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  • North Valley Military Institute shuts down amid widespread controversy

    North Valley Military Institute shuts down amid widespread controversy


    Cadet medics simulate taking a patient into a helicopter during an NVMI Summer Camp.

    Credit: Courtesy of Mark Ryan

    The North Valley Military Institute — a grades six-12 charter school founded in 2013 — voluntarily surrendered its charter and closed its doors permanently on Aug. 25, leaving nearly 800 students and 180 employees in the Los Angeles area without a place to learn and work.

    Both NVMI officials and community activists who called for the school’s shutdown have said the closure was months in the making.

    Officials of the charter school blame the closing on accommodation problems as NVMI relied on space at several LAUSD campuses. They told EdSource that their decision to surrender the charter at the Aug. 25 meeting — where five of its 10 board members also resigned — resulted from the school’s inability to secure a single, permanent campus location.

    Community advocates, however, cited a long history of problems, including letters from the Los Angeles County Office of Education detailing alleged misappropriation of funds, unqualified teachers and insufficient services for students with disabilities. The advocates have also pointed to poor standardized test scores and academic performance plus widespread written complaints of bullying and sexual assaults in the school.

    Community advocates who have called for NVMI’s closure over several years have also blamed the Los Angeles County Office of Education for having permitted the charter to continue operating, despite all the allegations. But LACOE spokesperson Van Nguyen said in a statement to EdSource that the county office is “committed to upholding accountability, quality education and maintaining a high standard of financial responsibility among educational institutions within our community.”

    Nguyen also said in a later email that the North Valley Military Institute is one of 15 charter schools authorized by the county office of education since 1997 that has been “revoked, non-renewed, terminated and self-closed.” Only 25 of the 40 charter schools remain open.

    It was not until Aug. 17 — four days before the charter school was scheduled to start the new year — that parents were notified via email that the school would be closed, but only for the 2023-24 academic year.

    “As the captain of the NVMI ship, I am responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen here, and ultimately, I am singularly responsible for not being able to overcome the challenges that we have faced,” said NVMI’s superintendent, Mark Ryan, in the email to parents. “An apology is so inadequate, but I am sincerely sorry for not being able to get us over the finish line and operate this school year.”

    More than 95% of students enrolled at NVMI are from underrepresented minorities, the bulk of whom are Hispanic or Latino, according to state enrollment data.

    Ryan said most of the charter school’s students will not be able to attend other schools — including ones they may have previously attended — because they have been suspended, expelled or have been in juvenile hall.

    Many expressed concern about how the students would fare in a different school setting.

    “They pride themselves with serving students that are at risk,” said Carl Petersen, a community activist. “And … I’m afraid those kids are going to fall through the cracks.”

    Despite concerns that not every student will find a school that will take them, NVMI hosted an enrollment and deployment fair for students and their families to help them determine the next steps.

    More than 25 schools, as well as LAUSD representatives, attended the event, Ryan said. The previous Tuesday, Aug. 15, NVMI held a virtual version of the event for those who were unable to attend in person.

    “We want to help! Los Angeles Unified has reached out on multiple occasions to support all families and students,” according to a statement released by the district on Aug. 18.

    “Given the school year has started for many students, the district reiterates our readiness to collaborate with families to ensure their children are in school immediately, and we call upon NVMI to do the same.”

    On Aug. 22 — several days before NVMI surrendered its charter and five days after parents were notified — the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which issued NVMI’s charter, sent a “notice of concern” to Ryan, Daniel Villanueva, the board’s chairperson and the rest of the board about the charter school’s noncompliance with both its memorandum of understanding with the county office of education and state law.

    The letter specifically states that NVMI’s vote to shut down may have violated the memorandum of understanding between the LA County Office of Education and NVMI, which states the charter would remain effective even if the school becomes non-operational and until the school completes the mandated closure procedures.

    It also stated that the agenda for the Aug. 25 special meeting was not provided with adequate notice under the Brown Act — which requires school boards to publicly an agenda for special meetings 24 hours ahead of the meeting time — and claimed that the Spanish translations “may not have accurately conveyed the intended meaning.”

    “We feel it is important to update NVMI concerning future advanced appointments for its school,” the letter reads. “Based on the action taken by NVMI’s Board, NVMI will not receive any further advanced apportionments for the 2023-24 school year, pursuant to a directive provided by the California Department of Education.”

