A Lesson in Hate

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A Lesson in

the HATE

By SHELLA ALCABES & RACHEL WIEGEL Litigation Counsel / Outreach Coordinator

As if their agenda wasn’t toxic enough already, California teachers’ unions have started trafficking in anti-Semitism.

Over the past

several decades, young Americans have begun to embrace a very different perspective regarding the Middle East conflict compared to previous generations.

They have become increasingly sympathetic towards groups like Hamas that their parents would have viewed as enemies of freedom and democracy, while showing open hostility to the country’s traditional allies in Israel.

It’s what they’re learning in school.

It is no secret the union-led public school system in America makes a habit of rewriting history it finds inconvenient and indoctrinating, rather than educating, young minds.

To a degree many would have con-

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sidered unthinkable just a few years ago, the lessons being taught are overtly, and radically, anti-Semitic.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in California, where teachers’ unions dominate the public schools and public-sector unions dominate the Legislature as much any other state in the nation.

Case in point, June 2021, when the Freedom Foundation was able to obtain a copy of a motion request letter being circulated to educators by United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz “denounc(ing) the Israeli Army” and demanding teachers (and, by extension, students) stand with Palestinians, who she describes as “the most oppressed workers” in the world.

Many teachers in Los Angeles were understandably outraged when this document was not only sent to them by the union representatives but accompanied by pressure to sign it and show they agreed with its toxic message.

During this time, many union leaders also scurried to social media to express their contempt for Israeli residents and anyone who feels compassion for them.

Once apprised of the situation, the Freedom Foundation immediately sent mail and emails to UTLA members exposing this divisive language and urging them to cease funding Myart-Cruz’s bigotry with their dues.

Hundreds of teachers consequently opted out of UTLA, and many community members have become more watchful of antisemitic behavior within the Southern California school district.

Not to be outdone, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has also gotten into the act.

AFT president Randi Weingarten — herself a Jew — was quoted earlier this year asserting, “American Jews are now a part of the ownership class.”

The incomprehensible remark came in response to a question about Jewish criticism of her union’s push to keep schools closed during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Weingarten added, “What I hear when I hear that question is that those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.”

Her vile comments mirror the familiar stereotypes and scapegoating Jews have endured for centuries.

Undaunted, the teacher’s unions in California have continued to push this issue through the state’s new Ethnic Studies curriculum requirement.

The program is the brainchild of a consulting group calling itself Liberated Ethnic Studies, which develops and sells a curriculum to school districts to fit this new legal requirement.

Numerous high schools across the state have already purchased these lesson plans and are poised to implement it in the 2022-2023 school year.

Teachings of this course promulgate a distinctly anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian agenda — at a cost of more than $82,000 a pop to the school district and its taxpayers.

Needless to say, a state of California’s size has an enormous number of Jewish residents. Los Angeles alone has the second-largest Jewish population in the country.

Many Jewish and Zionist community members in these districts are justifiably concerned about the hostility towards Israel being whipped up by the teachers’ unions and taught in the state’s schools, fearing Jewish students will be subjected to violence.

Castro Valley School District in the Bay Area, for example, has been outspoken about its proud adoption of the LES curriculum.

However, a group of teachers, parents, and students there is fighting back, noting that the district “…claims it is committed to ensuring the inclusion and belonging of all students and families with its tagline ‘All Means All.’ However, it appears this declaration comes with a notable exception: Jews not included.”

To add another layer of pressure, the University of California is considering imposing a new admission requirement that would require all applying California high school students to have taken the highly controversial Liberated Ethnic Studies course.

The UC system, which has a history of taking its marching orders from CTA, includes nine of the state’s most prominent universities.

A petition expressing outrage was signed by more than 1,000 UC students, faculty, alumni and donors demanding the university not add this new requirement — which, if passed, would be only the second amendment to UC admissions policies in the past century.

Dozens of California educators have already reported experiencing the implications of these agendas in their schools.

Many history teachers say they are pressured by union reps and administrators to teach a “revised history” of the Middle East, and some have been told not to refer to Israel as a “real country.”

