Court Rejects “Jewish, Zionist” Teachers’ and Parents’ Lawsuit Over Allegedly Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Zionist School Curriculum
From today’s decision by Judge Fernando M. Olguin (C.D. Cal.) in Concerned Jewish Parents & Teachers of L.A. v. Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium:
The Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles …, “an unincorporated association comprised of Jewish, Zionist Los Angeles teachers who teach in the [Los Angeles Unified School District] and Jewish, Zionist parents of children who are students in the LAUSD,” initiated this action on May 12, 2022….
As an initial matter, the court notes that plaintiffs’ [Complaint] is difficult to understand and contains a morass of largely irrelevant—and sometimes contradictory—allegations, few of which state with any degree of clarity precisely what plaintiffs believe defendants have done or, more importantly, how plaintiffs have been harmed. Indeed, so confusing are the allegations that plaintiffs spend approximately a third of their Omnibus Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Defendants’ Motions, endeavoring to explain exactly what they contend their [Complaint] alleges—and, at times, attempting to walk back certain allegations or add new ones. The lack of clarity is particularly troubling given that this is plaintiffs’ fourth iteration of their complaint….
In any event, plaintiffs’ claims appear to revolve around the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (“LESMC” or “challenged curriculum”), a set of teaching materials developed by an independent non-profit organization that has not been adopted by LAUSD. Plaintiffs allege that as of 2020, LAUSD has required high school students to take an ethnic studies class and “integrate ethnic studies into PreK-8 curricula.” Plaintiffs claim that the UTLA and Consortium defendants—the non-District defendants—have advocated for implementation of the challenged curriculum and “are inserting, or attempting to insert” these materials into LAUSD schools….
According to plaintiffs, the challenged curriculum “denounces capitalism, the nuclear family, and the territorial integrity of the lower 48 states of the United States[,]”and is designed “to expunge the idea of Zionism, and the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel, from the public square[.]” Plaintiffs allege there is “rank discrimination embedded in the LESMC,” because the challenged curriculum, among other things, “includes statements that the existence of the State of Israel is based on ethnic cleansing and land theft, apartheid and genocide” and that “Zionism is distinct from Judaism.” Because the challenged curriculum contains anti-Zionist material, plaintiffs allege that the curriculum is antisemitic….
The court rejects plaintiffs’ claims on various grounds, which it discusses in too much detail to render here. But here’s a good big-picture summary of a key part of the court’s concerns:
[B]eyond the particular, claim-specific failures outlined above, it must also be noted that significant First Amendment concerns underlie plaintiffs’ claims and requested relief. In effect, plaintiffs seek to litigate the propriety and legality of a potential curriculum with which they disagree. Their claims thus conflict with
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