    Abysmal academic performance

    During the 2021-2022 academic year, based on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, only 15.81% of NVMI students across all grade levels met or exceeded state standards in English language arts, while only 3.22% met or exceeded math standards. In science, 4.17% of NVMI students met or exceeded state standards, based on the California Science Test.

    Previously, in the 2013-14 academic year, the year the school opened, NVMI did not have any reportable SAT scores because of the low number of students who completed the exam, according to staff findings on the North Valley Military Institute College Preparatory Academy.

    In 2015-16, the same staff findings revealed that the average SAT score for NVMI students was 1,235 on a 2,400 point scale — below LAUSD, county and state averages. Only 11.1% of NVMI students tested above the median score.

    No students at NVMI completed AP exams during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. In the 2015-16 academic year, 13 students took AP exams, but none passed with a 3, the staff findings show.

    Ryan said this is largely because the students who come to NVMI are already years behind their peers but that the school had a number of academic supports for students, resulting in about 90% of its students successfully completing a college course before graduating.

    “I would love to improve standardized test scores,” Ryan said. “But I do think that there are these other, you know, metrics that you can point to: the number of kids who are successfully completing A through G requirements, the number of kids who successfully graduate. You know, those are very, very important metrics that, ultimately, are much more important for a kid’s adult life than whether or not they did well on a standardized test.”

    Staffing concerns

    In a Dec. 1, 2022, letter from the LA County Office of Education to Ryan, Villanueva and the school board outlined a series of violations of the law and the Memorandum of Understanding under which the charter operates. Among the violations was an allegation that the school failed to provide evidence of 11 teachers’ credentials.

    “For 10 of these staff members, it could not be determined if they held any California teaching credential or English Language Authorization,” the letter continued.

    It also noted that seven teachers did not have the correct credentials; one had an expired credential, and six did not have the correct EL authorizations.

    The letter states that NVMI was notified of the concerns on Oct. 5 of the concerns, but that it failed to resolve them as of Dec.1.

    Ryan attributed the problem to a hardship in finding teachers. “Everybody, this most recent school year, struggled with finding fully credentialed teachers to teach in every single classroom, and NVMI was no exception.”

    But were the people the school hired qualified to teach? Ryan explained, “We absolutely struggled to find people that were fully credentialed. But … when we found somebody that we thought would be a good teacher — who had at least a bachelor’s degree, who had demonstrated basics … so that they would qualify for the equivalent of an emergency credential — we did hire multiple people in that situation.”

    Inadequate support for students with disabilities

    The Los Angeles County Office of Education also stated in the letter detailing a series of concerns about the school’s operations that 37 special education students at NVMI had overdue individualized education program meetings — and that there were “15 students with a total of 1,240 minutes of owed services.”

    Ryan said in response, that yes, NVMI occasionally had overdue IEPs or owed services, but not currently. “As of June 2023, when the most recent school year ended, there were no overdue IEPs and no owed service minutes.”

    Allegations of bullying and vandalism

    In a series of written complaints, community members alleged that there was widespread harassment and vandalism from NVMI students toward members of their host campuses, particularly the VOCES campus.

    NVMI “is a school that has subjected the communities in which it has tried to operate to chaos over the last year in particular,” alleged Hans Johnson, the president of East Area Progressive Democrats, which has called for action against the charter for years. “The pattern of misconduct … and neglect of its students … is extremely disturbing.”

    On Dec. 17, 2022, German Gurrola, the co-location coordinator at VOCES Magnet, wrote an email to county office of education officials detailing a series of incidents involving alleged harassment— a couple of which were against students with special needs.

    They ranged from verbal harassment to throwing trash to cases where NVMI allegedly threatened to take over shared spaces.

    “We tried really hard to not purposely, to not intermingle with the Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies’ community, not because we were trying to be separatist, but because we knew from co-location stories,” Ryan said in response, adding that students at both schools were “equally guilty.”

    “In every case where anything was ever reported to us, or we became aware of anything, even if it wasn’t reported to us, we [took] appropriate disciplinary action … and it’s not a fair statement to say that we somehow encouraged it.”

    Gurrola’s email said he was only aware of one incident where a VOCES student was involved, but that the student had been a previous NVMI student.

    “There is constant harassment by NVMI students towards our students and staff, including harassment by NVMI staff,” the email alleged. “This is creating a climate that affects our socio-emotional learning environment and places undue stress on our students, staff and families.”

