Calif. school district crafted secret plan to promote anti-Semitic curriculum: lawsuit

A California school district allegedly tried to cover up an anti-Semitic ethnic studies program.

A motion filed last week by the Anti-Defamation League accuses the Santa Ana Unified School District of purposefully violating California's Brown Act, which mandates open meetings, to secretly craft and approve an anti-Semitic curriculum, Fox News reported.

ADL filed the lawsuit in September 2023 on behalf of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish civil rights organization, and the Brandeis Center's membership arm, Southern Californians for Unbiased Education.

The motion claims to provide new evidence to support claims the school district violated the Brown Act.

The Brown Act, passed in 2021, mandates taking ethnic studies for graduation from California public high schools. The act also requires that school boards apprise the public of the course's proposed curriculum and allow for public comment before approval.

The ADL claims the lawsuit aims to prevent teaching anti-Semitism in the school district while the board goes through the mandated approval process.

The lawsuit also seeks a declaration the school district violated the Brown Act, an injunction preventing the school district from teaching unlawfully approved courses, and an order requiring that officials follow open meeting laws going forward.

The discovery period of the lawsuit revealed a note in the school district's official agenda that it needed to "address the Jewish question" when the district learned about anti-Semitism concerns from the Jewish community.

School district officials reportedly considered approving courses on Jewish holidays to reduce the likelihood Jews would attend board meetings.

Board members reportedly said, "Jews are not a disadvantaged ethnic group in the U.S. because they were never slaves."

Others reportedly claimed that "Jews greatly benefit from white privilege, so they have it better" and that "we don't need to give both sides. We only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors."