names you’ve likely never heard before, and these three officials are just the beginning. There are many more like them around the country. Officials build an Israel-centered brand, align with national advocacy networks and replicate a familiar package of policies and phrases. By the time the wider public notices, the infrastructure is in place. These are the proof points used to tune the model. Early detection allows engagement where education is still possible and organized opposition where it is not. Previous Next

May 12, 2025 Parents claim ideological bias in Mesa College course at La Jolla High School Noah Lyons The group focuses particularly on what it considers one-sided discussion of the Israel-Hamas war. Mesa College contends the content is 'protected by academic freedom.' Originally Posted In: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/05/12/parents-claim-ideological-bias-in-mesa-college-course-at-la-jolla-high-school/ < Back A group of parents at La Jolla High School is criticizing a college preparation course at the school over what the parents perceive as ideological imbalance and “political indoctrination.” School leaders say the San Diego Mesa College professor who teaches the course is within her rights. The course, “Introduction to Political Science,” analyzes civic and global affairs, among other topics, and is part of an “ongoing commitment to provide college- and career-ready opportunities to our students in preparation for their future,” according to James Canning, spokesman for the San Diego Unified School District. However, parents Wyatt Collin, Karen Hobbs and David Herrera sent an email to the La Jolla Light detailing their discontent with the course, saying they were writing on behalf of 20 families, most of whom requested anonymity. They said they also complained to La Jolla High and Mesa College, to no avail. La Jolla High Principal Chuck Podhorsky declined to comment to the Light and referred questions to Canning. Mesa College said in a statement to the Light that “ we have concluded the content of the course is protected by academic freedom and does not violate the law or SDCCD [San Diego Community College District] policies. Our findings are framed by legal standards and precedent and do not diminish the personal experiences of any member of our community .” The parents’ concerns center on parts of the course related to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian organization that governs the Gaza Strip. Specifically, they pointed to class readings “A Deadly Apathy ” by David Shulman and “Infinite License: The World After Gaza ” by Omer Bartov, as well as a video-recorded panel discussion titled “Teach-In on Israel/Palestine ,” as evidence of ideological bias and replacing analysis with activism. They claim the course, taught by professor Yvonne Gastelum, is “defined by ideological messaging, racial essentialism and an astonishing lack of intellectual balance,” with assignments that lack context, counterpoint or critical examination. “Infinite License,” an essay written for The New York Review of Books, states that “the memory of the Holocaust has, pervasively, been enlisted to justify both the eradication of Gaza and the extraordinary silence with which that violence has been met.” Later in the essay, Bartov — a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and the author of “Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis” — characterizes Israel’s actions in the war as repeating historical patterns of genocide. “Teaching political science without offering multiple perspectives is malpractice,” according to the parents’ email. “Teaching it with a singular narrative that casts one group as heroes and another as monsters isn’t higher education — it’s dogma.” The parents also contended the class “veered into lectures on the ‘levels of Whiteness’ among Jewish populations, dividing students into racial categories based on ancestry, tone or cultural heritage. These are not ‘teachable moments.’ They’re racially charged distractions with no academic merit and no place in a high school classroom.” Sharon Amsalem, a parent at La Jolla High, said her son is enrolled in the course and was assigned to read “Infinite License” but felt uncomfortable with the subject matter. After getting up and leaving class, he was offered an alternate assignment, Amsalem said. “I was really mad,” she said. “I right away called the school and talked to one of the advisers there. She told me they could not do anything … because it’s from Mesa College and it’s not part of La Jolla High School.” “It’s really, really giving one side of the situation,” she added. “And yes, Israel is doing bad things; they’re [all] doing bad things. … I’m not saying who’s wrong and who’s right. But if you give the situation, give the whole picture.” Amsalem said her son never felt “targeted” by the professor and that he remains in the class. Jose Oldak’s child is not enrolled in the course, but he has joined other La Jolla High families in opposition to it. He learned of other parents’ concerns after joining an online group formed by Jewish families at La Jolla High in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Oldak said he moved his son to La Jolla High in hopes of avoiding classwork that he believed was intended to “get the students to take sides.” “For me, it’s really important that this kind of thing does not become a constant in every single California school,” Oldak said. “There seems to be a group of ideologically minded people that instead of teaching children, they just want to indoctrinate them. “If it was presenting two sides of the same issue, OK, fine. There is a broader exposure to ideas. There is an exploration. But in this case, this is not what’s happening.” Oldak said he contacted La Jolla High and Mesa College and received “dismissive” responses from both. Canning told the Light that students in the class, along with their families, were aware of the course they signed up for. “We passed along the concerns we received from families to the college and we encouraged the families/students to directly speak with the professor of the class,” Canning said. The parents blasted that suggestion, saying “Mesa and La Jolla High washed their hands of the matter and left the burden on teenagers to challenge a college professor who grades them.” Gastelum could not be reached for comment for this story. The American Federation of Teachers’ collective bargaining agreement with the San Diego Community College District states in Section 12.1.6 that “academic freedom and freedom of expression afford the faculty the right to speak freely, pursue research and write without unreasonable restrictions or prejudices.” Mesa College stated that it and other higher-education institutions are “vital spaces for academic inquiry and exploration of events occurring throughout the world.” “Those events, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, are often deeply personal and bring a variety of perspectives which may be conflicting,” according to the college’s statement. “We continue to work to expand our cultural humility and awareness to better create environments where all members of our community may engage in academic discussions on complex and sometimes divisive topics with mutual respect and a sense of belonging.” This isn’t the first time that controversy over the Gaza conflict has reached La Jolla. UC San Diego was the site of one of the largest demonstrations in campus history on March 6, 2024, when about 2,500 pro-Palestinian protesters marched across campus demanding an end to the war and pushing the university to drop its relationships with businesses perceived as hostile toward Palestinians. The unrest came to a head two months later when police raided a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus after UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla declared that the encampment “violated campus policy and the law and grew to pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of the campus community.” Some 65 students were arrested, most on suspicion of unlawful assembly. Previous Next

May 31, 2026 Reforms Coming for Sequoia Union High School District over Anti-Semitic Harassment of and Pro-Hamas Propaganda Evan Gahr Wholesale attacks on Israel are now properly deemed a form of prohibited anti-Semitism Originally Posted In: https://californiaglobe.com/fr/reforms-coming-for-sequoia-union-high-school-district-over-anti-semitic-harassment-of-and-pro-hamas-propaganda/ < Back The Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City this week agreed to sweeping reforms to settle a federal lawsuit over the anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students and pro-Hamas propaganda in classrooms. The Deborah Project , a law firm that specializes in fighting anti-Semitism in education, filed the lawsuit in 2024 on behalf of parents of Jewish students at two high schools in the District. Under the terms of the settlement , the District is required to explicitly deem anti-Semitism as a form of prohibited discrimination. (Kind of amazing they didn’t have this previously.) Also, they are going to define anti-Semitism to include particularly virulent criticism of Israel, such as calling the country racist or denying its right to exist. Additionally, teachers are required to have their curriculum on the Israel-Palestine conflict pre-approved by a special monitor to be selected by the District and the Deborah Project. And no more teachers agitating for Hamas in the classroom. According to the settlement, “In leading or guiding class discussions about issues that may be controversial, a teacher may not advocate their personal opinion or viewpoint” and shall “refrain from sharing personal views in the classroom during instruction on controversial topics.” On top of that, mandatory ant-Semitism training is required for all teachers, administrators and staff. The settlement also includes monetary damages. The District is paying the plaintiffs $325,000. Deborah Project founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus told the California Globe that the most important facet of the settlement is that wholesale attacks on Israel are now properly deemed a form of prohibited anti-Semitism. “The most significant principle is that the denial of Israel’s right to self-defense or self-determination is antisemitism, as is the demand that Israel’s behavior be greater than that demanded of other democratic nations which are not permissible under SUHSD’s anti-discrimination policy,” she emailed. “If I could add another: all supplementary material used to teach about the ‘Israel-Palestine Conflict’ has to receive clearance from an independent neutral before being used in classrooms and VERY IMPORTANT: that teaching about the ‘Israel-Palestine Conflict’ is per se a Controversial Issue and according to that board policy must be taught from an objective, even-sided perspective without a teacher’s personal political orientation or efforts at indoctrination. From these flow all the other sea-changes made in SUHSD’s policies and procedures, in addition to the general fairness requirements that timing for resolution of complaints be treated as requirements and not free-floating options, that investigations have to be performed by independent and knowledgeable attorneys, that the materials gathered by those investigators be provided to the complainants.” Lowenthal filed the lawsuit on behalf of six Jewish families on November 15, 2024 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuit cited “egregious failures” by school administrators in their response to anti-Semitism and “indifference to it.” The administration’s “tepid response to the Oct. 7 attacks exacerbated the already pervasive antisemitism within its schools. Jewish students faced a barrage of taunts, slurs and hateful remarks, culminating in the appearance of two giant swastikas on campus grounds,” the complaint says. “Rather than addressing the escalating incidents, SUHSD officials shifted blame onto the victims, refused to engage with concerned parents, and used superficial ‘investigations’ to whitewash legitimate concerns.” “When SUHSD parents and students raised concerns—through emails, petitions, and formal complaints—the District responded with bureaucratic obfuscation and outright denial, demonstrating a deliberate indifference to SUHSD’s Jewish students. Emails were ignored, and meetings were canceled, without explanation,” the lawsuit says. “The District’s administrators and trustees have consistently and deliberately refused to take concrete action to stem the scourge of antisemitism on their campuses, to the detriment of Jewish SUHSD students who, subjected to harassment and ridicule from both peers and teachers, have been forced to endure an increasingly hostile learning environment.” It also cited the case of a history teacher at Woodside High School who adorned his classroom with a “Free Palestine” sticker and browbeat a Jewish student who took issue with his pro-Hamas posturings. The complaint said Gregory Gruszynski regularly spouted “pro-Hamas propaganda under the guise of teaching 10th-grade World History” and “coerced [the student] into endorsing his biased and ahistorical views to achieve satisfactory grades on exams.” But when her parents complained to administrators about Gruszynski they did nothing in response. Gruszynski, a former head of the local teachers union apparently still employed at the school, also sounds like quite an ignoramus. This gem from the lawsuit is worth quoting in full. “GRUSZYNSKI repeatedly instructed students that Gaza is an ‘open air prison that Israel controls,’ when, in truth, Israel left Gaza nearly 20 years ago—forcibly removing every single Jew. ” Gruszynski and Sequoia Union High School District Superintendent Crystal Leach did not reply to repeated requests for comment. Previous Next

March 20, 2025 Anti-Israel ethnic studies unfunded in California - Is the fight over? | JPost Op-Ed Tamar Caspi "As parents, we expect our children’s education to promote truth, critical thinking, and understanding—not to serve as a breeding ground for political activism." Originally Posted In: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-846892 < Back The 2025–26 California state budget presented by Governor Gavin Newsom last month notably fails to allocate funding for Assembly Bill 101 (AB101) - yet another glaring reminder of the rushed and ill-conceived nature of the requirement for districts to offer Ethnic Studies courses. As spelled out in the bill – without funding, it is not mandated – which means districts do not need to implement it. Ethnic Studies, as it stands, is an attempt to implement a divisive, politically charged curriculum under the guise of promoting diversity. The absence of funding in this year’s budget is just one of many problems with the state’s approach to Ethnic Studies. Instead of forcing schools to implement this controversial program, we should pause the push for Ethnic Studies as a graduation requirement. Newly proposed legislation AB1468 includes the addition of standards, but the lack of oversight as to who will set those standards and who will impose those standards means the same bad actors can and likely will take over. The last time we trusted the state to create a committee of “experts,” the Governor ended up vetoing the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum three times. Ethnic Studies Includes Anti-Israel Indoctrination The rushed rollout of the statewide Ethnic Studies model curriculum in 2019 led to a document that faced significant criticism, particularly from the Jewish community, for containing elements of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. For example, “Zionism” was used in a negative context as it was associated with oppression, colonialism, and apartheid. Palestinian struggles were framed through the lens of “liberation,” which positioned Israel as an oppressive force. Further, it was an unbalanced narrative as the unique Jewish historical experiences of the Holocaust, the Jewish diaspora, and the importance of Israel to the Jewish people were excluded. Far from being a tool for unity, Ethnic Studies is a vehicle for activism, often pushing ideologies that have no place in our schools. The so-called Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum has come under fire for promoting rhetoric that encourages students to view each other through the lens of identity politics, pitting one group against another. This type of curriculum fosters resentment and division, rather than the mutual respect that should be the foundation of any educational experience. This is not education; it’s indoctrination. And the worst part? Parents are being kept in the dark about what is being taught in these courses. In many districts, repeated requests for transparency about the content of Ethnic Studies lessons are ignored, and what we have found is deeply troubling: a curriculum full of inaccuracies, bias, and discriminatory content. This practice is a violation of AB101 (if it were funded) as well as the existing CA Education Code regarding new materials. As parents, we expect our children’s education to promote truth, critical thinking, and understanding—not to serve as a breeding ground for political activism. Yet, that’s exactly what Ethnic Studies has become. It is not teaching our children to think critically about history, culture, and society; it is teaching them to see the world through a divisive and narrow ideological lens. California’s Education Quality – 41st Out of 50 States Meanwhile, California’s public education system is already struggling. Though one of the largest in the United States, its enrollment has declined by 14% in the past decade, currently serving 5.5 million students across 9,000 schools. According to 2024 data from the US Department of Education, though California has the 5th largest economy in the world, it ranks 19th in the nation for per-pupil spending. It is ranked 41st in the country for overall educational quality, with students performing below the national average in key subjects like math and reading. As the recently released 2024 National Education Report Card showed, a full 72% of California’s 4th and 8th graders cannot read at grade level. Furthermore, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, the University of California and California State University both report that incoming students are not adequately prepared in key subjects. Rather than add yet another unfunded mandate to our struggling school system, we should focus on fostering critical thinking, mutual respect, and an understanding of our shared history within our current approved course catalog - without the political baggage that Ethnic Studies bring to the table. Previous Next

April 30, 2024 PeerK-12 Official Statement Expressing Strong Objections at the Politicization of San Diego Unified School District’s Jewish American Heritage Month Proclamation PeerK12 It is deeply concerning that the school district has chosen to politicize Jewish American Heritage Month, just as they did Arab American Heritage Month with the inclusion of Edward Said and Doris Bittar, by endorsing figures who polarize and detract from the celebration of a rich and diverse heritage. Originally Posted In: < Back We express our profound disappointment and disapproval regarding the inclusion of individuals like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and others in the proclamation for San Diego Unified School District's Jewish American Heritage Month, as posted in the agenda for Tuesday, April 30th school board meeting . These individuals are known for their divisive and politically motivated stances that are starkly anti-American and anti-Israel. Their controversial views are Marxist and are not representative of the Jewish community and undermine the purpose of this observance. It is deeply concerning that the school district has chosen to politicize Jewish American Heritage Month, just as they did Arab American Heritage Month with the inclusion of Edward Said and Doris Bittar, by endorsing figures who polarize and detract from the celebration of a rich and diverse heritage. These decisions are not only a significant oversight but also a severe misjudgment that politicizes and tarnishes the intent of such commemorations. By doing so, the district has regrettably used both heritage months as political pawns, which is unacceptable and deserving of strong condemnation. This proclamation is the antithesis of the Resolution Condemning Antisemitism that SDUSD adopted on October 26, 2021 in both spirit and content as it is not "inclusive and reflective of best practices and the full diversity of the Jewish people and Israeli-Americans." PeerK-12 is committed to values that foster unity, respect, and understanding across all communities - therefore, we demand immediate correction and oversight to ensure that such missteps are not repeated. We urge the school district to uphold the spirit of this heritage month by celebrating figures who unify rather than divide, reflecting the true values of our community and country. Materials, appropriate figures, videos, curricula, and additional resources for Jewish American Heritage Month can be found here: https://jewsinschool.org/jewish-heritage-month and here: https://jewishamericanheritage.org/for-educators . * * * PeerK12 For all media inquiries, please contact info@peerk12.org Previous Next