    A separate 2017 lawsuit alleged that NVMI students were victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by the school, LAUSD and Brice Tschappat, an administrator hired to assist with the annual summer camp. The lawsuit also argued that LAUSD, which supervised and oversaw the charter at the time, allowed the sexual abuse of NVMI students.

    The sexual abuse accusations include alleged exposure to sexual language and pornographic images and a claim that an NVMI administrator “assaulted and battered at least one of the minor plaintiffs.”

    Alleged misappropriation of funds

    On March 7, the county office requested an audit of NVMI, which is still in progress, according to Nguyen. The county office did not, however, respond to questions about whether NVMI complied with the audit.

    “Based on our review of receipts and internal documents of NVMI’s recent leadership retreat, there is reason to believe that fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred,” the audit request reads, stating that the school “mismanaged and misappropriated” $90,000 of public funds to conduct a leadership retreat in Las Vegas.

    The letter also cites an internal staff bulletin that promises NVMI staff fully paid daytime family activities — ranging from bowling to trips to a water park — as well as group tickets to the “Tournament of Kings” show and “America’s Got Talent,” among others.

    A Dec. 8, 2022, email from Ryan to the county office of education admitted that NVMI “used one-time ESSER dollars for the staff well-being activities,” and that non-employees attended the events as well.

    The request letter further alleges that Local Control Funding Formula money was used to serve breakfast — with $2,300 being incurred by non-employees — and demanded that NVMI provide a complete list of its expenditures from the retreat.

    Ryan explained that the retreat was necessary for staff and that they spent most of the time at the retreat working.

    “This was a very sincere working retreat, where 100% of the people who were in attendance can attest … that this was not just some, you know, some junkets to Vegas for people to go gamble and enjoy themselves. This … was absolutely hard work.”

    Looking back

    Support for the charter has waxed and waned over the charter’s decade of existence, Ryan said, adding that several community members expressed apprehension about having a military academy in Los Angeles.

    “This school has served a very special niche,” Ryan said. “There is a population of kids who have simply not been successful in traditional public or private schools, kids who have been suspended, expelled, justice-involved youth, foster youth, homeless youth, kids with significant learning differences … for whom the traditional special education programs have not worked.”

    “This school was founded on the premise that military structure … and culture could really provide a place where students who haven’t necessarily been successful in other places, where they could be successful.”

    For eight years, NVMI administrators have relied on LAUSD campuses to house their school, Ryan said. And each year, they would have to go through a process outlined by Proposition 39, under which LAUSD would offer NVMI a space to locate the charter, usually within the campus of another school.

    Toward the end of the 2021-22 academic year, LAUSD made an offer that would place NVMI on two district campuses. NVMI filed a lawsuit against the district in response, alleging that the offer was illegal and that the charter school could have been housed on a single campus, Ryan said.

    The complaint accused LAUSD of “splitting our campus, upsetting the military culture of the school, causing us financial challenges, causing us operational challenges.”

    LAUSD declined to comment on the multisite offer or lawsuit.

    Ryan said he eventually convinced NVMI’s school board to accept LAUSD’s offer and do their best to operate on multiple campuses. During the split-campus operations, NVMI started each day with a gathering of all NVMI students at the VOCES campus in order to be able to engage in military formation, before busing students to the other locations for the rest of the school day.

    In the spring of 2022, Ryan said LASUD came back with their 2023-24 campus site offer that would require NVMI to operate its school from four different campuses, including three LAUSD campuses.

    NVMI’s board knew that a lawsuit would be costly, Ryan said, adding that they were “dipping significantly into our financial reserves” that had accumulated to nearly $3.8 million.

    “At that point, because we knew we had burned through so much of the reserve … I recommended to my board there’s just no way we can do this. We simply cannot operate another year the way that we operated in ’22-23,” Ryan said. “We went through way too much money, killed staff who were working terribly hard to be able to make this very complex operational plan come to fruition, and it was difficult on families. It was difficult on kids, and it was financially simply not sustainable.”

    As a result, the board made a decision this spring to suspend only the middle school for the 2023-24 academic year.

    Meanwhile, Ryan said the school board realized on July 5 that they didn’t have a campus site. In negotiations, they agreed to lease a five-story building from the Foursquare Church, costing the school $60,000 monthly. Rent at the LAUSD campuses, by comparison, was significantly lower, totaling more than $73,000, according to Ryan.

    Ryan said they submitted “a material revision” to the LA County Office of Education that would have amended the charter with the updated church location.

    “Almost immediately, there was more upheaval, and there was an outcry that, ‘Well, gee, you know, this is a public school … giving public money to a church,’” Ryan said.

    The city of Los Angeles said a public school could operate on the church site but that acquiring the necessary change of use permit could take years. These promises from the city, Ryan noted, were made verbally and not in writing.

    Ultimately, Villanueva, the school board’s chairperson, said deciding to close the school was the “biggest disappointment” of his life.

    “Our heart was always full,” Villanueva said. “{We thought): ‘Let’s give this one more try … to literally not only turn every stone but every pebble and every grain of sand in our house up until last week.’”





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  • Buffeted by change, California charter schools continue to grow amid scrutiny

    Buffeted by change, California charter schools continue to grow amid scrutiny


    A student at Rocketship Public Schools in San Jose works on a math problem.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • Charter schools’ enrollment has grown slowly since the pandemic; they now serve one out of eight TK-12 children in California.
    • Most charter schools will seek renewal within the next three years under new rules.
    • High-profile cases of fraud have led to calls for tighter controls, with bills now before the Legislature.

    California charter schools are having a strong year — at least by one metric: enrollment. As the state’s traditional public school population continues to decline, charter school enrollment has risen to nearly 728,000 students, accounting for 12.5% of all public school students across 1,280 campuses and independent study programs.

    Most charter schools are also performing well academically. In the 2023-24 California School Dashboard, 16.5% of charter schools earned the highest performance rating, qualifying them for renewals of five to seven years. An additional 76.8% are eligible for five-year renewals, while just 6.7% face closure.

    However, this growth comes amid increasing scrutiny. State lawmakers are pushing for stricter financial oversight following high-profile fraud cases, while local districts now have more authority to reject charter petitions. Teachers unions are gaining influence within charter schools.

    Looming is the potential for another religious charter school case making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, adding more complexity to the already politically charged environment. If the court rules in favor of taxpayer funding of religious charter schools, it could have significant implications for public education funding and policy at the state level. Combined with the uncertainty over the future of the U.S. Department of Education and the Trump administration’s support for private school vouchers, the charter school sector faces political challenges not unlike those of 1992, when California enacted its charter school legislation.

    The tension is annoyingly familiar to Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). Despite charter schools’ successes in academic achievement, dual high school and community college enrollment, and competitive admission rates to the University of California and California State University for Black, Latino, and low-income students, Castrejón described the current political climate as a “bare-knuckle” fight.

    “Every year we have to rally our troops and tell our stories and speak to legislators about who we are and who we serve and why our mission is so important,” said Castrejón. “I can’t sit here and say charter schools are doing great and the politics are better — they are not. Make no mistake, we still have opponents who are not going to stop until they strip out our autonomy entirely and/or cripple us.”

    Fraud and oversight

    A key focus of that anger is Assembly Bill 84, introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. The bill aims to enact sweeping anti-fraud reforms proposed in a trio of reports released last year, following the largest charter school fraud in California history.  

    Muratsuchi, who is running for state superintendent of public instruction in 2026, told EdSource that he has no intention of “going after the charter schools that are acting responsibly and providing good educational services for their kids.” AB 84, he added, “is about going after the bad actors that are committing fraud and engaging in corruption through the current lack of transparency and accountability that we have with our statewide charter oversight system.”

    The most notorious case involved A3 Education, a network of 19 virtual schools whose operators stole over $400 million in public school money by falsifying student enrollments. A3 exploited “a completely failed system not designed and operated to protect itself from theft,” said Kevin Fannan, a former San Diego County deputy district attorney who worked on the case. While this was an extreme case, charter advocates acknowledge the sector’s vulnerabilities and are among those calling for stronger safeguards.

    “We are not in denial that we have a problem,” said Eric Premack, founder of the Charter Schools Development Center (CSDC). “It’s extraordinarily painful for us to have even a slow drip of these.” But Premack, Castrejón and other charter advocates believe that Senate Bill 414, which they sponsored, offers a more targeted solution than AB 84, which they view as imposing onerous administrative provisions that have nothing to do with fraud. Both bills have passed their respective houses and will ultimately be amended before a final version is approved and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Nonclassroom-based schools’ rapid growth

    The rapid expansion of “nonclassroom-based” charter schools presents challenges in regulation, but the term itself is a “misnomer,” according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) in their anti-fraud report commissioned by the state Legislature. Under state law, a charter school is classified as nonclassroom-based if less than 80% of instruction occurs in a traditional classroom. As a result, hybrid programs, like those that require students to attend classes three days a week, fall into the same category as entirely virtual schools.

    For example, Northern Summit Academy (NSA) in rural Shasta County converted a former grocery store in Anderson into a dynamic learning hub for its 200 independent study students in transitional kindergarten through high school. The school offers optional in-person instruction in core subjects like math, social studies and science, as well as an enviable maker space with career technical education in fields such as digital embroidery, video production and robotics.

    The academy also provides career pathways in nursing, cosmetology, energy and power, and has a veterinary assistant program with state-of-the-art equipment that has a 100% employment rate for graduates. Students meet weekly, in person or online, with their teacher of record. Despite this hands-on learning, NSA is classified as nonclassroom-based. The LAO-FCMAT report found that nearly two-thirds of nonclassroom-based schools in 2023-24 used hybrid models where much of the instruction was in person.

    That still leaves more than 100,000 students in schools that are mainly virtual, and more are expected to seek authorization when a legislative moratorium on new nonclassroom-based charters ends on Jan. 1, 2026. These schools have attracted the most scrutiny due to their disproportionate problems with oversight, especially when authorized by small districts that stand to receive substantial income in oversight fees, which “raised some red flags for us about whether we can have quality authorizing in that situation,” explained Edgar Cabral, the LAO’s deputy legislative analyst for K–12 education. The LAO-FCMAT report identified 14 small districts in 2022-23 that authorized virtual charters whose enrollment far exceeded their district’s own, including most of the six districts conned by the founders of A3 schools.

    AB 84 seeks to limit enrollment in nonclassroom-based schools authorized by small districts, but critics argue this could undermine well-run programs and stifle the innovation that is a hallmark of the charter school movement.

    Kevin Humphrey, superintendent of Guajome Park Academy, based in Vista in Central California, notes that hybrid programs are essential for students who cannot thrive in traditional settings, offering flexibility for those facing anxiety, health issues or bullying. “These programs don’t just protect our students — they give them a future,” Humphrey said.

    Local vs. county

    About 84% of charter schools are authorized by local school boards. Nearly all the rest are under county offices of education. A few dozen that are authorized by the State Board of Education have until 2028 to find new authorizers under Assembly Bill 1505. Approved in 2019, AB 1505 was a sweeping charter reform aimed at giving local districts more control over charter authorizations. But there is growing concern among charter critics that more petitioners will bypass local school boards and turn to county offices, which are seen as more charter-friendly.

    Adam Weinberger, president of the California School Employees Association, the union representing school staff, decried it as a “blatant end run around local school boards,” undermining the intent of AB 1505.

    Adding to the pressure, more than 1,000 charter schools are due for renewal over the next three years due to a pandemic-era pause. This renewal process is a highly detailed and time-consuming task that will strain both local school districts and county offices of education. The rigorous evaluations required for renewals will assess each school’s academic performance, financial stability and legal compliance.

    Shrinking enrollment, increasing competition

    Ten to 15 years ago, large urban districts saw charter schools as a solution to overcrowded classrooms and split sessions. Now, with statewide enrollment at 5.8 million and declining, districts are competing with charters for a shrinking pool of students. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which once enrolled nearly 672,000 students, now serves fewer than 517,000, with charter students making up a record 28% of that total, costing the district about $2.8 billion in state funding. In recent years, the LAUSD board has become more wary of charters and is currently in a legal battle over its efforts to restrict charter schools from sharing campus space with district schools.

    Assemblymember Muratsuchi recognized that some districts with declining enrollments have “significant consternation with local charter schools taking away enrollment and enrollment-based funding.” But he also acknowledged that many families choose charter schools and “that is a reality that school districts need to deal with.”

    To win back and hold onto students, some districts are expanding choice programs, such as magnet schools and independent study programs. During the 2023-24 school year, more than 277,000 students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade were receiving at least half their instruction through independent programs run by districts and county offices of education, according to the California Department of Education.

