Santa Ana School District Sued for Allegedly Secretly Introducing Anti-Semitic Lessons

The Santa Ana Unified School District is facing charges for allegedly violating public assembly laws and secretly holding classes for its ethnic studies program – courses that Jewish advocacy groups say contain anti-Semitic material.

District officials must defend the lessons they approved last year after grappling with how to teach the history of Israel and Palestine in a way that both communities consider accurate and fair.

The hearing was originally scheduled for September 19, but was postponed to October 25 after the publication of this article.

Jewish advocacy groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, allege that district leaders violated state public assembly laws in putting together the courses to conceal anti-Semitic material.

To read the complaint, Click here.

To mark the occasion, Santa Ana Unified School District officials created world history courses after introducing a graduation requirement for anthropology in 2020, following the state model.

Marci Miller, director of legal investigations at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law – a plaintiff in the lawsuit – said in a telephone interview Thursday that district officials' efforts to keep the public out of the design of these courses were deliberate.

“Through the disclosure of the records, we learned that there was certainly an intent to exclude the Jewish community from all aspects of the curriculum. The public has a right to be involved in these things,” Miller said.

“In a legislative body, you cannot have these secret meetings and secret curriculum developments behind closed doors, and that is exactly what we have here.”

The lawsuit accuses numerous courses of containing a lot of anti-Semitic material.

“Based on the publicly available materials (and it is unclear if this is all of them), at least five SAUSD board-approved ethnic studies courses, including ethnic studies courses in world history, English, and world geography, contain one-sided anti-Israel tirades and propaganda that teach students – falsely – that Israel is an illegitimate, 'settler-colonized,' 'racist' country that has 'stolen' land from a pre-existing country called Palestine and is waging a baseless war against Palestinian Arabs,” the lawsuit states.

In response to questions from Voice of OC last week, school district spokesman Fermin Leal texted a statement denying the allegations made in the lawsuit and said the district would defend its actions in court in the coming weeks.

“The district disputes these claims and will present rebuttals and facts to the court for consideration and is optimistic that the court will ultimately rule in the district's favor,” the statement said.

The lawsuit alleges that district officials violated the open meeting law to prevent opposition from the Jewish community by failing to properly describe class agenda items and failing to protect community members from harassment at school board meetings.

Advocacy groups also allege that the district held private steering committee meetings to develop the courses. Their lawyers say they obtained text messages between two high-ranking district officials about approving Passover courses to avoid input from the Jewish community.

The groups are now asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to prohibit the county from conducting courses they say were illegally approved in secret, and instead require the courses to be created through a public process that allows for public participation.

James Pasch, senior director of the Anti-Defamation League's national litigation division, said in a press release last month that government agencies are required by law to hold public meetings to avoid such situations.

“As the evidence shows, the district intentionally hid information from the public in order to get away with teaching anti-Semitic lies to the next generation in Santa Ana. The anti-Semitism that permeated this process sent a clear message to Jewish students and families that their voices are not welcome and that they were intentionally excluded,” he said.

Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director of the Arab American Civic Council, defended the courses at last week's school board meeting, saying it was important to teach ethnic studies so students could learn about the history of marginalized communities, including Palestinians.

“The targeting of this district is part of a broader smear campaign aimed at silencing our voices and banishing Palestinians from areas like the Santa Ana School District,” he said.

“Anti-Semitism is real. Anti-Palestinian hatred is real. But you don't fight hatred by removing Palestinians from the curriculum and public discourse,” Al-Dabbagh said.

The logo of the Santa Ana Unified School District. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, voice of OC

In court filings late last month, lawyers for the Jewish advocacy groups claimed that an aide said school board members Carolyn Torres and Rigo Rodriguez ran committee meetings like a dictator.

They also allege that a committee chair referred to a Jewish member as a “colonized Jewish mind,” committee chairs placed an item titled “The Jewish Question” on the agenda of a closed committee meeting, and Jewish staffers privately raised concerns about anti-Semitism with committee chairs.

In an email response to questions, Rodriguez said he had been advised not to make any public statements about the lawsuit.

Other members of the Santa Ana Unified School Board did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

In a response letter from district attorneys attached to the complaint, the officials denied violating the Brown Act – California's main open meetings law – on the grounds that they had provided sufficient information on the agenda items.

“The public was adequately informed that the ethnic studies curriculum would be provided to the Board for information and that the public had a right to comment on the curriculum,” the lawyers wrote in August 2023.

“Listing each curriculum by name and including the term ethnology in the description is sufficient to inform the public of what would be discussed by the board.”

In the letter, the lawyers also said that a review of a district meeting found no incidents of intimidation and that school board members intervened when public speakers were interrupted.

“Although some inappropriate comments were made, the meeting was overall orderly and peaceful, given the strong emotions on both sides of the discussion related to the Israel-Palestine conflict,” the letter said.

The lawyers also wrote that the board intends to more vigorously enforce its civility policy at future meetings.

Lessons about Palestine and Israel in Santa Ana

The offices of the Santa Ana School District. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, voice of OC

The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Brandeis Center filed the lawsuit last year, months after district officials approved two courses with lessons on Palestine and Israel.

The courses approved in April 2023 included watching a video by B'Tselem – an Israeli human rights group – titled “Firing Zone 918 – An Exercise in War Crimes” and reading a book titled “The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing” by Michael Mann, a research professor of sociology at UCLA.

The materials and curriculum were criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Orange County as biased and anti-Semitic, prompting district leaders to rethink their approach to the courses.

In response, Palestinian and Arab-American advocacy groups urged district leaders to maintain the current course, arguing that it was not anti-Semitic but contained facts and fairly represented the Palestinian voice and the reality of life in Gaza and the West Bank.

[Read: Santa Ana School District Struggles With How to Teach Palestinian & Israeli History]

Basha Jamil, a policy manager at the Council on American Islamic Relations, said at the school board meeting last week that understanding the plight of Palestinians is a crucial aspect of ethnic studies.

“Our education should not be shaped by political agendas that seek to hide the reality of ongoing oppression and genocide,” she said.

“It is essential that we educate people about anti-Semitism. However, we must ensure that legitimate criticism of the State of Israel is not confused with anti-Semitism.”

Miller said her lawsuit is essentially about the way the courses were created, not their content.

However, she said some of the materials demonized Israel and the Jewish people.

She also said that to properly teach ethnic studies, districts should follow the state's model curriculum and not promote bias or bigotry.

“We support ethnic studies and want all voices to be heard. No one here is trying to silence anyone,” Miller said.

“We are simply trying to ensure that the entire community and the entire public have the rights and access to the developments that they are entitled to.”

Update: The story was updated to reflect that the trial continued from September 19 to October 25 after this article was published.

Hosam Elattar is a reporter at Voice of OC and a corps member of Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @ElattarHosam.

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Santa Ana School District Sued for Allegedly Secretly Introducing Anti-Semitic Lessons

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