A third-party group is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by two Jewish support groups — the Louis D. Brandeis Center For Human Rights Under Law and StandWithUs — that alleges Jewish children have been subjected to ongoing antisemitism in public schools.
The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit also names as defendants the state Board of Education, Department of Education and Superintendent Tony Thurmond. The complaint highlights what it calls “unchecked antisemitism festering in school districts across the state,” including Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Campbell Union, Berkeley, Fremont, Etiwanda and Oakland.
The two groups are seeking statewide injunctive relief, asking the court to order monitoring of schools where antisemitism is a problem, elimination of antisemitic curriculum and instruction, prohibition on segregation of Jewish students, mandatory antisemitism training for teachers and administrators and limits on school funding for schools that allegedly fail to enforce non-discrimination policies.
On Monday, attorneys for the group California Right to Learn and Belong notified the court that they intend to seek intervention as a party in the lawsuit in order to protect their rights. One CRLB member, Sarah Jarmon, says in a sworn declaration that the group exists for the purpose of intervening in and participating in legal proceedings, advocacy and organizing to protect the rights of California students and families to access, and teachers to provide critical and complete education.
Issues of concern to the group are Palestine and its history, culture and current events as well as Israel, ethnic studies, white supremacy, settler colonialism and U.S. “militarism,” according to Jarmon, a Jewish resident of Oakland.
“We consider the Palestinian-liberation perspective as part of our Jewish heritage and we pass that on to our children,” Jarmon says. “Our children see us going to the protests against the genocide, and they see that as Jewish people, we cannot stand for injustice.”
CRLB attorney Eleanor Morton states in her court papers that she discussed the proposed intervention with all of the current parties, and all said they opposed the effort. No reasons were provided for the parties’ opposition to the intervention.
According to the lawsuit filed Feb. 26, the state departments are violating the state constitution, including its equal protection and free exercise clauses, by allegedly failing to take action against antisemitic discrimination in the state’s public schools. The agencies have primarily ignored matters when California public schools permit, and at times encourage, an ongoing hostile environment for Jewish students, the suit further alleges.
The agencies also know that many California teachers use class time to teach antisemitic and biased anti-Israel propaganda and to lead students in off-campus walkouts that support Hamas and demonize Israel, the suit alleges.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, at Kester Elementary School, a third-grade Jewish student was called a racist by her teacher and barred from performing in the talent show unless she agreed not to use her poster which included a picture of the Israeli flag, the suit states.
Meanwhile, at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School, a Jewish honors student was forced to sit through his teacher’s antisemitic celebration of the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis, while at Louis Armstrong Middle School, a teacher repeatedly meted out unfounded discipline to a seventh-grade Jewish student who wore a Star of David necklace and Israel-related shirts to school, the suit states.
Jewish students are the victims of “cruel, persistent and pervasive antisemitism” in public schools, according to the suit, which further states that non-Jewish pupils have called their Jewish peers antisemitic names and also assaulted them.
The lawsuit also documents what it says are multiple instances in which teachers or unions have facilitated the spread of antisemitism into California classrooms, including the Oakland Education Association, which allegedly created an unapproved curriculum that recycles antisemitic propaganda and age-old antisemitic tropes. The curriculum featured, among other things, a children’s book for Oakland’s transitional kindergarten through third-grade students that proclaims, “I is for Intifada,” the suit states.
The plaintiffs allege the lawsuit was necessitated by the “systemic failure and seeks to ensure, going forward, that California’s Jewish students are protected and have access to an education free from discrimination.”