    While charter enrollment is still rising, the pace has slowed, as has the number of new schools; only 12 opened in 2023 compared to 53 in 2019. Some long-running charters are closing due to enrollment declines. Downtown College Prep, which opened its first charter high school in San Jose in 2001, shut that campus and its two middle schools last month, citing a $4.5 million budget shortfall and a 35% drop in enrollment in six years.

    Pondering this trend, Tom Hutton, executive director of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, wonders if there will come a point in declining enrollment environments “where, even though choice is impactful, there just are too many schools — both district and charter — creating more risks of making all of them weaker instead of strengthening public education overall.”

    At this time, the organization’s most pressing concern is helping authorizers as they face political and public pressure to improve authorizing practices. Its mission is ensuring that charter students receive a high-quality education.

    “Charter schools were introduced to inject some new energy into addressing persistent challenges in California’s education system, especially for students with unique needs and those in underserved communities, and in many ways they have succeeded,” Hutton said.

    But, as the nation’s largest and second-oldest charter system, he added, “We’re experiencing growing pains and challenges in finding the right balance between continuing to innovate and committing to greater accountability. We see that as an opportunity to strengthen the system.” 

    Kathryn Baron is an education reporter based in California.





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  • LAUSD considers adjusting its Black Student Achievement Plan amid complaint

    LAUSD considers adjusting its Black Student Achievement Plan amid complaint


    Students at La Salle Avenue Elementary listen to a class presentation. The school is one of 53 schools in the first tier of the Black Student Achievement Plan.

    KATE SEQUEIRA/EDSOURCE

    The Los Angeles Unified School District is considering broadening the language associated with the Black Student Achievement Plan in an attempt to avoid investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, a move supporters fear could steer the focus of the program away from Black student achievement and wellness.

    The potential change in the Black Student Achievement Plan comes after Parents Defending Education, a conservative group with a track record of challenging schools’ efforts to promote equity, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in July, claiming the program violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it specifically supports Black students.

    “We are just starting to see the positive impact of BSAP, creating a positive and welcoming learning environment and greater access to culturally and racially responsive coursework and field trips due to dedicated BSAP staff members and community partners,” said school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin in a statement to EdSource.

    “With continued investments and support — not diluted or threatened programming —I look forward to seeing our Black students achieve in the ways that we all know is possible.”

    While program supporters say the complaint by Parents Defending Education is largely unsubstantiated, they fear any efforts to alter it in response could have consequences for students in Los Angeles and beyond.

    An LAUSD spokesperson said in an email to EdSource that the mission and operations of the program will not change and that “the district is ensuring that the associated language aligns with the law and practice by clarifying that BSAP operates in accordance with the District’s Nondiscrimination policy, based on applicable federal and state laws.”

    The Education Department has already warned districts to avoid programs that focus on one student group. In August, a month after Parents Defending Education filed the complaint, the department released a guidance letter to school districts in response to an uptick in complaints.

    “Schools may violate Title VI when they separate students based on race or treat individual students or groups of students differently based on race,” the guidance reads. “Schools also may violate Title VI when they create, encourage, accept, tolerate, or fail to correct a racially hostile educational environment.”

    The letter also adds that “a school-sponsored or recognized group or program with a special emphasis on race, such as a student club or mentorship opportunity, that is open to all students, typically would not violate Title VI simply because of its race-related theme.”

    The complaint  

    The complaint lodged by Parents Defending Education claims LAUSD’s Black Student Achievement Plan discriminates against students of other races. EdSource reached out to Parents Defending Education requesting an interview but did not receive a response.

    The program “directly responds to the unique needs of Black students but not students of other races,” the complaint alleges.

    “The District makes clear that the program is designed ‘to address the longstanding disparities in educational outcomes between Black students and their non-Black peers.’… And the District notes that the program is meant to address ‘[t]he perennial trend of black student underperformance; and to achieve ‘racial equity.’”

    The complaint against LAUSD includes two pieces of documentation: screenshots of the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan website as well as an overview of the program.

    But supporters of the district’s plan say the complaint lacks teeth — especially as it does not include a claim that anyone suffered or was discriminated against because of the program.

    Amir Whitaker of the ACLU of Southern California’s Senior Policy Counsel said he doubts the U.S. Department of Education will choose to investigate the district.

    Parents Defending Education’s goal, he said was about creating “hysteria about the complaint.”