April 4, 2024 When anti-Israel radicals win local elections Dillon Hosier We must mobilize to counter an insidious movement that threatens democracy itself. Originally Posted In: https://www.jns.org/when-anti-israel-radicals-win-local-elections/ < Back In the shadow of Oct. 7 and the subsequent discord on campuses and in the streets, an alarming question has emerged: What happens when activists from anti-Israel groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) move on from student government to real government? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. It happened in the last local election in West Hollywood, Calif., which has historically been strongly pro-Israel. The ascent of Chelsea Lee Byers—an SJP activist and chapter founder—to the office of vice mayor should be a wake-up call. It highlights the need for proactive political engagement as antisemitism spreads into local, state and federal government. Byers’s ability to successfully conceal her extremist agenda behind her innocent-seeming nonprofit organization Beautiful Trouble is a warning sign of a significant threat to the Jewish and pro-Israel communities, as well as the integrity of local government. Her story is a cautionary tale. You would never guess that Byers is the voice of a violently antisemitic and anti-Israel movement. At first glance, she appears no different from any first-time local elected official. This is not a coincidence. Byers rose from radical activism to real political power in the course of a decade. In 2012, she tweeted, “I am the President of Northern Arizona University’s SJP—let’s make this day of action huge!” In 2022, she ran in her first election. Mere weeks after Oct. 7, she was sworn in as vice mayor. Throughout her activism, Byers engaged in regular anti-Israel defamation. She called for boycotts, an end to foreign aid and war crimes trials of Israeli officials. In 2011, she protested an appearance by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In what was likely a deliberate lie, she falsely accused the hosting organization of sexual assault. In fact, she simply had to be physically removed from the event due to her deplorable behavior. In 2018, Byers led a protest at the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles at which the crowd chanted the genocidal slogans “Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” What may be most dangerous about Byers, however, is the insidious nature of her tactics. In 2021, when it was clear she was going to run for public office, she tried to erase her digital footprint and hide her anti-Israel incitement. This strategic rebranding was only the beginning. Byers uses her nonprofit organization Beautiful Trouble to conceal her commitment to virulent anti-Israel ideologies. Though it claims to advocate for social justice, Beautiful Trouble regularly crosses the line into outright anti-Israel hate and incitement. Its social media platforms and public rhetoric are rife with demonization, distortions and racist stereotypes against the Jewish state. Multiple sources prove Byers’s involvement with Beautiful Trouble. Indeed, her official biography on the City of West Hollywood’s website identifies her as a “core team member” of the organization. Before the 2022 election, Beautiful Trouble’s website directed donations to Byers’s home address, showing her direct financial association with the organization. A more complete bio at Women’s Voices Now states, “Chelsea is part of the Beautiful Trouble collective, where she facilitates resources development and content creation for an online toolbox that supports organizers and activists around the globe.” Byers’s idea of activism is insidious and deceptive. Beautiful Trouble, for example, advises : “Don’t dress like a protester. … Dress like a Republican so you can talk like an anarchist.” This manipulation of public perception enables more overt expressions of Byers’s agenda. As an example of the latter, Beautiful Trouble’s website features a quote that attempts to rationalize Hamas’s terrorism: ”Hamas explains itself. It is a demonstration in both senses of the word: a protest and an exposition of the reasons for that protest.” This clearly attempts to legitimize a U.S.-designated terrorist group and downplays its atrocities. It further advances the agenda of demonizing Israel and Jews with the rhetoric of social activism. Byers was elected vice mayor by a slim margin of 54 votes. But she did not abandon her divisive anti-Israel agenda. She simply changed tactics. From her election victory to Oct. 6, she maintained a low profile with little overt activism. This changed dramatically following the horrific atrocities of Oct. 7. In the wake of the atrocities, Byers has more or less openly supported the monstrous pro-Hamas “protest” movement that has taken to America’s campuses and streets. For example, she posted, “Keep showing up in the streets to #shutitdown4palestine.” A sitting vice-mayor clearly should not be inciting mob events. It is not just reckless but a blatant dereliction of her official duties. Then there is Beautiful Trouble’s “Get Up, Rise Up Direct Action Fund. ” This initiative is a cornerstone of the organization’s anti-Israel efforts. It funds “creative, provocative actions” ostensibly to advocate a ceasefire in Gaza, which is little more than an attempt to rescue Hamas from destruction. Byers’s involvement in this effort raises serious questions. In particular, about the potential funneling of public resources—whether funds, permits or official endorsements—towards initiatives aligned with Beautiful Trouble. This would constitute a very disturbing conflict of interest. In a recent post on Instagram, Beautiful Trouble shared an image that manipulated a well-known fast-food brand’s logo with the words “Genocide You Can Taste” and “Since 1948”— the year of Israel’s establishment. Beneath the altered logo is the defamatory phrase “IS-RA-HELL.” Byers’s decision to platform such content in the context of rising antisemitism is profoundly disturbing given her office. It irresponsibly fuels antisemitism, compromising the safety and security of the Jewish and Israeli communities in West Hollywood she has sworn to serve. The rise of Chelsea Lee Byers should serve as a stark warning to the Jewish and pro-Israel communities. It raises the question of whether, as a radical anti-Israel activist who continues to support a radical anti-Israel organization, she can truly represent all the citizens of West Hollywood. Byers’s journey also exemplifies how radical campus environments are serving as incubators for the next generation of anti-Israel and antisemitic political leaders. These leaders will leverage their disreputable skills and tactics to win elections, starting with local city councils and school boards. Extremism and antisemitism are threats to democracy itself. Complacency is not an option. We must mobilize at the local level to counter this insidious movement. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that our governments at all levels are not hijacked by those who threaten not just Jews and Israelis, but all Americans. Dillon Hosier is CEO of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network. Previous Next

May 11, 2026 Investigation launched into Florida's Bay County School District for alleged antisemitic discrimination J.T. Lynch The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into alleged antisemitic discrimination in the Bay County, Florida, School District. Originally Posted In: https://www.wjhg.com/2026/05/11/bay-county-florida-school-district-under-investigation-alleged-antisemitic-discrimination/ < Back BAY COUNTY, Fla. “The school has taken action aggressively to the students as well as to the employee. We’re also in partnership with the state in terms with what’s going to take place with the future of the particular faculty member involved,” said BDS Superintendent Mark McQueen. “So I think we’ve done exactly the right thing, I think we’re in full compliance with the law, and we’ve done everything that anyone would reasonably expected regards to the investigation and the appropriate actions taken subsequently.” According to the Anti-Defamation League , the allegations involve an 11th-grade student who was subjected to “antisemitic bullying, harassment and discrimination on a regular basis while enrolled at the A. Crawford Mosley High School in the Florida panhandle, part of a sustained and recurring pattern that had continued against the boy since elementary and middle school through 2025.” The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into alleged antisemitic discrimination in the Bay County, Florida, School District. The Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said it is opening a complaint to investigate claims the district failed to respond to what it called particularly egregious antisemitic harassment of students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, OCR will determine whether the District violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) by allowing or failing to meaningfully respond to antisemitic harassment. In press release from the U.S. Department of Education the claim is described below: “The District was allegedly aware of antisemitic bullying, including repeated stereotypical comments, conspiracy theories about Jews, and swastikas being drawn in textbooks and on various locations across school campuses. In one instance, a group of students performed Nazi salutes, mockingly wore yarmulkes, and showed highly offensive antisemitic imagery during an in-class presentation. The District allegedly failed to take reasonable and effective responsive action to stop the harassment and prevent its recurrence.” Previous Next

April 21, 2026 PeerK12 Statement on Politicized Classroom Video at Torrey Pines High School in the San Dieguito Union High School District PeerK12 Staff District-Approved “Men’s Mental Health” Video Created a Politically Charged, Hostile Environment for Jewish Students Originally Posted In: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXZVTbrDqo5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== < Back PeerK12 has received multiple reports from students and families regarding a school-sponsored “Men’s Mental Health” video shown in San Dieguito Union High School District classrooms on April 20, 2026. While the topic of mental health is both appropriate and important, the setting in which the message was delivered was not neutral. The teacher appeared seated directly beneath a Palestinian flag, introducing a highly controversial political symbol into a District-approved and classroom-based activity. The timing further compounded the impact. The video was shown on Yom Hazikaron - Israel’s Memorial Day, a solemn day for Jewish and Israeli communities. For affected students, the combination of political symbolism and this specific date created an environment that was perceived as emotionally triggering and inappropriate. Students who reported the incident to PeerK12 expressed fear of retaliation and did not feel comfortable raising concerns - fears that are objectively reasonable given the District’s prior actions. This reflects a broader and ongoing concern among families regarding inconsistent standards and a lack of viewpoint neutrality in District classrooms. PeerK12 is calling on the District to take the following actions: Provide a clear explanation - during the April 23, 2026 Board Meeting (Agenda Item 8C: Mental Health Awareness Month Proclamation ) - of how this video and its setting were reviewed and approved Establish and enforce clear expectations prohibiting political symbolism or personal political expression by staff during school-sponsored activities Ensure classroom neutrality by publicly supporting and implementing the CORE-ACTION “Keep Politics Out of Classrooms” campaign Reestablish a Jewish Parent Advisory Group with regular engagement to ensure meaningful collaboration between families, educators, and District leadership Classrooms must remain environments focused on education - not political signaling. All students deserve to feel respected, supported, and free from ideological pressure. ---------------------------------------------- UPDATE During the April 23, 2026 school board meeting, Superintendent Anne Staffieri responded to the incident during her Superintendent's Report ( view recording here ). PeerK12 is incredibly disappointed to see the Superintendent first admit that the video in question was in fact reviewed and approved by multiple people who each failed to activate the District's own Board Policies on Controversial Issues and Political Neutrality with regards to the video; and then, following that admission of guilt, she proceeded to victim blame the Jewish community - presumably for standing up for our violated Jewish civil rights. The irony that Jewish mental health (for men or otherwise) is NOT a priority that this Superintendent is interested in protecting. We condemn her entire public statement: ".... As I mentioned - and we know - no one can control what others may post on social media. But I can assure our school community, and all of you as Trustees in our incredible district, that we will always strive to provide you with verified, factual information. Multiple social media posts are being shared broadly which inaccurately depict Torrey Pines, and are causing great concern and questions among community members, so I am going to address this and share context and the truth. One post involves a video that shows a portion of a Tour de France flag and a Palestinian flag in the background and it is being perceived as a political statement, with absolutely no context. I can see where some people could interpret it as such. However, I can assure you it was neither political nor intentional. I personally dove into the situation to get the full information, and here are the facts. Student leaders in the Peer Assistance Listeners, or PALs program, recently asked a teacher if they could record a short video statement in support of men’s mental health, being that May is Mental Health Awareness month. Being a terrific supporter of student engagement and student wellbeing, the teacher, who is also an AP Social Science teacher, agreed. He sat down at a student desk in his classroom and agreed to participate in a student-created video. In the background of the video, shot in portrait mode (the one that goes up and down, which as many of you know creates a very narrow view of the setting), you can see portions of a Tour de France flag and portions of a Palestinian flag. What you don’t see is the full perimeter of the AP Social Science classroom, which is adorned with dozens of flags from around the world including three US flags and an Israeli flag. The image in the video was interpreted by some as a political statement. It was not. The video was previewed by several groups, including students, teachers, and the administration. Because everyone was focused on the content and the delivery of the message and is accustomed to the classroom setting where these flags are always present, the flags in the background were not identified for removal. That said, the image was hurtful and deeply concerning to some members of our community, and so to those impacted and to everyone, I want to stress that this is an important lesson in content production , with a keen sensitivity to others. We have requested that the video be removed in order to avoid any further misunderstanding and concern. As Superintendent I don’t typically dive into the specifics of social media narratives in a public forum. However, I do think it is important as not only social media posts result in misinformation and hateful commentary, they can also provoke threats of violence. Earlier this month there was as “swatting” incident, where threats were made against a staff member drawing the attention and protection of the San Diego Police department. Authorities quickly determined the threat was not credible, and at no time was the safety of the campus compromised. However, it did result in a disruption to the learning environment of the entire campus. I personally was on that campus the entire time of that event, and we engaged law enforcement and closed campus for a time. The point is, statements taken out of context with the intent to provoke the community against a school, or against a staff member, can have very real and potentially dangerous consequences. For these reasons, it is very important that as a school community that we do not fall victim to online false narratives, and we encourage anyone to seek confirmation of allegations before engaging with the content. I don’t want to leave you with an impression that we will not act on information that demands responsible attention. We always will work on the side of truth, facts, and what is best for our student and staff wellbeing. We continue to place a paramount priority on student and staff safety on all our campuses. I want to personally acknowledge the dedication and professionalism of our staff, who continue to show unwavering commitment to supporting students despite these unsettling experiences. We appreciate their focus, care and resilience in the face of challenging and often unfair public narratives. Information and opinions that have been broadly shared without context or facts have caused deep concerns and demanded resources that should be focused on more positive work with our students. And there is so much great work taking place across the district. Every day, talented, passionate, professional educators and support staff create amazing learning environments for our students. Our families expect exceptional education, and those people, our staff, work tirelessly to deliver nothing less than extraordinary teaching and learning. Our district, I've heard it several times tonight, is ranked in the top 20 of all the publicschool districts in the nation. There's over 13,000 public school districts in the whole country and we're ranked in the top 20. All of our schools, all of them, have been recognized as California's distinguished schools. I'm very honored tomorrow to join with leaders and staff celebrating recent recognition from four of our school sites as they receive the 2026 California Distinguished School recognition. Let's talk about that in social media. Really, thank you for your patience as I read through this message, but we can all do better, and as we move through these final weeks in the school year, our focus is going to remain on supporting students and one another with care, with purpose, and with intention. " ------- And here is Trustee Michael Allman's public comment on this incident - we'd like to thank Trustee Allman for his moral clairty on this issue: "I want to make a few comments on the recent issue regarding the Palestinian flag so we can be clear where I stand and I think the district as well. One is the importance of keeping politics out of our classroom. We have a board policy on controversial topics. It's not about what any individual believes, it's about maintaining a classroom environment where every student can feel safe and focused on learning, and not on political conflict. I think it's also useful for members of our public to understand that there's two important legal principles that are relevant here that they might not really understand, or will be surprised when they hear about it. First is that our teachers don't have First Amendment rights in the classroom when they're performing their jobs. The courts have been very consistent about this, that a teacher on the job is an employee who's executing the district's curriculum. They're not there with their own private free speech. And second is that we as a public institution can’t engage in viewpoint discrimination. As a public institution, our choice is binary. We either prohibit all political statements and symbols in the classroom, or we permit all of them. And if we allow the Palestinian flag, we better be prepared to allow every political symbol from any viewpoint, and we've seen how quickly that can become divisive and it's harmful ultimately to students. Another point I want to make is that the district adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism. It's the most widely accepted standard used by governments and institutions worldwide, and that definition draws what I think is a very important distinction - the distinction between being critical of the policies of the Israeli government. That's legitimate political discourse. But if you argue that Israel should not exist as a state, that's antisemitism - the denial of people's rights to their own self-determination. So in our current environment where the Palestinian flag is frequently displayed alongside explicit calls for Israel's elimination by leaders of the PLO and Hamas who adopted this flag, we cannot ignore the message that that sends to our Jewish students and families in our community. Our antisemitism policy, our controversial topics policy, and basic viewpoint neutrality all point to the same conclusion. As Steve, the National Conflict Resolution Center gentleman said earlier tonight, prevention is the key. I'm a big believer in that. If we want to prevent conflict and hurt feelings and community division, we need to draw a clear and consistent line before these incidents occur. Let's keep controversial political topics out of the classroom, consistently, without exception. It's not suppression of anybody's individual's viewpoints. They can believe whatever they want, but it's a responsibility of us to be stewards of a public institution." Previous Next

