Jewish Groups Criticize East Bay School Board for Approving Contract With Anti-Israel Ethnic Studies Group

Various Jewish groups are criticizing a school board in the San Francisco Bay Area for unanimously approving a contract with an ethnic studies group that they say promulgates antisemitism and “anti-Israel narratives.”

The pro-Israel education group StandWithUs first broke the news that the Hayward Unified School District Board of Education unanimously approved a $35,395 contract with the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) during the district’s July 27 board meeting. StandWithUs noted that the LESMCC was established by those who crafted and supported “the deeply problematic and widely criticized first draft of California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC).” The “deeply problematic” hyperlink goes to a July 19 letter from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus expressing concern over the first ESMC draft’s omission of antisemitism as well as the fact that it accused Israelis of manipulating the media and placed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement “alongside domestically-focused civil rights movements.” The “widely criticized” hyperlink goes to an August 2019 Los Angeles Times editorial calling the first ESMC draft a “melange of academic jargon and politically correct pronouncements. It’s hard to wade through all the references to hxrstory and womxn and misogynoir and cisheteropatriarchy.” The editorial also called the curriculum draft “one-sided.” “There’s nothing wrong with students studying the Black Panther Party or the Third World Liberation Front or the Occupy Movement or the Palestinian-led BDS movement,” the Times editorial stated. “But what happened to studying a range of ideas, reflecting a variety of ideologies and perspectives, and having students take sides, dispute and debate those ideas, honing their research and thinking in the process, and ultimately deciding for themselves? This curriculum feels like it is more about imposing predigested political views on students than about widening their perspectives.”

StandWithUs noted that the leadership of the LESMCC “has smeared the ADL as a ‘white supremacist’ group and attacked California’s Legislative Jewish Caucus. Its website has targeted other mainstream Jewish organizations as well, and promoted the false narrative that Zionism is a ‘colonial ideology,’ erasing 3,000 years of the Jewish people’s history in their ancestral home.” Among the links that StandWithUs provided was a link to LESMCC’s website archived via Wayback Machine of the LESMCC’s website calling the ADL, Simon Wiesenthal Center and Jewish Community Relations Council as being part of the “Zionist backlash” against “the development of authentic anti-racist curriculum to ensure an Israel-friendly analysis. They want to prevent teachers and students from making connections between the US and Israel as white settler states, or apartheid-era South Africa and the current apartheid in Israel.”

StandWithUs also noted that the LESMCC partnered with several other “like-minded organizations” in January to establish the National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition; one of these organizations is the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), the head of which has said that “bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world.” The LESMCC had also scored a contract with the Castro Valley Unified School District in January but lost their contract with Napa Valley Unified School District in May.

“Giving taxpayer funds to LESMCC sends a message that the district does not care about the well being of Jews, Israelis, or anyone who values critical thinking,” StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement. “Ethnic studies courses should help build understanding of marginalized communities, fight racism, and empower students to make our society better for everyone. Unfortunately, LESMCC has repeatedly taken the opposite approach, fueling hatred and division across California and beyond.”

Other Jewish groups echoed Rothstein’s criticism.

“The Hayward Unified School District apparently ignored guidance from California’s new Ethnic Studies law and adopted a contract with the drafters and supporters of a curriculum long ago rejected by the State Board of Education for being antisemitic and discriminatory,” ADL Central Pacific Regional Director Seth Brysk said in a statement to the Journal. “The leaders of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium produced a curriculum which contained antisemitic and extreme anti-Israel bias and excluded antisemitism from the glossary of different forms of oppression and prejudice. During a period when violence and hatred towards the Jewish community is at an all-time high, HUSD has opened the schoolhouse doors to antisemitism and bigotry.” He added that the contract “invites the drafters and supporters of a curriculum that includes the excised antisemitic and anti-Israel content that runs afoul of the Education Code into classrooms. It creates conditions that may expose students, including Jewish and Israeli students, to antisemitic and gratuitous anti-Israel content and likely violates district policy, the state Education Code and the new law.”