Jewish parents, in turn, report their children are being bullied and treated as if they are evil, while others feel they must hide their heritage to avoid discrimination.

Since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling banning mandatory union membership and dues in the public sector, thousands of California teachers have fled CTA. More than a few have cited its anti-Semitic agenda for their decision.

Likewise, the legality of Critical Race Theory in schools is both complex and controversial. Schools are generally allowed to teach the curriculum of their choosing, so long as it complies with the state statutes and education requirements laid out by the California Legislature.

Further, teachers have a substantial amount of academic freedom in the curriculum they teach.

However, that academic freedom can come in direct conflict with the First Amendment rights of teachers and students.

Since the Legislature’s adoption of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum on March 18, 2021, this required ethnic studies curriculum includes, among much other racist propaganda, antiSemitic content because it leads to the portrayal of Jews as “white, privileged oppressors” and Zionism as a “racist, colonialist system of oppression.”

In Ethnic Studies classrooms, where students will be required to “dismantle systems of oppression,”

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Criticizing Critical Race Theory

As a Jewish attorney at the Freedom Foundation, the issues in California relating to the Model Curriculum are near and dear to my heart.

What is particularly appalling to me, however, is the bizarre victimhood hierarchy critical race theory requires Jews to accept.

Jews are an ancient race that has been suffered thousands of years of discrimination and subjugation.

Yet at the same time, in most places where they have lived in the diaspora, they have thrived and contributed immensely to the nations in which they were living.

This contradiction does not square with the principles of critical race theory, which ranks minorities based on power and powerlessness, based on success and failure.

Jews do not fit the Critical Race Theory mold.

Nor should they — or any group, for that matter.

The entire paradigm is evil, un-American and illiberal, and we should do everything in our power to fight this indoctrination.

— SHELLA ALCABES

Jewish and Zionist students will undoubtedly have a large target on their backs.

Requiring teachers and students to role play and utter phrases they find vile, wrong, harmful and anti-Semitic will unquestionably result in a violation of those students’ First Amendment rights.

This kind of coerced speech requirement shreds the legala doctrine of “unconstitutional conditions,” which states that one cannot be required to give up a constitutionally protected right, such as freedom of speech, in order to maintain a government benefit, such as public education.

In some cases, the imposition of a quid pro quo is blatant and obviously wrong.

In Speiser v. Randall, California required veterans to affirmatively acknowledge their loyalty to the federal government as a condition to receiving certain tax exemptions.

This clearly infringed upon the veterans’ First Amendment rights, with the government using a financial carrot (a tax benefit) to coerce individuals into not speaking out against the government.

In other cases, the conditioning is less obvious. American Communications Association v. Douds is such a case.

In Douds, an agency of the federal government refused to allow labor groups access to government facilities unless the officers of the groups executed affidavits relating to communism.

The Supreme Court ruled, “(T)he fact that no direct restraint or punishment is imposed upon speech or assembly does not determine the free speech question. Under some circumstances, indirect ‘discouragements’ undoubtedly have the same coercive effect upon the exercise of First Amendment rights as imprisonment, fines, injunctions or taxes.”

In the case of the anti-Semitic “Model Curriculum,” it’s clear the unconstitutional condition is most applicable to situations where schools will be forced to include teaching that is dictated or guided by the Legislature or potentially lose a public benefit.

This legal theory has not yet been tested in court and will likely have much success in private schools that receive public funding.

That said, it is one possible avenue for fighting the Model Curriculum.

Other legal considerations may have to take a personal injury approach. For example, if the school environment becomes dangerous or hostile to students and teachers as a result of the Model Curriculum’s implementation, a student or teacher may consider suing under a tort claim for harassment or workplace violations. The difficulty with each of these legal theories is that none is yet ripe for adjudication.

Once the Model Curriculum is implemented fully in schools and students and teachers are actually affected by it, a suit may rightfully be brought.

Until that time, the injuries are still just hypothetical and no court would be willing to hear these cases preemptively.

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