May 26, 2025 Opinion: The California ethnic studies mandate is a train wreck Marsha Sutton AB 101 was ill-conceived from the start: no enforceable guidelines, no state standards, no penalties for ignoring guardrails that prohibit discrimination, not even a real definition of what ethnic studies actually means. Originally Posted In: https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2025/05/26/california-ethnic-studies-mandate-train-wreck/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKp_mBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFicGJSMktkYU4xWUp5cGdaAR6OZ9gEzk1Rrq3-kqKUEphbhoByjVQ386BUJsAZB0NHbQ_NGWZxdNV0r9xe_w_aem_BYTC-jhS2UpD8W0kmhBCSw < Back There’s no mincing words: the California ethnic studies mandate is a train wreck. Since the passage of Assembly Bill 101 in 2021 that requires California public school students in the class of 2029-2030 to take a course in ethnic studies to graduate high school, districts have been floundering around for four years trying to figure out what to do. AB 101 was ill-conceived from the start: no enforceable guidelines, no state standards, no penalties for ignoring guardrails that prohibit discrimination, not even a real definition of what ethnic studies actually means. What were legislators thinking? That everyone would suddenly gather together in unity, form a happy circle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya? The ethnic studies mandate has sown confusion and division, hardly the original objective of bringing students and communities together in harmony. I’ve witnessed so much waste in time, money and public resources watching local school districts try to create coursework from scratch while attempting to balance varied and heated perspectives and navigating the pitfalls without a clear roadmap for guidance. Meanwhile, with attention focused on non-academic matters, test scores and basic skills continue to decline. For background, the state produced an abominable first draft of an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for schools to use. It was a poor substitute for actual state standards and was riddled with bias and leftist ideology that often included blatant antisemitism and anti-capitalist content. Although that first draft was rejected by the state after receiving thousands of complaints, a newer version was developed that was supposed to provide a more neutral curriculum. However, those responsible for developing that first version disavowed the revised version and began to advance their own set of materials. Now known as the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium , those authors and supporters have been providing their instructional materials to school districts, despite the state issuing notices to districts to avoid using the “liberated” version. By all accounts, this “liberated” version approaches the subject based on an oppressed/oppressor dichotomy, and students are often asked to self-identify with one group or the other. As a result, the takeaway has been a not-so-subtle message: If you are descended from a white European background, your inherited, entitled status makes you guilty of being part of a despicable class of people. Challenging, actually overthrowing, that system of oppression is a worthy objective. Besides white European descendants, Jews and Asians have also been categorized as oppressors because, in general, many members of both groups have found some degree of success in America. Because Israel has been positioned as a colonial settler entity with no ancestral right to the land, ignoring the obvious historical fact that Jews have been living on that land for centuries, anti-Zionism, which has often crossed over into outright antisemitism, has become a key component of the liberated ethnic studies model. A Los Angeles Times story published May 14, states that the “liberated” curriculum is a guide to teach students about “contemporary social movements that struggle for social justice and an equitable and democratic society, and conceptualize, imagine, and build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic-racist society.” How are educators to teach high-level principles such as these, designed initially for college-level coursework, to teenage students, many of whom are only 13 and have yet to take a class in U.S. history or social studies? It’s astounding that state legislators would support such a mandate and would leave it up to individual school districts for follow-through, with little to no guidance on how to proceed and a model curriculum ripe for abuse. Social justice pursuits The state’s official curriculum only offers a menu of options and leaves the actual development of ethnic studies up to each school district, so it’s easily hijacked and leaves open plenty of room for lessons that go well beyond the purported effort to focus on the four traditionally identified ethnic groups that have been historically overlooked in high school classes: Black-, Native-, Latine- and Asian-Americans. An important point is that a model curriculum, even this one at 700 pages, is no substitute for the creation of rigorous state standards that specify what should be taught (and maybe even more relevant in this case, what should not be taught). All other classes the state requires to earn a high school diploma have written state standards; ethnic studies is the sole exception. Districts proceeded under the assumption that the mandate was indeed a mandate, even though a clause in AB 101 clearly states that the provisions of the bill are operative only upon state funding, which was estimated at the time to be $276 million. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget presented earlier this year did not provide funding for ethnic studies, and state officials have indicated that no funding will be forthcoming for the 2025-2026 year. This leaves districts in a quandary. They’ve been forced by the state’s passage of AB 101 to develop what they were told would be a mandate — and now it’s technically not. In the LA Times article, Troy Flint, chief communications officer for the California School Boards Association , said the ethnic studies requirement has been problematic since its inception. And because funding might come through at some point in the future, “school districts are in a bind because there is a possibility a mandate could be implemented, but it’s uncertain.” Do districts shelve their work over the past four years, offer ethnic studies as an optional elective, or move forward with their own decision to require ethnic studies for high school graduation? Although supporters of the radical “liberated” curriculum want to maintain the requirement, a more reasonable option is to offer ethnic studies as a choice, letting students decide if this is a course worth their while. An even better option is to shelve the whole thing for some time if needed in the future, instead of expending more money to hire and train teachers to deliver the class. Legislative failure What’s currently in place is an ethnic studies mandate that’s unfunded — so theoretically inoperative — and districts are left with what? A dilemma, a betrayal by the legislature, and a lot of expended time and money after being forced to prepare for a course that’s now not legally required. Elected officials, including the governor, who supported AB 101 should be doing some soul-searching at this point. They unleashed a mess and left school districts high and dry. Compounding that headache for school boards has been having to deal with hours of often confrontational public comments over the past few years from community members and parents expressing their disparate views. Meanwhile, the amount of taxpayer money spent on this thankless pursuit and ultimate failure by our state’s elected officials to provide sensible and workable legislation is inestimable. Marsha Sutton is an education writer and opinion columnist and can be reached at suttonmarsha@gmail.com . Previous Next

October 3, 2022 Hitler 'had strong leadership qualities' says teacher, photo placed with MLK, JFK Michael Starr Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's photo was placed on a board next to inspirational leaders such as Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy. Originally Posted In: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-718888 < Back Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's portrait was placed alongside inspirational historical leaders in a San Diego school history class last week, and when a student complained the teacher explained that Hitler had committed bad deeds but was a great leader, NGO Partners for Equality and Educational Responsibility in Kindergarten thru 12th grade (PeerK12) told The Jerusalem Post . At the Carmel Valley Middle School, as part of a lesson for 7th graders, Hitler was included on a board that displayed the likes of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, US president John F Kennedy, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. According to PeerK12 , a 12-year-old student communicated to their teacher that it was inappropriate to display a photo of Hitler alongside such positive role models. The teacher reportedly told the student that “Hitler may have done some bad things, but he also had strong leadership qualities.” How did the parents and school respond? In response to the incident, the San Dieguito Union High School District said "A lesson in World History included a discussion of various historical figures, along with images of them on a whiteboard in the classroom. The images were directly related to the curriculum and displayed during a lesson. After a concern was raised regarding one of the images and the impact it had on a student, it was taken down." However, PeerK12 said that the student that had complained was initially moved to another history class . The NGO further said that while Principal Vicki Kim reportedly told the parent of the student that the portrait would be removed in response to his complaint, the teacher only removed Hitler's picture upon receiving further inquiries from the community. "This is revisionist history, plain and simple," PeerK12 told the Post . "This was not a lesson on World War II or the Holocaust, and in the fact this teacher is only tasked with teaching history until 1914. If this teacher is a Holocaust denier then she must be relieved of her duties immediately. This erasure of Jewish history cannot go unchecked." “Ignorance at best, malice at worse is how we would describe a teacher comparing Adolf Hitler, a genocidal maniac, to global leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr," remarked the NGO StopAntisemitism. “Hitler may have done some bad things, but he also had strong leadership qualities.” Carmel Valley Middle School teacher PEER K-12 also claimed that the parent of the student had contacted the Anti-Defamation League, but had been told that the school was already a part of the ADL's anti-bias training program "No Place For Hate." Carmel Valley Middle School received the designation as a "No Place For Hate school" in May. Calls to investigate Hitler incident PeerK12 also claimed that the parent of the student had contacted the Anti-Defamation League, but had been told that the school was already a part of the ADL's anti-bias training program "No Place For Hate." Carmel Valley Middle School received the designation as a "No Place For Hate school" in May. The families of students and PeerK12 formally called for the school district to hold an investigation into the incident. StopAntisemitism also said that it called "on the San Dieguito Union High School District board to investigate the teacher’s actions, the Principal’s failure to appropriately follow up, and the overall curriculum that would result in such atrocious educational instruction." This incident is not the first racially charged incident that the San Dieguito school board has grappled with this year. In June, Superintendent Cheryl James-Ward was fired over remarks about Asian students and their families' wealth as a reason for their academic success. Previous Next

September 19, 2025 SDA family says antisemitism incident handled improperly Leo Place The San Dieguito Union High School District is addressing an incident from the end of the previous school year in which students allegedly made the shape of a swastika on a field at San Dieguito Academy, with reports that the school’s principal has been placed on administrative leave. Originally Posted In: https://thecoastnews.com/sda-family-says-antisemitism-incident-went-unaddressed-by-district/ < Back ENCINITAS — The San Dieguito Union High School District is addressing an incident from the end of the previous school year in which students allegedly made the shape of a swastika on a field at San Dieguito Academy, with reports that the school’s principal has been placed on administrative leave. In a Sept. 18 statement , SDUHSD Superintendent Anne Staffieri said that in May, a group of students used their bodies to create the formation of a swastika. The image was seen and captured by a Jewish student while flying a plane overhead at the time. While the student’s family reported the incident to school administrators that same day, district leaders said it was not brought to their attention until months later. “Unfortunately, the incident was not brought to the attention of the San Dieguito Union High School District administrators until late last month. I share this point not to deflect responsibility but to clarify that there was a clear and unacceptable breakdown in communication between the school and the District,” Staffieri said. Larry Gordon, the father of the student who captured the image, spoke about the incident at the district board of trustees’ Sept. 11 meeting. He stated that the district’s overall delay in addressing the situation was a breach of duty and urged the district to take responsibility. “On May 30, my son was the direct target of an antisemitic hate crime,” Gordon said. “But the greater hate crime is what followed — silence and delay. No timely report to law enforcement, no prompt investigation, no discipline, no safety plan. By failing to act, this district turned a student act of hate into an institutional act of racism.” Gordon also said the district asked his son to “sit on a panel about how to be nice to each other” before they had publicly acknowledged the incident. The district sent a message to San Dieguito Academy families about the situation last week, followed by a public statement to the community on Thursday. The boy’s family enlisted the help of PeerK12 , an advocacy group for Jewish civil rights in education run by the Israeli-American Civic Education Institute. The organization issued a statement regarding the incident, stating that as of Thursday, San Dieguito Academy Principal Cara Dolnik has been placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation. District spokesperson Edwin Mendoza said Dolnik remains the principal of the school, but declined to comment on whether she had been placed on administrative leave. The incident allegedly took place on the last day of the school year. According to PeerK12, the 10th-grade student flying overhead thought he was going to be taking a picture of students making a formation of a smiley face, but instead saw the swastika. “Administrators were notified immediately by the family – but declined to report the incident, saying it would be ‘handled next year.’ And then for nearly three months, nothing happened,” PeerK12 said. The organization stated that once they were contacted by the student’s family, they immediately reached out to Trustee Michael Allman, who claimed he was not aware of the incident and escalated it to district leadership immediately. District administrators then contacted the family and initiated an internal investigation. The family has also filed a uniform complaint with the district. San Dieguito Academy, and the wider San Dieguito Union High School District, has contended with multiple hateful incidents targeting Jewish people and other marginalized groups over the years that have sparked community outrage. In 2021 and 2022, San Dieguito Academy was hit with racist and homophobic graffiti on two separate occasions just months apart. In 2019, law enforcement also investigated graffiti of swastikas and homophobic language in school bathrooms. Graffiti of swastikas was also found at La Costa Canyon High School and Torrey Pines High School in 2021. The school district adopted a resolution addressing antisemitism in 2021 to show support for families. Some families said that while the district has made progress in addressing and dealing with hate crimes, they still have a lot of work to do. “The human swastika incident at SDA is only one example. Reports of racial slurs continue, and I question what the district is doing to meaningfully address them. Covering them up only deepens the harm,” parent Janice Holowka said at the Sept. 11 board meeting. Editor’s note: This story and the headline was updated to clarify that San Dieguito Union High School District administrators were not made aware of the incident at San Dieguito Academy until months after it happened due to a lack of communication from the school, and responded to the incident once they were made aware of it. Previous Next

We protect Jewish Civil Right in K-12 environments. Join us now to fight back against violent and biased ideologies in curriculum and classrooms. ACTION CENTER Ready to role up your sleeves & take action? LET'S DO THIS. Resources News Podcasts Blog PeerK12 responds rapidly and decisively to identify, verify, and permanently remove sources of institutionalized Jew-hatred in K-12. PeerK12 is a proactive force for accountability & change. We confront antisemitism and bias in schools by demanding equal protection under the law for Jews in K-12. From removing harmful curriculum to holding staff accountable and mobilizing communities, we ensure issues are addressed and resolved. We don’t just raise awareness; we deliver results. When incidents go unchallenged and others stay silent or fail to act, we step in to engage policymakers and set new standards so that no student, teacher, or family fights alone. We work with everyone, but specifically we focus on helping: Parents Students Teachers Administrators Superintendents Elected Officials Grassroots Orgs Community Members The background setting that derailed a school sponsored video on mental health Students who reported the incident to PeerK12 expressed fear of retaliation and did not feel comfortable raising concerns - fears that are objectively reasonable given the District’s prior actions. Take Action Exposing the Truth Raising Awareness Incident Resolution Tracking Extremists 7 Educating with Podcasts & Webinars Action Alerts TAKE ACTION WITH PEERK12 Submit an Incident report Few things are as critical as documenting every single incident to ensure Jewish Civil Rights are being upheld and protected in K-12. Help us help you - submit your incident report. Report an Incident PETITIONS & Action Alerts Petitions and action alerts carry more weight then you think - when communities unite to communicate as one to decision makers, you'd be surprised what can be accomplished. Verified Petitions TRAININgs, EVENTs & webinars Get educated on the issues we are tackling and find out how you can lend your talents to our movement and help remove Jew-hatred from our K-12 schools permanently. Request a Session ISSUES AT SCHOOL? WE CAN HELP. We've been helping parents, students, teachers, etc. deal with incidents in schools since 2021 - we've seen (and fixed) it all. You are not alone - we're here to help you. Request a Meeting JOIN our trusted partners COALITION To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