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Northern California Director Rabbi Serena Eisenberg told the Journal in a statement that the Hayward board’s decision was “risky and disappointing.” “The LESCC repeatedly promotes biased materials that were expressly rejected by the California State legislature and Department of Education,” she said in a statement. “AJC cautions the Hayward School District to ensure that ethnic studies courses will be taught in a balanced and inclusive manner, and not advance unlawful discrimination or a hostile environment for students of Jewish ethnic origins. Moreover, the issue was placed on a consent calendar designed for routine matters, and so the School Board’s approval did not benefit from public input.  We hope that the Hayward Unified trustees were simply unaware of the implications of their vote this week and will reach out to AJC and other community organizations for guidance.”

Progressive Zionists of California Executive Director Susan George urged the Hayward school board to rescind their contract with the LESMCC, telling the Journal that the LESMCC’s “leadership has a long track record of anti-Jewish bigotry that is unacceptable for California’s tax dollars to fund. It is imperative school district curricula does not reinforce bigotry of any kind. We urge them to reach out to Jewish community leaders in education, such as the Anti-Defamation League, JIMENA [Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa], or the San Francisco JCRC for guidance on ethnic studies education that fulfills the core mission of Assembly Bill 101: to educate and empower all California students.”

San Francisco JCRC CEO Tye Gregory said in a statement to the Journal: “We are deeply troubled that Hayward Unified has contracted with an organization that is hostile to the Jewish community. In response, we are calling on district leadership to ensure its ethnic studies curriculum is both free of bias and inclusive of the Jewish American experience.”

AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin told the Journal that “the danger of this development cannot be overstated.” “Liberated leaders were responsible for drafting the initial dangerous and grossly antisemitic ethnic studies curriculum roundly rejected by Governor Newsom, the State Board of Education, all Jewish communal organizations, and California’s Jewish Legislative Caucus, whose members warned that such a curriculum would ‘marginalize Jewish students and fuel hatred and discrimination against the Jewish community,’” she said in a statement. “And what Hayward just signed is a contract hiring Liberated to assist with teacher training and professional development, and in many ways that’s even more problematic than the specific Liberated curriculum because what’s being taught is a ‘Liberated’ approach, and that approach will actually train a teacher to be able to take any curriculum, even a benign multicultural one, and create an antisemitic Liberated ethnic studies course. Liberated’s approach will undoubtedly unleash dangerous bigotry and enmity — especially antisemitism — into California classrooms.

“And as if it wasn’t bad enough, Liberated is also pushing to make its ethnic studies curriculum a requirement for entering the UC school system — meaning all private school and Jewish day school students will also be required to take it — and many Liberated members and supporters are faculty on UC and CSU campuses involved with teaching the next generation of k-12 ethnic studies teachers,” Rossman-Benjamin added. “In addition, new legislative efforts are afoot that would require all K-12 ethnic studies teachers to be certified not just in social studies, as is the case now, but specifically in ethnic studies. Not surprisingly, Liberated’s executive director and other Liberated supporting ethnic studies faculty on CSU and UC campuses are behind this effort.  It is high time state elected officials intervene to prevent Liberated from hijacking our state’s high school and university classrooms.  They are gaining serious ground and even greater antisemitism will be directed at our children if they are not stopped.”

Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper also said in a statement to the Journal: “Jewish communities across California must take action with their local school boards to ensure that the ethnic studies program rejected by the State does not become the actual curriculum of local school boards. Action is needed from grassroots, such as been exhibited in San Diego and elsewhere where the pernicious ethnic studies program continues to be peddled.”

The LESMCC and members of the Hayward school board did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment. The school district declined to comment to The Jewish News of Northern California about the matter.

UPDATE: Michael Bazeley, Director of Public Information and Government relations for the Hayward Unified School District, said in an August 1 statement to the Journal that the district “strongly and unequivocally condemns all forms of hate, including racism and antisemitism. The board policy on Ethnic Studies, adopted in June of last year, advocates for teaching Ethnic Studies with fidelity to the discipline. Jewish Studies and Israeli Studies are not part of the Ethnic Studies discipline. However, that will never preclude those topics from being included in other parts of our students’ curriculum, such as the teaching of U.S. history of immigration, World War II, the Holocaust, and post-World War II to present-day instances of antisemitism.”