    Parents Defending Education, which describes itself as a “national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas,” has levied complaints against educational agencies throughout the country, including in Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont and Oregon.

    “I think a lot of other districts and states are really reluctant to kind of engage in something that’s very race specific because of the ways in which we as a country …are not comfortable with having race conversations, despite the disproportion of Black students who are in special education … the number of Black students who are suspended, the high rates of Black students who are chronically absent,” said Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at UCLA.

    “So I wish we had just as much energy and anger around those data as we do around the fact that we think that (a law) might be violated.”

    Program’s impact 

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board approved the Black Student Achievement Plan in February 2021 after widespread community calls to action and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the racial reckoning that followed.

    The Black Student Achievement Plan cut the district police budget by more than 30% and vowed to uplift Black student achievement, create “culturally responsive curriculum” and fund a team of counselors, climate advocates and psychiatric social workers at 53 top-priority schools that collectively educate a third of LAUSD’s Black student population.

    “The ultimate beauty is that commitment to BSAP will … not only serve the Black students that have been disproportionately underserved for far too long. It has lots of implications on the district just improving as a whole,” said Christian Flagg, the director of training at Community Coalition, a foundation that aims to “upend systemic racism” and played a key role in the plan’s establishment.

    In 2011, a decade before the plan was established, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — which also received the Parents Defending Education complaint — conducted an investigation into LAUSD.

    The investigation found discrepancies in the treatment and experience of Black students in comparison to their peers, including the percentage of students admitted to the Gifted and Talented Education program, availability of technological resources, newness of textbooks, prevalence of teacher absenteeism and rates of discipline.

    In response to the investigation, LAUSD offered to enter an agreement to resolve the concerns.

    A survey of 2,300 students across 100 LAUSD campuses found that since the Black Student Achievement Plan rolled out, 87% of Black students had benefited from the program. Still, nearly half the students also said their schools do not have enough resources for Black students.

    Lindsey Weatherspoon, a senior at Venice High School who said she has benefited from the Black Student Achievement Plan, credits her campus BSAP counselor for helping her and her peers attend events at which some Historically Black Colleges and Universities made on-the-spot admissions offers to seniors.

    Weatherspoon said she strongly hopes LAUSD will “stand strong in their decision to have BSAP and fund BSAP, and it’s not a situation where BSAP gets cut back.”

    “I hope, in fact, it gets expanded continuously to more schools, and the program constantly evolves because BSAP is not just something that happened overnight. It’s been years in the making. And it’s been the labor of love of several groups and community members and students and teachers pushing to get this program made.”

    The BSAP counselor, she said, gives students more personalized counseling and creates opportunities for Black students to spend time together, which is essential because “it’s really easy to feel disconnected from other Black students when you barely see any.”

    Weatherspoon said, “The thought that it could … be degraded from its original purpose or its original use is just mind-blowing and heartbreaking.”

    Moving forward 

    The Black Student Achievement Plan being compromised, either as a result of board action or the complaint itself, could lead to greater consequences for both the district and for the nation, the program’s supporters say.

    Channing Martinez, co-director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, said that the program is “not saying that Latinx students or white students or other students don’t deserve equal access to opportunity, but it is saying that Black students have not had equal access.”

    He added that while the district may be concerned about Parents Defending Education’s complaint, LAUSD could also face lawsuits or complaints from organizations supporting the program if they dilute the program.

    “In 2020, you had George Floyd, and it was pretty easy in the board’s mind to defund the school police as a measure of saying that they’re going to stand with Black students, but this year we don’t have George Floyd. But that doesn’t mean that the lives of Black students don’t matter,” Martinez said.

    “It does really put us in a really tight spot in which we want to believe in the Black Student Achievement Program. But at the same time, it almost feels as if we are stuck in this program, and that they are using this program to say ‘Look, we’re doing something for Black students.’”

    Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an “equity multiplier” that would grant $300 million in ongoing funding to the state’s poorest students in an effort to uplift Black student achievement. But some critics of the proposal said it would not do enough to specifically support Black students.

    Howard, the UCLA education professor, described the nature of the complaint by Parents Defending Education as racist because there has been little opposition to other programs designed to support different groups of students who are more vulnerable, including students with disabilities and those struggling with homelessness.

    Programs like the Black Student Achievement Plan are hard to come by, Howard said. And if the complaint succeeds, he is concerned it could deter other schools throughout the state and nation from developing similar programs.