February 26, 2026 ‘Jewish Students Are Segregated’: Parents Sue California State Education System in First-of-Its-Kind Complaint Over ‘Anti-Semitic Propaganda’ and Harassment Adam Kredo One parent alleged that a ninth-grade teacher organized a walkout that featured chants of ‘f— the Jews,’ while others said schools punished their children for reporting anti-Semitism Originally Posted In: https://freebeacon.com/california/jewish-students-are-segregated-parents-sue-california-state-education-system-in-first-of-its-kind-complaint-over-anti-semitic-propaganda-and-harassment/ < Back A group of Jewish parents sued the California state education system on Thursday, alleging that the state’s public schools have become antisemitic cesspools in which "Jewish students are segregated and pulled out of classes so that teachers can spew anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda without pushback," according to a copy of the first-of-its-kind lawsuit shared with the Washington Free Beacon . The California State Board of Education, the California Department of Education, and state superintendent Tony Thurmond fostered a hostile environment throughout all of California, ignoring numerous reports from parents whose children had been targeted solely for being Jewish, according to the complaint. In one case, a teacher punished a 12-year-old student "because he was a Jew who dared to wear Jewish and Israeli symbols." In another, a ninth-grade art teacher organized a walkout "in support of Palestine" that featured chants of "f— the Jews." When one parent spoke up about the issue during a school board meeting, faculty members mocked her and called her a "Zionist Nazi bitch." State officials responsible for protecting students from discrimination allowed "California’s schools to indoctrinate children, from the earliest ages, to believe that Jewish Americans and Israelis - including Jewish and Israeli classmates - are racists, white supremacists, and oppressors who should be shunned," the lawsuit states. The case documents numerous anti-Semitic incidents across the state, according to the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which is handling the lawsuit alongside the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs. It marks the first time legal advocates have sued an entire statewide system over pervasive anti-Semitic harassment and could set a precedent for those in other states to follow suit. Antisemitism in California schools, though, has been particularly prevalent since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel. The San Francisco teachers’ union, for instance, endorsed a curriculum that claimed many allegations of antisemitism are "fabricated" and used to silence pro-Palestinian activists. The public school system in Berkeley received a federal complaint in 2024 over its alleged failure to stem an escalating series of anti-Semitic incidents that culminated in hallway chants of "kill the Jews." Even before Oct. 7, the state’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum included a lesson that described Jews as having "experienced conditional whiteness and privilege." The California State Legislature passed a bill in late 2025 acknowledging "well documented" cases that "Jewish and Israeli American pupils across California are facing a widespread surge in antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying." Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.), though, was silent on a coordinated bomb plot that a radical anti-Israel group had planned before federal law enforcement foiled the operation, and is facing a lawsuit from a former California National Guard commander who says Newsom "facilitated" an antisemitic campaign that resulted in the former commander’s wrongful termination. The Brandeis lawsuit implicates at least one individual vying to replace Newsom in this year’s gubernatorial election: Thurmond, the state superintendent, declared his candidacy back in September 2023, though polling averages have him with 2 percent of the primary vote. The Jewish families who collectively filed "hundreds of formal" complaints with their respective schools and the California Department of Education maintain that state school administrators were aware of antisemitic harassment but either recommended segregating Jewish students from the rest of the class or swept the reports under the rug. The alleged behavior violates California’s constitution, which provides protection for minority groups, as well as federal and state civil rights laws, according to the lawsuit. Plaintiff Melissa Alexander, for instance, said a teacher repeatedly punished her 12-year-old son solely because he wore clothing that could identify him as Jewish and a Star of David necklace. The teacher, whose name is not included in the filing, "openly proclaimed that Zionists are the enemy" and "had a public social media account filled with virulently antisemitic and anti-Israel content." When Alexander presented this evidence to school administrators and reported that the teacher had mistreated her child, the officials "actively chose to ignore it." Instead, the school put the student "into new classes in the middle of the school year." A similar incident occurred in the weeks after Oct. 7 at Berkeley High School, where plaintiff Ilana Pearlman’s ninth-grade son endured anti-Israel diatribes from an art teacher who "boasted to the class about his latest artwork: an image of barbed wire fences in the shape of a Star of David with a giant fist punching through it," according to the complaint. The same instructor allegedly used his classroom to promote a walkout "‘in support of Palestine,’ spending time and resources to advertise the demonstration." The event that followed "was filled with chants that included, ‘Fuck the Jews.’" When Pearlman reported this behavior to school administrators, those officials allegedly pulled her son from the class and sent him to learn separately in the school’s library and student health center. "The school’s decision to punish the targets of antisemitism rather than the perpetrators made a lasting impression on" Pearlman’s son, who now hides his Jewish identity in fear, the filing states. At Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Los Angeles - named after a Jewish journalist slaughtered by Islamists in 2002 - a teacher repeatedly subjected a student to alleged pro-Hamas activism inside the classroom. Plaintiffs Dawn and Michael Rosenthal said that their son’s honors chemistry teacher littered the classroom with anti-Israel propaganda. The Rosenthals reported the conduct to Los Angeles Unified School District, which responded with a statement that "the teacher was refusing to remove" anti-Israel posters, according to the complaint. By Oct. 7, 2025 - the two-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks - the chemistry teacher allegedly wrote on the blackboard, "‘Oy vey, it’s free’ with an arrow pointing to ‘FREE PALESTINE.’" As in other cases, the school pulled Rosenthal’s son from the class and ordered him to take a "remote online chemistry course," as well as "additional academic burdens to accommodate his chemistry teacher’s antisemitism." The teacher in question was only removed from the classroom after stapling a student’s arm in an unrelated incident that carried felony charges. The lawsuit also included examples of anti-Israel teaching materials used in California classrooms. A curriculum for kindergarten through third grade, for instance, includes links to a read-aloud book called "P Is for Palestine." It states that "I is for Intifada ," defining it merely as "rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grownup ." Teachers in Oakland, meanwhile, used an unauthorized December 2023 "teach-in" to have students draw "The Zionist leaders of Israel receiv[ing] money and support to conduct [a] two-tiered (unfair) system where Palestinians are mistreated and attacked." Neither the California Department of Education nor the California State Board of Education responded to requests for comment. Previous Next

July 16, 2024 US Jewish Groups Condemn Anti-Zionist Resolutions Dion J. Pierre Resolutions Considered by American Federation of Teachers Originally Posted In: https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/07/16/us-jewish-groups-condemn-anti-zionist-resolutions-considered-by-american-federation-of-teachers/ < Back A coalition of US Jewish groups on Monday denounced the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest educators’ unions in the country, for including anti-Israel resolutions in the agenda of its upcoming annual convention. The resolutions, seven in total, run the gamut of anti-Zionist ideology, calling for the end of US military assistance to Israel while falsely accusing the country of “genocide,” a ceasefire in Gaza that would halt Israel’s mission to clear Hamas from the territory, and divestment from Israel in the form of selling AFT’s Israel bonds. Another resolution accuses supporters of Israel of “weaponizing” antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism. On Thursday, StandWithUs, New York City Public School Alliance, Educators Caucus for Israel, and Partners for Equality and Educational Responsibility in K-12 (PeerK12), said the measures “undermine the safety and well being of Jewish students, families, and educators in public schools” and foster a culture of hate. “Each one of these anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish resolutions is based on propaganda and politically subversive and ideologically driven lies, exposing yet again the deeply unsettling and obvious lack of merit, or even the slightest desire of the AFT to adhere to indisputable facts and historical accuracy that one might expect from a national association,” PeerK12 co-founder Nicole Bernstein said in a press release on Monday. StandWithUs director of K-12 Educator Outreach David Smokler added, “We call on school boards and school superintendents to make it clear to teachers that they may not bring biased materials into their classrooms. Teachers must teach students how to think, not what to think.” If passed at AFT’s convention on July 22-25, the resolutions would mark the most severe condemnation of Israel and Zionism passed by a teachers’ union and continue the anti-Zionist movement’s march through K-12 schools, which The Algemeiner has covered extensively . Antisemitism in K-12 schools has continued to increase every year, according to the ADL’s latest data. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public school increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault. “School-based harassment in 2023 also included one-off incidents such as when a middle school administrator received a note containing antisemitic death threats or when a high school student threatened their Jewish classmates, stating that if they supported Israel, they would beat them up,” the civil rights group said in its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2023. “Given the insidious nature of bullying, compounded by the fact that many children may not feel empowered to report their experiences, it is likely that the actual number of school-based antisemitic incidents was significantly higher than the data reported in the audit.” The problem has led to numerous civil rights complaints filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Earlier this month, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced that the Community School of Davidson, a charter school located in North Carolina, agreed to settle a civil rights complaint alleging that administrators failed to address a series of disturbing antisemitic incidents in which a non-Jewish student was called a “dirty Jew” and told that “the oven is that way,” and battered with other denigrating comments too vulgar for publication. The abuse, according to the complaint, began after the child wore an Israeli sports jersey. As part of a settlement with OCR, the school has agreed, among other things, to issue a statement proclaiming a zero tolerance policy for racist abuse, institute anti-discrimination training for teachers and staff, and “develop or revise” its approach to responding to racial bigotry. That case was not the first the Brandeis Center pursued on behalf of K-12 students. In February, it filed a complaint alleging that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in California has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment. Previous Next

November 23, 2025 Qatar's Got Talent Eve Barlow Essentially Hosier is in the business of identifying who the next big thing will be. He is on the hunt for future anti-Israel, anti-America, anti-West political superstars, and he is urging pro-Israel networks to come together to mitigate these rises. If Qatar produced a reality talent contest for upcoming American insurgent politicians, Hosier would be the one spotting the winners. Originally Posted In: https://evebarlow.substack.com/p/qatars-got-talent?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web < Back The week of Zohran Mamdani’s election, I met a really interesting guy at a Shabbat dinner. Not Jewish. He kept making sure that was understood, but to me he was as comfortable at a Shabbat table as most Jews. Turns out since graduating college, he has worked in and around the State of Israel in public affairs in various capacities. Dillon Hosier has now turned his time to his brainchild ICAN (Israeli-American Civic Action Network. He is CEO. At the dinner, the topical concern of what Mamdani’s election “means” and “what now” took precedence. Hosier indicated that he had identified Mamdani as a very real threat in 2023 because he has been monitoring emerging political dangers at local levels across the United States. Essentially Hosier is in the business of identifying who the next big thing will be. He is on the hunt for future anti-Israel, anti-America, anti-West political superstars, and he is urging pro-Israel networks to come together to mitigate these rises. If Qatar produced a reality talent contest for upcoming American insurgent politicians, Hosier would be the one spotting the winners. He whipped out his iPhone and showed one of the tech tools ICAN has initiated. I was blown away. Here was a live map of America, featuring red and green spots according to the most precarious areas for future Mamdanis. Alarmingly there is an incoming “Mamdani Strip” (Hosier’s term) in New York, full of more and more copycat candidates. Many are members of the DSA: Democratic Socialists of America, which is not officially tied to the Democrats but which works within its electoral system and runs candidates in their primaries. You know the story of AOC, right? Tonight onstage in West Hollywood, Hosier gave a presentation of ICAN’s objectives, before he was joined by three incredible voices I am proud to call friends: John Mirisch (former Mayor of Beverly Hills, now city council member), Loay Alshareef (Saudi-born, UAE-based reformed Muslim, and Abraham Accords activist) and Dr Sheila Nazarian (Persian Jewish activist, Fox news contributor, and plastic surgeon). Mirisch is an Ashkenazi Jew who has always been confounded by antizionism, and has tied his mast to Israel since he was growing up in LA. Nazarian fled Iran with her parents via Pakistan then Vienna, before they received papers to come to America. Alshareef is a would-be posterchild for a new Middle East. He is based in the UAE, was radicalized as a child to hate Jews and Christians but had his own awakening about Islamism. He prays, he fasts, and he believes that there is a way to modernize Islam so that those who practice can not only co-exist in the Western world, but so that the Middle East can evolve out of its past, normalize relations with Israel and cease to demonize America and the West. Alshareef is a really exceptional human. To be in his presence is to feel a sense of calm about the future. All three were together tonight to discuss Mamdani, who promotes radical Islamist ideals, preaches the genocide lie about Gaza, and the Apartheid lie about Israel, and has often been found supporting the screams of “From the river to the sea.” “Mamdani has never been to Israel,” opens Alshareef, who says he would accept an invitation to sit down with New York’s incoming Mayor. Whether he will receive one or not is another question. I don’t believe Mamdani to be a good faith actor. Neither does Alshareef, who has visited Israel more than a handful of times, and says that almost immediately everything that an Arab Muslim has been indoctrinated to hate about Israel is shattered completely by the experience of going there. Dr Nazarian noted that Congressman Richie Torres once said about the DSA that they ask only two foreign policy questions in order to secure funding and support for a prospective candidate. The first is that any candidate must promise to support the BDS movement against Israel. The second is that they must promise to never visit Israel. No wonder AOC doesn’t know where the Jordan river is. And yet, so many play along. The motivation cannot possibly be integrity but opportunism. For money, for political power, for fame and instant success. And yet what is the cause of this unholy marriage between leftists and Islamism? According to Alshareef it’s two-fold. First, the American Left suffer from the same guilt that the Europeans experience, and they believe that to support the radicals is to support the “right cause”. “What they don’t realize,” he says, “is that they are the first sheep to the slaughter.” Second, they are totally ignorant to – and don’t understand –the Middle East. They have handed human rights to extremists and radicals who only seek to misuse the liberal freedom that America is giving them. The idea is to destroy democracy through democracy itself. “Listen to those of us who know,” says Alshareef. “This is so dangerous.” Alshareef, as mentioned, is a reformed Muslim, and makes a distinction that he insists is not a majority position. He doesn’t waste time denying that the majority position in the Muslim world is not yet shared by him, but were Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords it could change everything. Saudi’s leader Mohammad Bin Salman according to Alsharif is earnest and honest, and does want to commit to the peace deal, and yet his hesitation is due to the position of Saudi among the Muslim world, and the pressure on him from other Arab nations to insist upon some recognition for the Palestinians in advance of signing. Saudi is a key piece of the puzzle. If and when they join the Abraham Accords, many other Muslim countries will follow. The issue is that Mamdani and his ilk are also yet to meet Alshareef in his evolved peaceful state. “He is not peaceful,” says Alshareef. “He is dishonest.” He explains that there are two types of Muslims; those who fled their countries to start anew, and those who believe that Muslims like Alshareef should not be tolerated, and that America should be turned into a caliphate, where eventually Muslims will wind up murdering other Muslims. Case in current point: Sudan. According to Alshareef, too many moderate Muslims are silent. “Speak up. Distance yourself from the radicals!” he says. It’s worth watching this 8-minute clip of Alshareef explaining his viewpoint after Dr Nazarian pushed back with her own reality-based fears of Islam, due to her experiences fleeing the Islamic Regime of Iran. Upon coming to America, Dr Nazarian studied at Columbia University, and took classes on Islam, only to read the Quran and discover the verses detailing the Muslim impression of Jews as a sworn enemy who need to be eradicated. Alshareef’s response is so sensible it should be the real radical approach. Essentially, for him it comes down to moving away from a politicized interpretation of the Quran that is completely irrelevant in the modern day. If only Alshareef had run for the New York mayoral position, yet he has more important things to do. Today, President Trump announced that he is going to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, and label it a foreign terrorist organization. A great move. “But the devil is in the details,” says Mirisch. Indeed. How will this be enforced? And the question still looms large about Qatar’s tentacles on US soil, and the already seismic damage of decades and billions of dollars infiltrating not just university education with its anti-American ideology, but high school programs too. Alshareef believes that Qatar could join the future map of the Middle East, but only if it does two things. Separates itself from Muslim Brotherhood, and eradicates Al Jazeera. “Al Jazeera made many of us believe Bin Laden was a hero,” he says. “They were the exclusive outlet for his videos. They made us feel indifferent to 9/11. In Arabic, AlJazeera is the official spokesman for Hamas. In English, it’s the official spokesman for the LGBT community.” Maddening, and the exact distortion that the Islamists are so brilliant at. It’s as though we live in a parallel universe. The useful idiots who know nothing about the Middle East are being led blindfolded by regressive radicalized Arab Mamdanis who will discard of them the instant they no longer serve a purpose, while those of us who have been pushed out of the so-called “liberal” room are sitting alongside the warriors of progress in the Arab world who have more reverence for America, Israel, President Trump, Christianity and Judaism than a questionable proportion of our white majority neighbors. Last week I had the honor of witnessing Omer Shem Tov, released Israeli hostage, speak at Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills. Shem Tov was captured from the Nova festival. He paced the stage for an hour uninterrupted, seamlessly recalling the “light” version of the story of his 505 days in captivity. Shem Tov’s mother Shelly was one of my first interviewees in Israel in the months after October 7. She left an enormous impression on me, and her determination to bring her son back from hell stayed with me. I remember she told me she could not even brush her teeth without the guilt of knowing her son may not be able to do the same. When he was released, I cried. I could barely hold back tears as he walked out to a standing ovation of hundreds last Thursday. He recalled how he was held in a cage underground in pitch black darkness for 50 successive days of those 505. He received one pita or less per day. He found faith in the tunnels. He wraps teffilin every morning now. He talks to G-d every day. He believes in miracles. The way Shem Tov spoke, and the way Alshareef speaks, is light years away from the victim-orientated, power-hungry, truth-avoiding gang of progressive Western elites and wannabes. They have worked overtime to shut them out, but these voices cannot be repressed. They refuse. They defy intimidation. They are brimming with a purpose that cannot be faked. We must uplift them. ICAN too is providing an essential service. Here is Hosier with his presentation . You can see four local California politicians, and on the left hand column is how JPAC (Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California) is scoring future Mamdani’s. It’s marking them according to housing, environment, policing, social policies etc, but crucially it doesn’t pick up where they’ve voted on issues surrounding Israel and the Middle East. ICAN does factor these in, and scores them accurately. If they’re red it means they’re future Mamdani’s. If they’re green, they’re not. Not only does ICAN identify where the problem candidates are, it’s identifying where the wrongly maligned candidates are. This analysis then becomes crucial for killing bills, such as the Ethnic Studies bill in California, because accurate intelligence is available for who to target. We cannot afford more Mamdanis. We cannot afford any more successes for any political candidates in America who would support what happened to Omer Shem Tov in Hamas captivity, or who would refuse to protect the vision for the Middle East that Loay Alshareef so passionately wants to help actualize. To find out more about ICAN, visit their website . Photos by Joseph Pal @palphotography on Instagram. Previous Next

