The Santa Ana school district has been hit with a lawsuit from Jewish civil rights organizations, accusing the district of violating California law by allowing left-wing ideologues to secretly craft and implement blatantly anti-Israel and antisemitic curriculum for ethnics studies classes, allegedly in the name of anti-colonialism and anti-racism.
On Aug. 23, two organizations, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law and the Brandeis-affiliated Southern Californians for Unbiased Education, filed suit in Orange County Superior Court against the Santa Ana Unified School District and its Board of Education.
The lawsuit centers on recent actions the Santa Ana school district took to draft and begin teaching ethnic studies courses, including in world geography and history, allegedly in violation of state open meetings law and a separate state law requiring community input before implementing such curriculum.
According to the lawsuit, such ethnic studies courses are required by law to be taught in California public schools.
However, in this case, the lawsuit claims the process of creating such courses by a special steering committee empaneled in the Santa Ana school district was co-opted by two left-wing, anti-Jewish activists on the school board, who then worked behind closed doors to ensure the creation of curriculum which allegedly demonized Jews around the world as "colonizers" and accused Israeli Jews, in particular, of atrocities against Palestinians.
"The Steering Committee sought to exclude any voices - especially Jewish ones - that might stray from so-called 'liberated' ethnic studies orthodoxy, which classifies Jewish people as 'White' - regardless of their actual skin color or historical perceptions of Jews as non-white - and the Jewish people as oppressors, even though this term is wholly inappropriate when applied categorically to groups or individuals based solely on the color of their skin, and is especially inapt when applied to Jews of any color, given their centuries-long experience of oppression and persecution, which persists into the present," the Brandeis Center wrote in its lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, the steering committee began its work in 2020 shortly after California state lawmakers rejected so-called statewide "model curriculum" for ethnic studies courses, out of concerns that the classes could promote anti-Jewish bias.
The lawsuit claims two Santa Ana school board members, in particular - identified as Rigo Rodriguez and Carolyn Torres - took control of the steering committee, allegedly running the work "like a dictator" and "under the radar" to ensure the Santa Ana district's curriculum wasn't "watered-down" and fully excoriated Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide as "oppressors" who benefited from "white supremacy."
According to the complaint, the board members were joined on the steering committee by "a narrow and insular group of individuals who were 'close to the board members' and were 'handpicked' to promote and implement a particular 'very pro-ethnic studies' vision, without any 'naysayers.'"
The committee did not include and parents or students, despite a "clear mandate" from the board to do so.
"Torres's and Rodriguez's involvement created a culture of censorship that silenced the viewpoints of anyone who was not deemed an ethnic studies 'expert' or purist; no one else was 'allowed to have opinions,'" the complaint said.
At least one committee member, an assistant superintendent at the district, was told she was "too White" and "not Brown enough" to be involved in the work, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, one of the leading members of the Santa Ana steering committee had served on the state-level committee that had drafted the original state model curriculum which was rejected by the state. According to the complaint, this committee member, identified only as Employee 1, "considered it 'horrific'" that the state had "'watered ... down' 'true ethnic studies ... into a 'multicultural ... let's all just get along program.'"
According to the complaint, the members of the steering committee were allegedly further fueled by a constant sense of fear and "race-based paranoia" that their work could be undermined and torpedoed by backlash from white and Jewish community members.
Throughout the process, the complaint said the steering committee "did nothing to allow for community input," in violation of California law requiring such decisions and discussions to be held in the open.
According to the complaint, the steering committee never posted agendas or issued public notice of meetings, blocking out "public participation in any way, shape, or form."
"This was a deliberate choice by members of the Steering Committee," the complaint said. "They knew that ethnic studies could be a contentious issue about which many constituencies feel passionate."
According to the complaint, Jewish members of the community and local Jewish advocacy groups had contacted the school district about the ethnic studies curriculum creation process, and had urged the district to adopt the state's new model curriculum.
Torres, however, allegedly shut down any such discussions, allegedly telling the district superintendent: "We need to have a discussion about this. There are atrocities going on in Palestine right now."
According to the complaint, Jewish community members and groups were met with silence from the district despite multiple entreaties from 2021-2022.
According to the complaint, committee members allegedly discussed responding to the requests from Jewish community members and groups by pondering whether they need to "address the Jewish question."
"Utilizing an ugly term that recalls a long, dark history of antisemitism—the 'Jewish question' —the Committee members apparently discussed how Jews were a problem thatneeded to be dealt with, without actually engaging with the community and addressing its concerns," the complaint said.
"And when it came time for the full Board to approve certain ethnic studies courses, one senior official texted to another, 'on a good note . . . no public comment on ethnic studies,' and then, 'We may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved.'
"The other official responded, 'That’s actually a good strategy,'” according to the complaint.
The complaint further asserted that "Employee 1" allegedly texted another district employee that "the Jewish Federation of Orange County as 'racist Zionists' to whom the District should not 'cave.'"
They also allegedly ranted and laughed at "the colonized Jewish mind," and noted that it "wasn't necessary to provide 'both sides' because 'we only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors.'"
"Employee 1 even refused to label Hamas - the militant group that raped, murdered, and kidnapped Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023 - as terrorists because that would 'dehumanize' them," the complaint said.
The end result, the complaint said, was an ethnic studies curriculum that paints "the State of Israel is illegitimate and is the product of 'European imperialism,' which is patently false."
"The narrative denies Jewish people their historic, millennia-old connection to the land of Israel, as well as their present-day right to self-determination in the place where millions of them currently live, which is dehumanizing," the complaint said.
"It goes far beyond a balanced critique of a foreign government’s foreign or domestic policies."
The complaint asserts the curriculum violates AB101, the state law that established requirements and guidelines for ethnic studies programs.
"AB101 states that 'it is the intent of the Legislature that local educational agencies not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination,'" the complaint said. "But that is exactly what SAUSD did.
"... They present one, partisan side of a controversial issue without adequate context and factual information to allow students to separate fact from opinion and to draw their own conclusions from a full set of facts."
According to the complaint, when it came time for the board of education to vote on the new curriculum, the process was hurried and also did not comply with the state's open meetings law, allegedly to again prevent public input.
They are seeking court orders requiring the Santa Ana school district to comply with the state laws.
In a statement issued after the lawsuit was filed, the school district released a statement saying: “The district denies these claims and will present counter arguments and facts to the court for consideration and is optimistic that the court will ultimately find in favor of the district."
The Bradeis Center is serving as both plaintiff and counsel in the case. They are joined in the action by the Anti-Defamation League.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs include Daniel L. Shallman and Zachary R. Glasser, of Covington & Burling LLP, of Los Angeles; Marci Lerner Miller and Christina Harvell Brown, of Potomac Law Group PLLC, of Newport Beach; Marc D. Stern, of the American Jewish Committee, of New York; L. Rachel Lerman, of the Brandeis Center; and James Pasch, senior director of national litigation for the ADL.
In a statement, Shallman said: "The shocking evidence our team has uncovered shows that SAUSD deliberately tried to keep the public in the dark about the extreme biases and antisemitism that infected the District's ethnic studies curriculum. In doing so, SAUSD violated state law."
And Pasch, of the ADL, said: “As the evidence shows, the district intentionally hid information from the public, to try to get away with teaching antisemitic lies to the next generation in Santa Ana. The antisemitism that infected this process sent a clear message to Jewish students and families that their voices are not welcomed, and that they were intentionally excluded.”