The development of Santa Ana Unified School District’s “liberated” Ethnic Studies curriculum was infused with anti-Semitism, contends the latest filing in a Brown Act lawsuit against the district by the Anti-Defamation League, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Covington and Burling.
“Evidence uncovered during discovery supports the Plaintiffs’ allegations that the Board kept information about proposed ethnic studies courses “under the radar” (in the words of one employee) to prevent the public, and the Jewish community in particular, from becoming aware of antisemitic and unlawfully biased content in ethnic studies curricula,” according to a statement released yesterday by the plaintiffs.
The SAUSD created a Steering Committee to develop its Ethnic Studies curriculum, which including SAUSD Trustees Rigo Rodriguez and Carolyn Torres.
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The lawsuit claims Rodriguez and Torres drove the committee according to their personal ideologies and stacked it with cronies who share their radical views of history, pedagogy and injecting politics into classroom instruction, while shutting out diverging viewpoints.
Rodriguez is a Chicano Studies professor at Cal State Long Beach and Torres is an Ethnic Studies Curriculum Specialist for the Anaheim Union High School District.
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The plaintiffs cited several examples bias, bigotry and closed-mindedness by Steering Committee members:
After they learned about the Jewish community’s concerns about anti-Semitism in Ethnic Studies plans, members of SAUSD Ethnic Studies Steering Committee noted in an official agenda that they would need to “address the Jewish question.”
Senior officials joked about using Jewish holidays to approve courses at the Board level to avoid Jews from attending those meetings.
- The Steering Committee hired a radical “liberated” Ethnic Studies consultant whose writings equate Israel with “settler colonialism” and who uses social media to actively promote anti-Israel bias with anti-Semitic tropes, including a post about “Zionist control of the CA Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum” and a comment that the Legislative Jewish Caucus needs to “stay in their lane,” claiming “the Zionist CA Jewish Caucus hijacked Ethnic Studies,” as well as “a small white minority” should not “dictate a curriculum that is not about them.”
- A Steering Committee leader referred to the only Jewish member as a “colonized Jewish mind” and a “f—ing baby” for expressing concerns over antisemitism on the Committee.
- An SAUSD Board member suggested that Jewish Americans do not belong in Ethnic Studies because they are “racialized as under the White category.”
- A Steering Committee leader denounced the Jewish Federation of Orange County as “racist Zionists” and urged the SAUSD not to “cave” to their representatives.
- Members of the Steering Committee reportedly said, “Jews are not a disadvantaged ethnic group in the U.S. because they were never slaves,” that “Jews greatly benefit from white privilege, so they have it better,” and “we don’t need to give both sides. We only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors.”
- Jewish staff members at SAUSD wrote about how they were “sick” of the “thinly veiled antisemitism” coming from Steering Committee leaders and were “hurt by some of things” they “said about Jews.”
The current five-member Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education is easily the most radical and left-wing education body in Orange County. Since coming to power after the 2020 elections, they have focused on ideological priorities with a damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead determination, imposing radical policies with unanimity and almost no discussion.
They adopted the first round of Ethnic Studies curriculum in May of 2023, slipping it onto the agenda with no fanfare and giving the public little opportunity for input before rubber-stamping the “liberated” handiwork of Rodriguez, Torres and their Steering Committee comrades.
“Liberated” Ethnic Studies is a reference to the state’s original draft Ethnic Studies curriculum that was developed in 2019. It came under such heavy fire from historians, normal academics and the public that it was withdrawn and the Advisory Committee that generated it was put on ice. One of those Advisory Board members was Roselinn Lee, an Ethnic Studies teacher for the SAUSD and progressive activist. She is the only SAUSD employee to serve on the Advisory Committee,
Members of the Jewish community got wind of the adopted anti-Semitic content after the fact. When thy mobilized at the subsequent Board meeting and ask the district to pull back to give them a chance to provide input on the biased and historically inaccurate curriculum, Board members brushed off their concerns.
Besides extreme Ethnic Studies curriculum, these actions include deliberately de-emphasizing patriotism as a value the district should cultivate in students, and beginning each board meeting with a statement claiming school district property was stolen from Native Americans.
Two trustees, Rodriguez and Alfonso Alvarez, are running re-election. Alvarez was convicted of drunk driving in late 2023.
Trustee Carolyn Torres opted not to run for re-election.