October 27, 2021 SWC Commends Jewish Community Parents Staff Writer Proposed Resolution Passed by San Diego Unified School District to include Anti-Semitism in its Ethnic Studies Curriculum Originally Posted In: https://wiesenthal.org/news/wc-commends-jewish-community < Back The Simon Wiesenthal Center applauds the San Diego Unified School District’s unanimous approval of a resolution which updates itsethnic studies curriculum to include anti-Semitism. The resolution, which was passed during a board meeting on Tuesday night, urged that anti-Semitism be included in all ethnic studies educationin its efforts to educate students about equity and inclusiveness. The decision comes on the heels of a recent rise in anti-Semitism and multiple incidents on campuses across San Diego. “We applaud this important victory that took place in San Diego but has national implications. All of the credit for thisbreakthrough resolution goes to local Jewish parents who drew a line against demonizing Israel and the inevitable bullying of Jewish students and teachers in San Diego schools who love Israel andare proud of their heritage. We hope that the example set by the community-based activists in San Diego will inspire Jewish parents and decent peopleeverywhere to oppose and if necessary, overturn efforts to import the Middle East conflict into the classrooms and halls of our nation’s public schools,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SimonWiesenthal Center Associate Dean and Global Social Action Director. Rabbi Cooper added that it will make its educational resources available to the school district through its renowned Museum of Tolerance. For further information, please email Michele Alkin, Director of Global Communications at malkin@wiesenthal.com or Shawn Rodgers atsrodgers@wiesenthal.com , join the Center on Facebook, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is an international Jewish human rights organization numbering over 400.000 members. Itholds consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the OAS and the Latin American Parliament (PARLATINO). Previous Next

October 31, 2024 The Kindergarten Intifada Abigail Shrier There is a well-coordinated, national effort between teachers, activist organizations, and administrators to indoctrinate American children against Israel. A Free Press investigation. Originally Posted In: https://www.thefp.com/p/abigail-shrier-the-kinderfada-revolution < Back In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country—there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles —met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel. In front of a PowerPoint that read, “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired,” history teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating students. But how to transport busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally, during the school day, without arousing suspicion? “A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.” Gochez was just getting warmed up. “It’s like tomorrow I go to church and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.” The crowd burst into approving laughter. Seated at a keffiyeh-draped table, Gochez said, “Some of the things that we can do as teachers is to organize. We just have to be really intelligent on how we do that. We have to know that we’re under the microscope. We have to know that Zionists and others are going to try to catch us in any way that they can to get us into trouble.” He continued: “If you organize students, it’s at your own risk, but I think it’s something that’s necessary we have to do.” He told the audience of educators that he once caught a “Zionist teacher” looking through his files. Gochez warned the crowd to be wary of “admin trying to be all chummy with you. You got to be very careful with that, even sometimes our own students.” John Adams Middle School teacher and panelist William Shattuc agreed, a keffiyeh around his neck. “We know that good history education is political education. And when we are coming up against political movements, like the movement for Zionism, that we disagree with, that we’re in conflict with—they [Zionists] have their own form of political education and they employ their own tools of censorship.” What are the “tools of censorship” employed by Zionists? Apparently, they include accusing teachers who rail against Israel in the classroom of antisemitism. "They try to say antisemitism, which is really ridiculous, right ?” said Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona, ethnic studies teacher at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles. Cardona recently received a National Education Association Foundation Award for excellence in teaching . “What they do is they conflate. Part of that is by putting the star on their flag ,” Cardona said, referring to the Jewish Star of David. “Religion has nothing to do with it.” But, she insists, that the course she teaches, and whose curriculum she helped develop—ethnic studies—is fundamentally incompatible with supporting Israel. “Are you pro-Israel—are you for genocide?’ And if anybody were to say, ‘Okay, sure,’ that’s really not ethnic studies.” (Gochez, Shattuc, and Cardona did not return requests for comment.) It’s tempting to dismiss this as one more bull session among radical teachers leading a far-left public-sector union. If only. Four years ago, I was among the first journalists to expose the widespread incursion of gender ideology into our schools. Once-fringe beliefs about gender swiftly took over large swaths of society partly thanks to their inclusion in school curricula and lessons. Today, extensive interviews with parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations that monitor the radicalism and indoctrination in schools convinced me that demonization of Israel in American primary and secondary schools is no passing fad. Nor is it confined to elite private schools serving hyper-progressive families. As one Catholic parent who exposes radicalism in schools nationwide on the Substack Undercover Mother said to me: “They’ve moved on from BLM to gender unicorn to the new thing: anti-Israel activism. Anti-Israel activism is the new gender ideology in the schools.” Parents who watched in alarm as gender theory swept through schools will recognize the sudden, almost religious conversion to this newest ideology. And very few educators are standing against it. Much of the anti-Israel vituperation slides into classrooms through a subject called ethnic studies. In 2021, California became the first state to adopt it as a requirement for receiving a high school diploma. Legislatures of more than a dozen states have already followed suit, incorporating ethnic studies into K–12 curricula. In principle, these laws require schools to teach the histories and cultures of African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and Native Americans. In practice, they grant teachers license to incorporate lessons that often divide civilization into “oppressed” and “oppressor.” A primary fixation of ethnic studies is demonizing Israel . Activist-led organizations readily supply instructional materials. Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC ), Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA ; creators of the Teach Palestine Project ), Teaching While Muslim , Jewish Voice for Peace , Unión del Barrio , and the Zinn Education Project regularly furnish distorted histories with eliminationist rhetoric against Israel. Especially in the year since the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, the anti-Israel materials have become pervasive. It’s not surprising that they are found in world history and current events lessons. But demonization of Israel is now taught in art, English, math, physics, and social-emotional learning classes. Anti-Israel activism spreads through online curricula that are password protected, eluding parental oversight. It is pushed by teachers unions, furnished by activist organizations, and communicated to children through deception. (“We just happen to be at the same place at the same time.”) Anti-Israel radicals willingly stake their jobs for their cause. “So how do we do all this without getting fired?” Gochez asked his assembled audience of public school teachers. “That’s the million-dollar question. And I don’t know how in the hell we have not been fired yet because I know for sure they have tried, but we have to organize. That’s the bottom line. If they come after one of us, the district has to know that it will be a bigger headache for them to try to touch one of us than it would be to just leave us alone.” All for the sake of indoctrinating other people’s children. Jewish Students Fend for Themselves Last year, Ella Hassner was a senior at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California. In the weeks and months after October 7, she says, her school erupted with anti-Israel propaganda. To combat the anti-Israel posters that appeared in classrooms and hallways, the school’s Jewish club received approval from the principal to put up posters of the hostages. Within thirty minutes, the posters were torn down, Ella, who has U.S.-Israeli citizenship and is now 18 years old, told me. Another Jewish student I spoke to, “Benny,” confirmed this, adding that he and his friends had witnessed one teacher tearing the posters down. Teachers regularly pushed the idea to students—in class and on social media, where they were followed by their students—that “Zionists” were committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. A large majority of American Jews, 85 percent , support the State of Israel. Zionism refers to the movement that established a modern Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. Given the quantity of anti-Israel propaganda flooding American K–12 schools, it’s perhaps unsurprising that children would turn against their Jewish classmates. This past year saw a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in K–12 schools. Students verbally attacked Jewish classmates in terms that echoed the very charges laid by their teachers against the State of Israel. “Baby killer” and “Violent Zionist” became popular epithets. Two girls in Ella’s class began to harass her, she told me. A subsequent school district investigation report, obtained by The Free Press , confirms her account. The girls said to her: “Your people are terrorists.” The girls created posts on social media that claimed “Israeli babies are not real humans,” and attacked Ella’s family, tagging Ella’s younger brother. Ella filed a “bullying report” with the school in February. Although the principal had personally witnessed some of the behavior, he and the associate superintendent consulted the school district’s legal counsel and decided “that the complaint would not be investigated by the district,” according to the investigation report. In February, the school hosted the annual district-wide vocal talent show. Several students sang songs celebrating their ethnic heritage. Ella and a female friend sang their approved song, “Someone Like You” by Adele, and then added another: a Hebrew pop anthem, “Yesh Bi Ahava,” which translates to “There’s Love Inside Me.” They announced the song was “dedicated to their families in Israel.” Ella says the associate superintendent pulled the duo aside after the performance and said the staff and other students were greatly upset and offended by the Hebrew song and the dedication. According to the district investigation report, the associate superintendent also informed the girls that “she would be following up with the principal the following week to discuss the matter.” The investigation found that the district did not take disciplinary action against Ella. (In response to request for comment, a spokeswoman from the district stated that the district could not discuss specific cases. She also wrote that staff was “made aware of several allegations of antisemitism. We took each complaint seriously and responded with great care to make sure our community of students, staff and families felt safe.”) In March of 2024, Ella stood at a town hall with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna and recounted many of these incidents to get them on record. (Khanna said there should be “zero tolerance” for what Ella described and offered to help if the district did not respond to her complaints.) Ella ended her town hall speech with the advice that she gives her younger siblings: If anyone mistreats them for being Jewish, “they should come to me, not to the school.” Conversations with seventeen Jewish parents whose children attend public school in Northern California suggest that that is an understandable reaction. Since October 7 of last year, hundreds of incidents involving the harassment of Jewish K–12 students have been reported to Act Now K12, a grassroots effort to catalog and combat antisemitism in Northern California schools. Ilana Pearlman of Berkeley, Viviane Safrin of San Francisco, and Maya Bronicki of Santa Clara County—all mothers of Jewish children in public schools—helped spearhead the effort to track the escalating antisemitism tearing through school districts in Northern California. Bronicki says two hundred incidents were reported last school year in Santa Clara County alone. Jewish families reported incidents like this one: An Israeli American girl walked into her first period French class at Cupertino High School to find that many of the other students and the teacher were wearing a Palestinian flag or keffiyeh in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance, on the occasion of the Middle Eastern club’s pro-Palestine day. The club handed out a map of Israel labeled only as “Palestine.” In another incident, a 12-year-old middle school student at a charter school in San Jose arrived visibly upset on the first school day following the October 7 Hamas massacre. According to a complaint against the school district later filed by her parents in federal district court, the girl had close family members in Israel whose whereabouts were unknown. The girl asked her world history teacher if she could go to the bathroom to collect herself. The history classroom “was decorated with maps of the modern Middle East in which Israel was erased.” The history teacher knew the girl was Israeli American because she had identified herself as such at the start of the year during an icebreaker exercise. He told her she could not go “until she read aloud to the entire class a passage he had selected to the effect that in the past, Palestinians and Jews had gotten along,” according to the complaint. “The requirement to publicly espouse a position that was at odds with present reality was overwhelmingly oppressive and humiliating.” She read the passage aloud, as directed. The next day at lunch, two female classmates wearing hijabs approached her, according to the complaint, “and demanded ‘What do your people think about the conflict?’ ” When the girl tried to answer, they screamed, “You’re lying—Jews are terrorists.” One demanded: “Do you know that your family in Israel is living on stolen land?” A few days later, two boys chased her around the school yelling, “We want you to die.” Kids began to refer to her as “Jew.” They would say, “Hi, Jew” or “Hey Jew.” If she protested, they said they thought it was funny. The rest of the kids isolated and ignored her when they weren’t whispering about her, the complaint alleges. She lost all but one friend. Her parents met several times with school faculty; according to the complaint, they did nothing to ensure her safety or improve the girl’s situation. A Jewish ninth grader, “Sam,” attends a Bay Area high school where, after October 7 of last year, posters declaring, “Ceasefire Now!” and “Free Palestine” began appearing on the walls. Because Sam’s family considers itself very progressive, Sam was not bothered by the posters. Then one of Sam’s friends sent him a long diatribe that read in part (spelling from the original), “I would just like to say that u are an ignorant ass white ass privileged boy u are so privileged to not b one of those children being killed rn in Gaza…solidarity and indigenous solidarity is something you could never understand as you have grown up your whole life with no culture and money and you been brainwashed by isreali and western media the world stands with Palestine and frankly it’s embarrassing to be anything different, when mostly all people of color stand with Palestine and you stand with ISREAL, that’s how yk ur in the wrong bud oppressed people stand with oppressed people in solidarity SOMETHING YOU COULDD NEVER UNDERSTAND.” T he text concluded: “FREE PALESTINE TILL ITS BACKWARDS BITCH !!!!” I spoke to Sam’s mother, and her perception was that the message didn’t sound like her son’s friend. The jargon and gist appeared to come from adults. Only the self-righteous fury and the message’s abusive conclusion belonged to the boy. I also spoke to the mother of “Dana,” a sixth-grade girl at a Bay Area elementary school. In a social studies unit on ancient civilizations last year, the teacher encouraged students to share their “feelings” about “Israel and Palestine.” Students shouted: “Fuck Israel !” and “Israel sucks! ” Dana was the only Jewish child in the class . When Dana told her mother what had happened, her mother drove back to the school and asked the teacher, who admitted that the classroom exchange had occurred. Dana’s mother asked the teacher what “Israel and Palestine” had to do with the sixth-grade curriculum. The teacher claimed she couldn’t teach ancient civilizations without talking about the Palestinians. Dana’s mother knew the lesson offered neither historical nor archaeological evidence to tie the modern Palestinian national identity back to antiquity. But teachers today often consume and regurgitate anachronistic propaganda uncritically. I spoke to a San Francisco middle schooler, “Zoe,” who told me her ethnic studies teacher so relentlessly preached anti-Israel sentiment, and the school was so engulfed in anti-Israel propaganda, that it changed how students treated her. Zoe told me one classmate came up to her and said: “A Zionist is someone who wants Palestinians dead .” Zoe replied, “That is actually not what it means at all. ” Ilana Pearlman of Berkeley is a midwife who has three Jewish children. Her son “Danny,” who was a student at Berkeley High School, told her that after October 7, a teacher used the school’s printing press to make “Free Palestine” T-shirts that were then distributed to students. One of Danny’s teachers posted a running tally, in the front of the classroom, of the number of Palestinians allegedly killed by the IDF. She says, “So every day, when my son came into class, it would say how many people Israel has killed today.” (The Free Press has confirmed this with photographic evidence.) Danny, who is black, said to her, “If there was an image of a noose, we would not hear the end of it. There would be protests, people would be going crazy. But it’s always okay if it’s anything anti-Jewish.” One mother reported to grassroots organizers that her seven-year-old daughter came home from elementary school in Marin County last year and asked: “Mommy, if someone asks me if I’m Jewish, do I have to tell them?” Learning to Hate Israel Los Angeles Unified School District is failing its students . In the 2023–24 school year, fewer than half the students met reading proficiency standards, and less than 33 percent were proficient in math. But instead of a laser focus on how to educate kids, teachers are coming up with ever more ways to attack the existence of Israel. It’s hard to imagine what U.S. arms sales to Israel has to do with the district’s core educational goals, but recently, the L.A. teachers union voted in opposition to it. They spend considerable union time and resources on organizing opposition to Israel. In the union’s recent Motions Report from October 10 of this year, half the measures put to a vote related to Israel. One motion, which passed unanimously, endorsed a discussion about “how to organize your workplace to support the Palestine Liberation Movement” and against “the ongoing genocide in Palestine.” The First Amendment protects teachers’ political advocacy in union meetings. But public school teachers have no First Amendment right to express their political viewpoints in the classroom. “When it comes to K–12 education, the precedents are pretty clear that the school district or legislature or the principal or whoever the political process leaves in charge can set the curriculum and can require the teachers to go along with it,” Eugene Volokh, First Amendment scholar and distinguished professor of law at UCLA, told me. But while the school board or legislature sets the agenda for what must be taught in schools, it can also choose not to police teachers who skirt those rules or even brazenly violate them. Curriculum decisions, Volokh said, are “subject to the political process and not the legal process ,” generally speaking. If the school district doesn’t object to teacher speech—or in fact encourages it—parents’ only recourse is through the political process: voting out state legislators or school board members. Dillon Hosier, Chief Executive Officer of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network, explained that for generations, the Jewish community has poured its resources into nonprofits, which are not legally permitted to lobby. “Our opponents,” he said, referring to organizations like Council on American-Islamic Relations, “are putting people in public office and getting bills passed.” That strategy has paid off. School boards and state legislators are reluctant to confront the growing problem in their schools. In Brooklyn, teachers led third graders at PS 705 in Prospect Heights in a chorus of “The Wheels on the Tank,” which encouraged them to despise Israel and the Israel Defense Forces, according to the New York Post : “The wheels on the tanks go round and round, all through the town. The people in the town they hold their ground, and never back down .” The rhyme continued: “Free Palestine till the wheels on the tanks fall off .” The book was illustrated with Palestinian kids hurling rocks at Israeli tanks. In Portland, pre-K lesson plans included the story of Handala, a fictional Palestinian cartoon character who symbolizes the resistance. “When I was only ten years old, I had to flee my home in Palestine,” the boy tells readers. “A group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people, ” it continues, according to a piece in City Journal . At a Fort Lee, New Jersey, high school, world history teachers confiscated students’ cell phones before giving a lesson that presented Hamas as a “resistance movement” rather than an internationally designated terrorist organization. Teachers also showed a map of Israel that falsely presented Palestinians as the sole indigenous natives of Israel. (The Free Press has obtained a copy of the presentation. Click here to see it .) The Black Lives Matter Week of Action is a standard program at thousands of schools across the country. It now routinely shifts from a focus on white racism against black Americans to the “other brown people” allegedly subjected to apartheid in the West Bank at the hands of the “white” settler colonialist Israelis, according to several grassroots organizers I spoke to who track radicalism in America’s public schools. (A majority of Israeli Jews are from non-white, non-European heritage.) Three years ago, Nicole Neily founded Parents Defending Education , a nonprofit that exposes radicalism in schools, largely in response to the race and gender ideologies she saw coursing through public schools. This year, when her organization reached out to school districts to inquire whether they planned to include the war in Gaza in their BLM Week of Action instruction, the president of a school board in Rochester, New York, wrote back to confirm that they did. The school board president added, “I would ask that you study the history of the Jewish nation and their involvement in slavery–financing the slave ships to bring Africans into the Americas and the Carribbeans,” referring to a spurious canard associated with Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. Last spring, millions of Americans watched in disbelief as university students, particularly at our most elite schools, vandalized buildings, set up illegal encampments, and cheered for Hamas. But there was far less attention paid to the parallel dramas unfolding at K–12 schools across the country. Aware of their ability to shape young minds, teachers encouraged schoolchildren to join “Walkouts” for Palestine, don keffiyehs, chant the eliminationist slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and tell their Jewish classmates, “It is excellent what Hamas did to Israel,” according to a complaint filed to the U.S. Department of Education by the Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League on behalf of Jewish students. “We had been tracking a lot of antisemitic incidents in school even prior to October 7. Obviously, in the wake of October 7, we saw things explode,” Neily told me. “This had sort of been simmering below the surface for a long time. You look at everything that happened on college campuses, and it’s not that kids turn 18, go to college campus, and think, ‘I’m going to underage drink and hate the Jews.’ So much of this was baked into the curriculum before.” Neily, who is Catholic, has now become a national leader in the grassroots effort to expose antisemitism in schools. Her team regularly submits hundreds of FOIA requests, wrangling with schools that hide behind copyright law to avoid disclosing materials taught to American school children. And what she has found is that radical anti-Israel NGOs are training teachers and supplying materials used in thousands of American classrooms.“This stuff is really going viral, coast to coast,” Neily said. Federal law gives parents the right to inspect their children’s educational materials. But schools routinely decline to turn over lessons on the grounds of copyright law. “So long as a parent isn’t asking for the material to duplicate it and sell it, there is no copyright violation in providing that material to parents,” Lori Lowenthal Marcus told me. Marcus is the legal director at The Deborah Project , which protects the civil rights of Jews in education. She added, “It is a bullshit excuse that takes advantage of parents who aren’t lawyers.” Online textbooks are easily supplemented with material from Al Jazeera or other radical sources. Smartboards allow teachers to display fraudulent histories of Israel and outright propaganda. This video , shown to tenth to twelfth graders in the Sequoia Union school district in Northern California as part of the mandatory ethnic studies curriculum, was produced by the virulently anti-Israel Turkish News site, TRT World . It ignores 3,000 years of Jewish history in Israel and instead frames Jewish connection to Israel as illegitimate or what is often called “settler colonialism.” The video omits mention of Jews’ historic connection to the West Bank—called Judea and Samaria in the Hebrew Bible—and ignores the fact that the State of Israel accepted several peace proposals throughout its 76-year history that would have created a Palestinian state. It also omits that the Second Intifada and its 138 Palestinian suicide bombings of primarily civilian Israeli targets was the impetus for Israel erecting a security barrier. An Undercover, Front-Row Seat Dr. Brandy Shufutinsky, director of education and community engagement at the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values , first noticed an uptick in antisemitic K–12 materials in 2018, when she was getting her PhD in education. “What I saw was what seemed to be a very well-coordinated effort between activist teachers, activist organizations, and administrators that were trying to do a lot of kowtowing to progressive social ideology through programming and bringing that programming into their schools ,” she said. “ There is just this insidious idea that it is okay to hate Jews or attack Jews if they feel any connection to the Jewish homeland—to Israel; if there’s any expression of Jewish pride, especially when that pride is Zionism ,” she said. “I think that antisemitism, like the Jew hatred, isn’t the end goal. I think it’s the symptom of a bigger anti-Western illiberalism that has taken over a lot of our institutions ,” Shufutinsky told me. Curious to learn more about the goals of these anti-Israel educators, Shufutinsky began hanging out in their virtual meetings. As a grad student at the University of San Francisco, she spent almost two years, she says, “undercover” in chat rooms where educators were developing a new curriculum: “Liberated Ethnic Studies.” This would eventually become the mandatory California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. In discussions about the need for ethnic studies, educators were uniquely fixated on promoting an anti-Israel agenda. “The whole goal for pushing ethnic studies, making it a requirement, was so that they could teach Palestine, ” she said. When in 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a requirement that schools make completion of ethnic studies a condition of graduation, he effectively made antisemitism a formal feature of California schooling. The original curriculum, “Liberated Ethnic Studies,” was so outrageously antisemitic , it was officially abandoned. In The Free Press , Shufutinsky called it “a Trojan horse to institutionalize antisemitism in California schools.” But even the successor course—implemented by many of the same educators who had proposed the Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum in California—has provided a vehicle for anti-Israel indoctrination of American schoolchildren. Shufutinsky told me that the reformed curriculum teaches that “ Israel is something that it isn’t. That it’s the ultimate evil. That it is apartheid. That it is a settler colonial state that deserves to be dismantled. That Zionism is racism .” Elina Kaplan, a former manager in Northern California’s tech sector and self-described “lifelong Democrat,” was quick to recognize the problems posed by ethnic studies in the classroom. A childhood spent as a Jew in the former Soviet Union taught her to recognize state-sponsored antisemitic propaganda. She formed a nonprofit to organize against the inclusion of politicized ethnic studies in California schools and maintains an archive of the antisemitic materials promulgated in American classrooms. While her organization helped defeat the worst excesses of the original curriculum, the broader effort to keep antisemitism out of the schools failed. Since 2021, she has seen the antisemitism once confined to ethnic studies sprout in virtually every subject. Kaplan says, “In math class, they can be studying charts and are told, ‘Look at this pie chart of the number of Palestinians murdered. This slice shows the number of Israelis that were killed .’ ” That example was actually presented to elementary school students in New Haven Unified School District, California. The chart is labeled “People Killed Since September 29, 2000” divided into Palestinians and Israelis and asks: “What information is this pie graph showing us? ” The obvious answer: Far more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis. Another mother sent me an example of an assignment used in a physics class at Cupertino High School, which asked students to consider the “Effect of Israel’s Bombing of Gaza” on climate change. At schools where anti-Israel propaganda is promulgated, schoolchildren are turning against their Jewish classmates. Dozens of interviews with parents, teachers, and people at nonprofits revealed that discussions of Israel quickly become personal, and American Jews—even children—are the inevitable targets. “Tammy” is a Jewish substitute teacher in Oakland who asked not to be identified. She said in the past year, she’s been astonished by the sheer volume of anti-Israel messaging to school kids across Oakland. She says only the Jewish families object. Where there are no Jewish students, the material goes entirely unopposed. “We’re raising a generation of antisemites,” she told me. “I have a necklace that says my name in Hebrew. And I wear it every day and I don’t take it off. It’s pretty small,” Tammy told me. One day last year, when she was substitute teaching in middle school, a boy saw her necklace and said, “Oh, I’m Jewish too.” The boy went and got his backpack and pulled from it a necklace with a Star of David pendant. She remembers thinking, “Why is it in your backpack? Why aren’t you wearing it?” Previous Next

January 21, 2026 Education Matters: Final findings of San Dieguito human swastika incident Marsha Sutton PeerK12 co-founders Nicole Bernstein and Tamar Caspi responded to the findings in a statement, writing, “The district’s response is riddled with contradictions that defy logic." Originally Posted In: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/01/21/education-matters-final-findings-of-san-dieguito-human-swastika-incident/ < Back The San Dieguito Union High School District fulfilled my Public Records Act request for the final investigation results of the “human swastika” incident that happened last May at a district high school and found that three of the four allegations against the district had merit. Yet the family of the targeted student and the organization that filed the complaint on the family’s behalf remain unsatisfied. The incident occurred when eight San Dieguito Academy students formed the shape of a swastika on the school’s athletic field. The display was timed for an SDA Jewish student to see as he was taking a flying lesson over the field. The SDA principal and assistant principal, Cara Dolnik and Charles Adams, did not report the incident to the district superintendent, Anne Staffieri. Instead, PeerK12 , a civil rights nonprofit organization, reported it immediately after learning of it in late August last year. As a result of the SDA administrators’ failure to report the incident when it occurred, the district accepted a resignation letter from Dolnik and reassigned Adams to the district office for unspecified duties. Unconfirmed reports suggest the eight students may have been suspended. On Sept. 11, 2025, PeerK12 filed a complaint with the district through the Uniform Complaint Procedures process which alleges violations of state laws or regulations. Specifically, the complaint was filed on behalf of the student and family for “the failure of the district … to respond to, report, and remedy a targeted antisemitic hate incident that occurred on May 30, 2025” on the SDA campus. The complaint alleges discriminatory religious harassment, timed as it was to be viewed by a fellow Jewish student. The district’s internal investigation was coordinated by Evelin Medina, SDUHSD’s director of community resolution and compliance, and Tracy Olander, SDUHSD’s director of human resources. Although some of the findings have been redacted to protect the identity of the student, the district substantiated Allegation 1 – that “a group of [redacted] deliberately formed a human swastika on school grounds timed to coincide with a planned [redacted].” According to the findings, “The preponderance of the evidence established that a majority of the [redacted] involved knew they were forming a swastika” and that “one [redacted] was primarily responsible for coming up with and organizing the shape …” The evidence, according to the district, supports that “many of the [redacted] involved were peer-pressured to participate, and at least [redacted] sat up at one point during the [redacted] when they realized what shape they were forming.” Second allegations Allegation 2 was divided into three parts, with 2a entirely redacted except to note that the finding was not substantiated. According to PeerK12, 2a alleged that the incident was a hate crime, but the district did not find evidence to support the charge. Allegation 2b – that the school’s administration did not promptly investigate or discipline those involved – was substantiated. It was found that the delayed response of the school’s administration to investigate the May incident was “a failing of their professional responsibilities” and that the response to the incident “was substandard and fell below the professional expectations for administrators of their experience and training.” However, the 2b findings did note that the evidence was “insufficient to establish that the delay was due to discriminatory reasons,” citing the timing of the incident which took place on the last day of the 2024-2025 school year and the start of the summer recess. Allegation 2c – that administrators did not implement measures to protect [redacted] from further harm or retaliation following the May incident – was substantiated. However, the findings state that “appropriate supportive measures were put in place” following the family’s meeting with district officials on Aug. 28. Corrective actions According to the final findings, corrective actions are being taken, one being that the district “publicly acknowledged the incident, recognizing the failure in response and protocols, and committed to addressing the situation moving forward.” In addition, appropriate personnel action was taken to address the school administrators’ response to the incident. The district states that it is working “to develop community restoration activities and public acknowledgement of the harm the May incident has caused” … by engaging in “ongoing professional development and education to provide a greater understanding to district students, staff and community.” The district is working with a number of organizations – including the National Conflict Resolution Center and the local branch of the American Jewish Committee – to train staff and implement stronger standards. The district also plans parent engagement nights, “staff listening circles,” and ongoing lessons for “students on the topic of antisemitism, hate language and symbols.” Reaction PeerK12 co-founders Nicole Bernstein and Tamar Caspi responded to the findings in a statement, writing, “The district’s response is riddled with contradictions that defy logic. It publicly labels the conduct a hate crime, then denies that finding in its own report. It claims the investigation was impartial, yet assigns it to its own attorney. Administrators are removed or reassigned, then the district insists no policy was violated.” That the district needs to bring in outside consultants to explain to students and staff that swastikas are hate symbols, Bernstein and Caspi said, “If that lesson still needs to be taught, it raises serious questions about the district’s judgment and culture – and helps explain why these incidents keep escalating instead of stopping.” The complaint was based on SDUHSD board policies 5131.2 addressing bullying, 5145.3 addressing discrimination and harassment, and 5145.9 which states in part, “The Governing Board is committed to providing a respectful, inclusive, and safe learning environment that protects students from discrimination, harassment, intimidation, bullying, or any other type of behavior that is motivated by hate.” Hate-motivated behavior, as defined by the district’s board policy, “is any behavior intended to cause emotional suffering, physical injury, or property damage through intimidation, harassment, bigoted slurs or epithets …” The complaint also cited violations of four California state education codes:— 201 (All pupils have the right to participate fully in the educational process, free from discrimination and harassment) – 220 (prohibits discrimination in educational programs receiving state funds based on protected characteristics) – 234 (mandates that local school agencies prevent and address discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying …) – 234.1 (prohibits discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying based on the actual or perceived characteristics …). Ed Code 234.1 also specifically states that there is a requirement that “if school personnel witness an act of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying, they shall take immediate steps to intervene when safe to do so.” Family statement Peer K12 provided the following statement from the Gordon family whose son was targeted: “We lost trust in the district when it chose to investigate itself through its own attorney. That decision made clear to us that minimizing liability mattered more than accountability for an antisemitic act and examining how school leadership handled – and then mishandled – what occurred. It has felt less like a genuine effort to understand what went wrong and more like an attempt to explain it away. As a result, the findings were not surprising … and reflect a process that has felt dismissive of the harm done and insulting from start to finish. Because the district’s so-called corrective actions amounted to recycling the same failed responses it previously claimed were working,” the family said “there’s no reason to expect change. The worst part," according to the Gordons, "is that the district consulted outside organizations who excluded our family, our child, and PeerK12 who has advocated for us throughout this entire ordeal. That eight students formed a human swastika targeting a Jewish student and the school administration failed to protect that child … raises serious concerns about leadership, training, and culture,” stated the Gordon family. The appeal PeerK12 appealed the district’s findings on Nov. 19 and received confirmation of receipt from the state on Dec. 5. The California Department of Education issued a decision of the appeal on Jan. 5, the subject of which is titled “discrimination based on religion” and found that “the appeal has merit in part.” The conclusion states that “the school failed to adequately respond to peer-to-peer discrimination based on religion once it became aware of it.” The CDE determined that additional and more specific corrective actions are required by the district for “a proper remedy.” Because the family is considering options for next steps, this is not over and word is the district “is not off the hook.” Marsha Sutton is an education writer and investigative opinion columnist and can be reached at suttonmarsha@gmail.com . Previous Next

June 24, 2024 The Child Soldiers of Ethnic Studies Neetu Arnold How American students are radicalized against the West Originally Posted In: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/child-soldiers-ethnic-studies < Back Shortly after the start of the organized pro-Palestinian student riots on campuses across the country last fall, the Rutgers University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) issued a set of demands that followed a standard template now evident at multiple universities. In addition to divestment from Israel, incorporating “anti-Palestinian racism“ into all mandatory DEI training and race-based curricula for faculty and staff, and the creation of an Arab Cultural Center, the students demanded that Rutgers “hire additional professors specializing in Palestine and settler-colonial studies and institute a department of Middle East studies.” Since then, Rutgers and other universities have caved to the demands of the mob. Middle East and Islamic studies centers became avenues for foreign governments to purchase influence and prestige a long time ago. But today, these centers play a much broader role in national politics, law, scholarship, and culture. And the drivers are no longer just foreign political actors, but increasingly domestic ones, too. In this context, student activists’ apparently spontaneous demands to establish more Middle East studies departments, to hire more Palestinian and Middle East faculty, and to integrate Palestine into DEI and ethnic and race-based curricula should be viewed instead as the intentional expansion and consolidation of leftist institutional power. This has meant the creation of jobs and patronage for a new phalanx of progressive sectarian foot soldiers under the umbrella of ethnic studies. Many of these programs aim to create a reserve of activists who cover a wide array of ethnic and identity grievances and causes that extend beyond the halls of academia, with recruitment beginning in grade school. From a young age, an increasing number of American students are being fed anti-Western and anti-Israel material funded and distributed by a constellation of dark money, left-wing groups and foreign governments. Worse, their success to date can largely be attributed to backing, financial and otherwise, from our own federal government. The nuclei of Middle East education at American universities are the Middle East and Islamic studies centers. There are around 50 such centers distributed across the country, depending on how you count them. Columbia University alone hosts three: the Center for Palestine Studies, the Middle East Institute, and the Sakip Sabanci Center for Turkish Studies. These centers are no strangers to controversy. For at least two decades, scholars and policymakers alike have decried the centers’ whitewashing of Islamic extremism and anti-Israel bias. Yet the centers have remained mostly untouched, and a few new ones have even appeared. Throughout their history, these centers have taken money from both the federal government and foreign governments. For instance, archived documents retrieved by the National Association of Scholars show that Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) relied heavily on foreign countries in its early days during the 1970s. Arab countries contributed two-thirds of the funding needed to help Georgetown leaders reach their $6.1 million fundraising goal for CCAS. During this same time, the foreign governments of Oman, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) contributed more than $1 million for various professorships at CCAS. Today, the center is one of about a dozen Middle East National Resource Centers (NRC) that receive more than $3 million in funding from the federal government. Harvard University’s Center for Middle East Studies started in the 1950s with funding from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations and then-American-owned oil company Aramco. Soon thereafter, it received funding from the federal government as an early NRC. Beginning in the 1980s, the center helped secure tens of millions of dollars in funds primarily from Turkey and Saudi Arabia both for its own faculty and for affiliated programs at Harvard. The original purpose for the centers, established in the 1950s, was to produce policy-relevant information that the government could use to develop sound Middle East foreign policy. Relatively little expertise on the region existed in the United States at the time, which made getting up to speed a national security priority. But it’s hard to see that purpose in what passes through the centers and their affiliated faculty today. Today, the old foundations have combined with new ones to push for more ideological education on the Middle East not only on college campuses, but also in K-12 education. While it’s easy to dismiss the centers as too niche or academic to have any real influence, this would be a mistake. For one, these centers have long produced area experts that populate U.S. government agencies and the foreign service. The degeneration of the education provided by these programs into its current activist form tracks with the increasing activism of government bureaucrats, such as the political appointees and staff members of several government agencies who signed a letter objecting to the administration’s Israel policy, and the various State Department officials who have resigned in protest. But the toxic influence extends beyond government bureaucracy. Federally funded Middle East centers produced more than 2,500 instructional materials between 2000 and 2020, of which over 60% were intended for use by K-12 educators. Content matter ranged from climate justice to Islamophobia to youth activism. These centers also conducted over 22,000 outreach programs throughout the same time period, of which over 20% were intended for K-12 educators. Both the instructional materials and outreach programs are part of the centers’ mandate from the federal government, so our taxpayer dollars directly fund these programs. The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Middle East Studies, along with other NRCs at the school, used federal funds in 2021 to host a critical race literacy workshop, where K-12 teachers “(Un)learn[ed] patterns of whiteness in literacy teaching.” The university claims on its website that the event supported “instructional goals for literacy standards for the State of Texas.” Or consider a toolkit on “Women and Gender in the Middle East” produced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. Their set of readings directs students to a YouTube video of an overview of Edward Said’s Orientalism, produced by a channel called “Invictapalestina.” For those students who prefer a book, the toolkit points them to an anthology of Arab feminist writing, including by Columbia University professor Lila Abu-Lughod, who, ironically, in the past has criticized the “focus on gender-based violence” in Arab and Islamic countries as it “leave[s] aside the violence of states … like Israel.” Middle East faculty at top universities train the next generation of anti-Israel and anti-American activists by training K-12 teachers. For instance, New York University’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies partners with Jordan-based nonprofit Global Nomads Group to host an annual fellowship program for grades 7-12 teachers. During the fellowship, teachers create curricula to teach students about the Middle East. New Utrecht High School teacher Nathan Floro’s curriculum, to take one example, would ensure students have a “basic understanding of orientalism and be able to critique various media through a post-colonial lens.” NYU also funded Newton Public Schools teacher David Bedar, whose fellowship at NYU focused on redeveloping college-level content for high school students on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), throughout 2018 and 2019, acquired Bedar’s curriculum materials and found in a detailed analysis that the course favored the Palestinian over the Zionist narrative of the conflict by distorting and omitting facts. Global Nomads Group offers its own series of “youth courses” promoting similar messages. In a lesson plan within their “Human Rights” course, Global Nomads claims students will learn the difference between equity and equality and why “marginalized people are denied human rights.” They also offer courses on “Art in Action,” “Ocean Health,” and in a twist of irony, “Overcoming Bias.” On its website, Global Nomads discloses that its Student to World program “is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government, and is administered by the Aspen Institute. The Stevens Initiative is also supported by the Bezos Family Foundation and the governments of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.” Other donors listed on the group’s website include Qatar Foundation International. In 2021, Yale University’s Council on Middle East Studies hosted a summer conference for New Haven Public Schools teachers where they received free access to films featuring former Women’s March co-chair and antisemitic activist Linda Sarsour, and a list of books, many of which advocate for looser immigration policies. The event primarily featured Palestinian and other Arab speakers and panelists. The one session that featured an official from the American Jewish Committee consisted of a discussion about centering the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish experience—in other words, challenging what the Columbia School of Social Work orientation guidebook calls “Ashkenormativity.” Foreign governments also support these programs, whether directly or indirectly by funding the Middle East centers themselves. Some centers, such as the Saudi-funded King Fahd Center at the University of Arkansas, were started with funding from foreign governments. Others have received periodic funding from foreign governments, such as the United Arab Emirate’s funding to UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies. Still others work in partnership with foreign governments to host teacher workshops. Qatar Foundation International (QFI), the American arm of the Qatar Foundation, is a common collaborator for these programs. QFI funds professional development workshops for Arabic language teachers through Arabic Teacher Councils. The councils are hosted by schools such as George Washington University, Georgia State University, and the University of Chicago. In their early days in the 1950s and 1960s, Middle East studies centers were beneficiaries of funding by large private foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Ford Foundation, which, in turn, enjoyed close relationships with the government. Today, the old foundations have combined with new ones to push for more ideological education on the Middle East not only on college campuses, but also in K-12 education. Left-wing organizations such as the Open Society Foundations and the Tides Foundation actively fund efforts to bring K-12 education in line with progressive dogma and socialize American kids into its politics. This same network of organizations funds many of the pro-Palestinian student demonstrators who have taken over elite campuses. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Westchester People’s Action Coalition (WESPAC), and the Tides Foundation are just a handful of the organizations that have financially supported the student protests. For instance, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights has received at least $355,000 from Rockefeller Brothers Fund and $300,000 from Open Society Foundations, according to The New York Post. U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights member Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) hosts a project called “Teach Palestine,” where educators disseminate instructional materials and teaching strategies on the Middle East. Teach Palestine is coordinated by two educators affiliated with the Liberated Ethnic Studies initiatives nationally and in California. Between 2017 and 2023, the Open Society Foundations and Rockefeller Brothers Fund cumulatively gave MECA $1.3 million. Teach Palestine includes testimonials from educators who actively teach about the region in their classrooms. Once students arrive on campus and are exposed to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in further detail, little is needed to radicalize them. One teacher goes beyond the third grade curriculum standards by fitting “lessons about the Middle East into the nooks and crannies of our day.” Her description of Israeli history is that it is a “European colony” for the Jewish people that has been continually committing ethnic cleansing since its founding. A librarian brought MECA members to teach children about the “similarities between Israeli and US settler colonialism.” A sixth grade teacher had her students write acrostic poems on settler colonialism as part of a curriculum that focused on “centering Palestinian youth voices” and connected the Palestinian youth experience to Black Lives Matter. She proudly states that “some strong activism and advocacy could come” if students were pushed to the “next level” when engaging in her lesson activities. The Proteus Fund, which connects “philanthropy with the frontlines of social justice,” is another key player. Since 2016, the Proteus Fund and its lobbying arm Proteus Action League have received $16 million from the Open Society Foundations. Aside from Open Society Foundations, Proteus lists nearly 40 funding partners, which includes the Tides Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. One of Proteus’ recent initiatives, the RISE Together Fund, claims to oppose intolerance against “Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) communities.” As part of this initiative, they offer organizations immediate and flexible grants through its Rapid Response Fund. Since Oct. 7, Proteus has focused on K-12 advocacy, coordinating legal support, and connecting attorneys with those who have lost educational opportunities due to protests. In the latter half of 2023, Proteus gave a cumulative $700,000 to 35 organizations for flexible spending grants. The beneficiaries of these recent grants include pro-BDS organizations such as the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Adalah Justice Project, and the Palestinian Youth Movement. Some of these organizations have been tied to the recent wave of demonstrations among high school students. New York City’s Community Education Council for District 14 partnered with several groups, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, to encourage a 700-student protest. The Arab Resource and Organizing Center hosted walkouts for Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) students. BUSD teachers covered for protesters by marking these students as legitimately “excused,” even though school policy said otherwise. Last month, hundreds of NYC school kids staged a pro-Palestinian walkout and protested at the Department of Education in Lower Manhattan. The walkout was organized by Teachers Unite and the Palestine Youth Movement, along with NYC Educators for Palestine, Al-AWDA: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Movement of Rank-&-File Educators (MORE), and Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). Similar movements in New Jersey, Oregon, and elsewhere in the country also involve mushrooming “educators for Palestine” organizations that are contracted to develop curricula and organize student action. It would be one thing if this educational infrastructure simply resulted in American school kids learning a biased set of facts about Israel and Palestine. But simply teaching even skewed history is not the goal, as evidenced by the many “Free Palestine” student protesters who apparently didn’t even know what they were protesting. The goal, rather, is to teach school students a framework of values that they can apply blindly to every social and political issue. To see how this looks in practice, consider one teacher’s comment at a March QFI-funded Arabic Teachers Council workshop. Attendees were asked how they enact social justice education in their classrooms. The teacher responded: Instead of asking them [students] “what do you think about this topic,” we talk more about principles and values and structures. Right, like I asked them last week “Do you think we have freedom of expression here at [inaudible] about any social, political, or religious topic?” So, we talk about structures versus the topic itself specifically because some of them are afraid that if they speak specifically about the topic that something might happen. Later in the workshop, teachers were presented a social justice rubric they could use in classrooms. One of the rubric components assesses how well students produce “insights from social justice theme(s).” Students who want to exceed expectations must demonstrate their understanding of social justice themes by incorporating evidence, such as observing and applying power structures. This “education” is indistinguishable from so-called protest “toolkits” that “teach Palestine” groups put together for school kids, which is made up of “talking points,” “chants,” and “demands”—that is, material designed to develop “activists” or foot soldiers to be deployed on the streets at will. Unsurprisingly, the talking points and “demands” grade school kids are taught to recite are identical to those of their college counterparts and mentors, serving the same purpose of recruitment and consolidation of institutional power. In NYC, for instance, the demands were to “Support Palestinian-led curriculum initiatives about Palestinian culture and history. Mandate education about Palestine in history curriculums that centers Palestinian perspectives and experiences. Redirect city funding away from policing and into our public schools, prioritizing low-income Black and Brown communities.” Once students arrive on campus and are exposed to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in further detail, little is needed to radicalize them. As an organizer for SJP told The New Yorker in December: “S.J.P. is oriented in a special way. The idea is to appeal to people who know nothing.” As we deal with the fallout of the anti-Israel protests over the coming months, it will be tempting to look for easy solutions. Perhaps universities can rework their policies to prevent future disruptions. Maybe even some programs can be defunded. But the process that led to this was years-long, requiring the coordination of dozens of organizations and millions of dollars in funding. Undoing it will require reversing the proliferation of sectarian fake disciplines and leftist identitarian studies programs, and replacing activist curricula with fact-based lessons that promote critical thinking—a tall order, to be sure. Middle East education at all levels needs a complete overhaul. It has gone from an attempt to help inform our geopolitics and augment our security posture against the various threats facing the United States in the region, to a factory of apologists for America’s enemies and advocates on their behalf. Now, they have brought the threat home. Previous Next

July 19, 2024 Anti-Israel resolutions on docket for US teachers union JNS News Desk The American Federation of Teachers will vote on proposals that fuel “discrimination and hatred against Jews,” critics say. Originally Posted In: https://www.jns.org/anti-israel-resolutions-on-docket-for-teachers-union/ < Back At its upcoming convention in Houston, which begins on July 22, the American Federation of Teachers plans to vote on several anti-Israel resolutions, including those that oppose “weaponization” of Jew-hatred, and advocate divestment from Israeli bonds and halting U.S. military aid to Israel. “These resolutions not only marginalize our Jewish students, families and staff but also contribute to an environment of fear and hostility in our schools,” said Tova Plaut, founder of the New York City Public School Alliance. “By targeting Zionism and falsely equating it with colonialism and racism, these resolutions promote a dangerous narrative that fuels discrimination and hatred against Jews,” added Plaut, whose organization—along with StandWithUs, Educators Caucus for Israel and Partners for Equality and Educational Responsibility in K-12—condemned the resolutions. Amy Leserman, chair of the Educators Caucus for Israel, said that “it is astounding that AFT leadership has allowed this, and so many other, blatantly bigoted resolutions to move forward, when they are clearly motivated by values contrary to the purpose of the AFT.” Previous Next

April 10, 2025 Bay Area high school districts cited, must provide anti-bias training to teachers John Fensterwald Following investigations, the California Department of Education has verified incidents of antisemitism in two neighboring San Jose-area school districts. In separate decisions, the department ordered both the Campbell Union High School District and Santa Clara Unified to provide anti-discrimination training, and in the case of Santa Clara Unified, training in students’ rights against retaliation. Originally Posted In: https://edsource.org/updates/bay-area-high-school-district-cited-must-provide-anti-bias-training-to-teachers < Back Following investigations, the California Department of Education has verified incidents of antisemitism in two neighboring San Jose-area school districts. In separate decisions, the department ordered both the Campbell Union High School District and Santa Clara Unified to provide anti-discrimination training, and in the case of Santa Clara Unified, training in students’ rights against retaliation. In the most recent case, the department ruled on April 4 that lessons in an ethnic studies course at Branham High in Campbell Union discriminated against Jewish students. A parent and Bay Area Jewish Coalition Education and Advocacy filed a complaint and appealed to the department after the district dismissed it. They complained that two teachers in an Ethnic Literature class they had designed presented content regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict that could encourage antisemitism. Not identified by name in the state report, Teacher A acknowledged doing a lesson on the conflict in a “community circle” that was not included in the curriculum. As part of the theme on colonialism, students discussed whether Israel is a settler colonial state, although the students heard only one side. It included a video from a rabbi wearing a Palestinian flag that said “A Jew is not a Zionist” and a reading from Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” “In order for the information to be unbiased, there would have needed to be a video that reflected a pro-Israel perspective. This would have encouraged students to create authentic answers regarding the questions provided in the lesson,” the state report said. The second instance of bias pertained to a student project on “Genocide of Palestinians. The report found that Teacher B didn’t question the students on their report during a class presentation and then posted the presentation to a social media site of class projects. “The legal issue is whether the teacher responded adequately so as to ensure a non-discriminatory and balanced learning environment,” the report said. The failure to comment on the slide presentation” could have been interpreted by the student audience as approval of the presented thesis.” The district, which can ask the department to reconsider the decision, did not respond to a request for a comment. The district must provide at least an hour-long anti-bias training for all English language arts and social studies teachers by the start of the next school year. “We are seeing discrimination against Jews in classrooms throughout the state and hope this precedent will lead to schools taking a more nuanced approach that doesn’t harm Jewish students,” said Miller Saltzman, Ethnic Studies Coalition Director for the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California. Santa Clara Unified decisions The department issued separate rulings on Jan. 24 in which it verified allegations of bias on two separate incidents that occurred after the October slaughter by Hamas of 1,200 Israelis which led to reprisals and the invasion of Gaza by the Israeli army, with deaths of thousands of Palestinians. One involved a clear violation of the district’s policy on handling controversial issues, although that was outside of the department’s jurisdiction. A teacher assigned students projects on genocide and modeled the conflict in Gaza as an example for the class. It contained a one-sided, politically charged perspective that described Israeli actions against Gazans that “amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” and used other inflammatory language. The district’s own internal investigation acknowledged the teacher’s presentation was “poorly timed,” “controversial” and “politically charged.” The department went further on appeal , stating it violated the Education Code’s protection against discrimination and intimidation on the basis of ethnicity, religion and nationality. In the second incident , in February 2024, a teacher confronted a Jewish student who was a member of the Jewish Culture Club about a speaker from Israel the club had invited. In front of other students, the teacher tried to persuade the student to disinvite the speaker, whose controversial talk, the teacher said, would provoke antisemitism and reflect badly on the student. Although the district’s own investigation concluded that the teacher’s “conduct was objectively offensive considering the power imbalance between [the Teacher and the Student]” and the student’s identification of Jewish, the district ruled there was no clear discrimination or harassment. On appeal, the state concluded otherwise, noting that under state law, schools should “promote tolerance and sensitivity” and “minimize and eliminate hostile environments.” The unnamed student filed the complaint and the appeal. In its ruling, the department required the district to train all high school staff on students’ right to be free of discrimination, harassment and intimidation base on race, ethnicity, religion and nationality. The District shall also “continue to take appropriate actions to protect (the student) from retaliation for bringing the Complaint/Appeal,” the ruling said. Previous Next

July 16, 2024 AFT to vote on controversial proposals Carl Campanile Proposals including ending US military aid to Israel, protecting pro-Palestinian protesters Originally Posted In: https://nypost.com/2024/07/16/us-news/aft-to-vote-on-controversial-proposals-including-ending-us-military-aid-to-israel-protecting-pro-palestinian-protesters/ < Back America’s second-largest teacher’s union has drafted a group of resolutions calling for the end of US military aid to Israel — and defending the anti-Israel protests that have rocked campuses across the country. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — which is affiliated with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) that represents most teachers in New York City public schools — will vote on the controversial proposals at its national convention starting in Houston next Monday . One of the resolutions, which calls for a cease-fire between the Jewish State and the terror group Hamas, demands a halt to US military assistance that enables the “violent dispossession” of Palestinians. “American military cannot be used in ways that facilitate the seizure of Palestinian land, the violent dispossession of Palestinian communities and the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory,” the resolution reads. A related eyebrow-raising proposal even goes so far as suggesting the US is “enabling genocide” in Gaza. “[A]s long as Israel continues to block substantive and meaningful aid to Gaza, the AFT calls for the US to halt military aid to Israel,” it says. Another resolution calls for anti-Israel protesters to be protected — even after violent demonstrations have swept college and school campuses since Hamas’ bloody Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish State. “[T]he AFT expresses solidarity with those students, faculty and other academic workers across the United States who have faced repressive and violent crackdown of their protests in the war in Gaza,” the resolution reads. “[T]he AFT demands that campus administrators cease their campaign of threats, suspensions and expulsions against peaceful protesters and cease using law enforcement agencies to disrupt and attack them,” it continues. The proposal also defends the demonstrations as “academic freedom” and “free speech.” A coalition of pro-Israel educators swiftly condemned the resolutions as antisemitic. “These resolutions not only marginalize our Jewish students, families, and staff but also contribute to an environment of fear and hostility in our schools,” said Tova Plaut , an instructional coordinator and founder of the New York City Public School Alliance. “By targeting Zionism and falsely equating it with colonialism and racism, these resolutions promote a dangerous narrative that fuels discrimination and hatred against Jews.” Amy Leserman, chairwoman of the Los Angeles-based Educators Caucus for Israel also denounced the proposals as “blatantly bigoted.” “It is astounding that AFT leadership has allowed this, and so many other, blatantly bigoted resolutions to move forward, when they are clearly motivated by values contrary to the purpose of the AFT,” she said. Even AFT’s maligned president, Randi Weingarten — a Jew who self-identifies herself as a “progressive zionist” and whose spouse is a rabbi — has opposed resolutions supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. She co-wrote an op-ed column in April for USA Today with Karen Marder, the pro-Israel New York teacher who was forced to hide in a locked office as an angry mob tried to push its way into her classroom at Hillside High School in Jamaica in November. Many students became enraged to learn she was photographed at a vigil for the victims killed two days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attac k on Israel. In a statement on Tuesday, Weingarten singled out only one resolution for support — calling for “an end to the war in Gaza and lasting peace, security and self-determination for Israel and Palestine.” Her silence on the anti-Israel resolutions signals that they will likely be defeated. “As we head into our annual convention, here’s a reminder that the AFT is a democracy where locals can submit resolutions. And they do. Plenty of them. Proposals are simply proposals unless they are considered and passed at our delegated, democratic convention,” Weingarten said in a statement on X. “I support Resolution #30 that opposes anti-Semitism and hate of any kind, and that reflects our Executive Council resolution unanimously passed in January,” she continued. “I have been clear throughout this difficult time — hate of all kinds is antithetical to the values we promote as a union and as professionals in our schools. We are a movement driven by love, not fear.” Still, pro-Israel educators slammed that resolution as well, for trying to prevent Israel from defending itself after being attacked by Hamas in a declaration of war. Resolution 30 declares that there is “no military solution to this conflict” and blames “far-right” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “prolonging” the war. “Netanyahu has an interest in prolonging the war to escape the public scrutiny of his colossal failure to protest Israel’s citizens and his own pending criminal prosecution,” the resolution reads. “While Israel’s initial case of war — self-defense against the criminal acts of Oct. 7 — was just, the ways in which the Netanyahu government has prosecuted it — its sanctioning of indiscriminate and disproportionate violence, resulting in a massive civilian death toll — has made it unjust.” The coalition of pro-Israel educators labeled the resolution as “offensive.” “It is offensive for a union based in the United States to tell a sovereign nation how to conduct its defense and equate a democratically elected government with Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization designated as such by the US Department of State,” the group said. 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October 3, 2025 California Teachers’ Union Ruins an Earnest Effort to Confront Antisemitism Will Swaim And in so doing, has helped demonstrate why California’s schools, once among the best in the nation, are now among its worst. Originally Posted In: https://californiapolicycenter.org/unions-ruin-antisemitism-effort/ < Back California has a problem with antisemitism in its public schools, but the proposed remedy — a massive new regulatory agency outlined in a bill on the governor’s desk — will do approximately nothing to end the madness. But not exactly nothing: If you’re a leader of the state’s powerful teachers’ union, debating “settler colonialism” in Israel, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, genocide, the virtues of Hamas, and whether American Jews are “white” or “white-adjacent” (and in either case equally “privileged”) is far better than confronting the union’s role in the 40-year decline of public education in California. In February, months before it arrived on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, Assembly Bill 715 started life as a laser-focused response to the problem of antisemitism in the state’s schools. Approved unanimously in the state assembly, it seemed certain to move through the state senate with a standing ovation, ticker tape falling from the gallery, and a college drumline. Instead, the bill ran into the state’s powerful California Teachers Association (CTA). Lengthy negotiations followed. By the time the state senate approved the bill and moved it to the office of Governor Newsom, AB 715 had become something different and even malign : a blueprint for the creation of a massive new office of civil rights attached loosely to California’s education department — an office charged with policing “violations” of the civil rights of all of the familiar racial, ethnic, and gender-fluid identities favored by the far left . . . plus antisemitism. It’s small comfort that, among its new employees, AB 715 “would also require the Office of Civil Rights to employ the Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator to be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate” — all of whom benefit magnificently from CTA political campaign activities. The legislation even helpfully provides a job description for that employee: “to, among other things, develop, consult, and provide antisemitism education to school personnel to identify and proactively prevent antisemitism and to make recommendations, in coordination with the executive director of the state board, to the Legislature on legislation necessary for the prevention of antisemitism in educational settings.” That’s a lot of developing, consulting, and recommending in the proposed law. But there’s little — if any — obvious authority. And that’s one reason to bet that Gavin Newsom will sign the bill: In this fight between his allies in the state legislature’s Jewish Caucus and the California Teachers Association — itself a kind of fourth branch of government — AB 715 is the perfect political solution: a do-nothing law that promises to do everything. But there is a silver lining. In blocking real reform, AB 715, the California Teachers Association has revealed why California’s schools, once among the best in the nation, are now among its worst. * * * In its July letter opposing the assembly measure, the CTA makes it clear that its highest priority isn’t the education of students. It’s about progressive politics. The letter opens with a prefabricated declaration that the union is (of course) “firmly committed to schools that are free of racism, sexism, religious and gender discrimination.” The implied “but” arrives promptly: “We are also concerned with academic freedom and the ability of educators to ensure that instruction include perspectives and materials that reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of all of California’s students.” The union tips its hand immediately, and all of its cards are political. Supporting the assembly version of AB 715, the union says, would offer comfort to the real enemy — “a regime [a regime! ] in Washington D.C. that sows division at all levels of academia and seeks to drive a wedge between communities that should be working together to address hate and discrimination.” To make matters worse, the CTA says, the assembly version “would unfortunately arm some others” — “ill-intentioned people” — with the tools they “seek to weaponize public education.” The CTA knows this will happen because, it says, these “extremists” have already filed “meritless” complaints “meant to disrupt or challenge policies that support LGBTQ+ inclusivity or to target LGBTQ+ students and staff.” But the CTA’s biggest concern about the antisemitism bill is that it might “privilege” Jews over other groups, and that would undo the union’s primary political objective of advancing the rights of some groups above others — not of eliminating “privilege,” in other words, but of granting privilege to the people CTA believes deserve it. The letter allows us to watch as the CTA performs a magic trick in reverse, stuffing a rabbit back into a top hat, turning the problem of antisemitism into merely one problem among many. As approved in the assembly, the CTA asserts, AB 715 would “impose limits and define standards for course instruction regarding Israel, Palestine, Zionism, or the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, something that we don’t do for any other active conflict in the world, e.g., conflicts in Ukraine, Rwanda, Congo.” Union “members have expressed concerns about lifting these experiences of inequity above those of other groups,” the letter claims. “Focusing on antisemitism alone might be seen as prioritizing one form of discrimination over others, potentially alienating groups facing other forms of systemic discrimination, such as racism, Islamophobia, or anti-LGBTQ+ bias.” The bill’s key provision, the creation of a state Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, would “not address any other forms of hate or discrimination, something that is equally needed.” “Equally needed”? Equating the very real problem of antisemitism in public education with other “forms of hate or discrimination” ignores reality. There is, thank God, no pedagogical effort in California schools — no curriculum, no program, no courses, no teacher, no third-party vendors or nonprofits — working to resuscitate the Ku Klux Klan, marginalizing Muslim children, forcing young women into a handmaid’s tale of barefoot early motherhood, or campaigning to vilify gay kids. None of that exists. On the other hand, the CTA and its hundreds of local affiliates — and the thousands of state and local officials, from the governor to every local school board member, whose political campaigns those unions fund — have indeed run a very well-organized campaign to bash Jews. * * * The strange fruit of the teachers’ unions’ formalized antisemitism is evident everywhere in the state’s public schools. Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israelis, the Oakland Unified school board backed Hamas. “We want to make sure Palestinians have the liberation they so rightfully deserve in their own land,” said board member Valarie Bachelor, switching seamlessly between singular and plural first-person pronouns . “I want to make sure we stand on our progressive organizing history and we don’t just sit on it. We stand on it and we say we need to do more and we need to do this now.” Leaders of the city’s teachers’ union, the Oakland Educators Association , amplified the board’s declaration with their own statement calling for the elimination of Israel. More than 30 Jewish families left the district. “I just felt that there wasn’t a path forward for Jewish families because I had reached out to OUSD and asked them to have a conversation about how they were going to keep Jewish families feeling safe and included,” one parent explained . “When there were lesson plans that were being taught that said, ‘Draw the Zionist bully,’ or ‘I for Intifada, J is for Jesus,’ to me, it felt like – honestly – we were being targeted and singled out and alienated.” In February 2024 , the Louis D. Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League filed a federal complaint against nearby Berkeley Unified, alleging “severe and persistent” antisemitic harassment of Jewish and Israeli students. The complaint cited students being taunted with such slurs as “You have a big nose because you are a stupid Jew,” asking what their “number is” (an apparent reference to Holocaust tattoos), a teacher posting “messages of anti-hate” targeting the district’s only Jewish teacher, and antisemitic imagery in art classes. Some students have departed the district. Anti-Israel teachers marched students in Berkeley’s middle school and high school out of classes in 2024 protests — in one case to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack. Across the Bay, immediately following the October 7, 2023, attack, the San Francisco Unified School District hired the Arab Resource and Organizing Center to run student and teacher trainings “related to leadership development and cultural empowerment.” AROC describes itself as a group of “abolitionists, feminists, and internationalists who believe that the liberation of SWANA (South West Asian and North African) people is inextricably tied to the liberation of all oppressed people.” Meanwhile, the district’s antisemitism training for teachers ran into organized resistance from teachers’ union activists. By contract, the district could require teachers to attend the training — but not to listen. Members of the American Jewish Committee asked to run that training say that as soon as their training began, a leader of United Educators–San Francisco stood up and described “at great length” his own take on the problem of antisemitism: it’s an exclusively right-wing phenomenon, the union leader asserted. He then led most of the teachers out of the room for a separate conversation. By then, the clock on the formal training had nearly run down. We could go on and never exhaust the catalog of formalized antisemitism. In July 2024, federal officials concluded that Jewish students in the central coast town of Carmel were “subjected to pervasive, antisemitic harassment over a three-year period, exposed to repeated swastika graffiti in bathrooms and on desks, a Hitler reference and a verbal threat targeting Jewish people.” California officials say two ethnic studies teachers in the nearby city of Campbell violated state law by presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a “one-sided anti-Zionism” lesson. In Los Angeles, teachers at an August 2024 United Teachers of Los Angeles Leadership Conference were caught on video training their colleagues to “advocate and leverage your positionality” in the classroom in order to “globalize the intifada” — that is, to help Los Angeles students understand the putative link between the war in Gaza and their own struggles in California. In April, officials at a meeting of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District upbraided Jewish parents for their objections to an ethnic studies curriculum that singled out Jews for their white privilege. “I’ve been a little bit taken aback by the lack of acknowledgement of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community,” said board member Joy Flynn. “I don’t see you people at protests against immigration,” said board member Gabriel Medina. “I don’t see you at protests when people are being taken away right now. I don’t see you advocating to bring back Abrego Garcia or Mahmoud Khalil. I don’t see you guys doing that. You only show up to meetings when it’s beneficial for you, so you can tell brown people who they are.” Days later, the district’s superintendent offered the usual anodyne explanation that, their Jew-bashing notwithstanding, Pajaro Valley “stands firmly against all forms of racism, antisemitism, and hate.” The most prominent case erupted in Southern California’s Santa Ana Unified, where that district, the eighth largest in the state, settled a lawsuit in February 2025 over its ethnic studies courses. The highlight in that showdown came when district officials offered the defense that they were merely relying on guidance from the California Department of Education. The department’s 2019 draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum condemned Israel and otherwise omitted mention of Jewish Americans. The compromise version released a year later still allowed districts to include materials linked to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. * * * It’s much easier to opine on the plight of the Palestinian people and to assert what’s simply not true about Israel than to defend the 40-year decline of public education in California. And what a trajectory: Data emerging from the most recent national student testing shows that all U.S. students continue to fall behind their global counterparts in math, writing, and science . The decline has been especially steep in California. Despite spending more per student than any other state in the union, California consistently ranks among the nation’s worst states for public education . Some California teachers’ union leaders deny they’re running a political campaign with children as their targets. Others admit that’s the plan — and accept any learning loss as a necessary trade-off. Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, famously told a reporter , “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables...They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup .” It was Myart-Cruz who, confronted with a parent rebellion over lousy teacher performance, launched a UTLA “research project” to track the ethnic identity of the union’s public critics. Like most teachers’ union websites in California, the United Teachers of LA website looks like an advertisement for the Democratic Socialists of America: it’s a visual cacophony of demonstrations, bullhorns, protest signs, and clenched fists. To paraphrase the old joke, those who can’t do, teach — and those like Myart-Cruz who can’t teach fall back instead on controversial political ideologies they half-learned as college sophomores in order to lecture California K–12 students about the evils of Israel. It’s time to end that sort of pedagogical sleight-of-hand — to stop bashing Jews. Terminate teachers who, misunderstanding the actual job for which they’ve been hired, prefer to use their classrooms as indoctrination camps. California could follow that with a classic California practice: the burning of sage in every school and government building in the state, after which, having banished all bad spirits, it could return to the teaching of math, English, and science along with the classroom practices that once made a California education the envy of the world. Will Swaim is president of the California Policy Center and co-host with David Bahnsen of National Review’s “Radio Free California” podcast. Previous Next