    “Essentially, it says we’re fine with Black failure. We’re fine with Black underperformance. We’re fine with Black students consistently not experiencing schools in a way that their peers do,” Howard said. “That’s to me the bigger takeaway message. And why do we feel so comfortable with that?”





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  • ‘Happy, but tense’: LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity

    ‘Happy, but tense’: LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity


    Jackie, a Maywood Academy High School graduate, wrapped the Mexican flag around her gown as she looked for her mother in the crowd after the ceremony.

    Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Top Takeaways
    • Students and families experienced a mix of joy and anxiety before and during ceremonies.
    • Commencements remained safe amid regional ICE presence.
    • LAUSD deployed school police and communities established volunteer efforts to ensure safety.

    Maywood Academy High School’s graduation Thursday was classic in a county where nearly half its population identifies as Latino. 

    Students decorated their caps with photos of loved ones and messages of gratitude to God and their immigrant families. A student’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was met with cheers from the crowd; some graduates carried lavish bouquets of roses, commonly known as ramos buchones; their guest speaker was a prominent record label owner pivotal in the rise of corridos tumbados, a now-mainstream genre of Mexican American music with a stronghold in Los Angeles; some students’ stoles featured flags from both the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala — their families’ home countries. 

    Among them was Jackie, a graduating senior who plans to study cosmetology at Cypress College in the fall. She was wrapped in the Mexican flag, and in Spanish, her cap read: “For my mom, who arrived with nothing and gave me everything.” 

    “I’m first-generation — everything is for my mami,” said Jackie, who declined to share her last name out of fear of immigration raids by federal agents. “I’m proud of my culture.”

    Anxiety about immigration enforcement actions was omnipresent. They have largely targeted predominantly working-class, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods like Maywood, a densely populated city that is just over 1 square mile wide.

    “I apologize to you for the words of many who insult and demean and diminish your parents, in some cases yourselves, and I have to admit to you, me. For I am you,” said Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was once an undocumented immigrant, during the ceremony.

    Children of color make up the great majority of the district’s students, with nearly 75% identifying as Latino or Hispanic. And with families hunkering inside their homes to avoid potential interactions with ICE, many parents and relatives of this year’s graduates took the risk to celebrate.  

    “I’m so proud of her because she’s always worked hard,” said Rocio, Jackie’s mother. “We’re here with fear because of everything that is happening. And, we’re happy — but tense.” 

    On June 9, Los Angeles Unified announced a series of protocols to keep graduations as safe and normal as possible. 

    District police forces were deployed and formed a “perimeter of safety” around each LAUSD site where a graduation took place. Families were welcome to stay at the graduations as long as possible to avoid contact with ICE, and principals were instructed to avoid lines so parents didn’t have to wait on the streets. 

    The measures proved effective. And graduation ceremonies across Los Angeles Unified’s 86 senior high schools were not interrupted by any sign of immigration authorities’ presence. The final graduation ceremony is scheduled for Monday evening. 

    “We made a promise that our graduations are an extension of the school experience, therefore they’re protected spaces,” Carvalho said. 

    At the heart of ICE raids in Los Angeles

    Part of the Maywood Academy campus sits within the city limits of Huntington Park, where, on the early morning of graduation day, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was present at an ICE raid at the home of a pregnant U.S. citizen. 

    On Friday, the day after the graduation, immigration agents were seen accosting and detaining people in Maywood. In the days leading up to the ceremony, immigration agents chased day laborers at the local Home Depot in Huntington Park.

    And then there was the unspoken awareness that one of their peers, a 17-year-old Maywood Academy sophomore, was one of the hundreds of Angelenos recently detained by immigration agents. On June 3, 18 months after fleeing violence in their home country of Guatemala, Johanna, alongside her mother, Elizabeth, and youngest sister, Jessica, were detained by ICE while attending a scheduled immigration court appearance for their legal asylum case. The family declined to share their last name out of security concerns.

    Maywood Academy graduates accept their diplomas. Some wore stoles featuring flags from the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala — their families’ home countries. (Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales)
    Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Johanna’s father, Hector, suddenly stopped receiving messages from his wife and daughters soon after they arrived at the court, and then they vanished for two days. He and his third daughter, Dulce, searched for them on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s website. By the time their information appeared on the site, they had been transferred to a detention center in Texas, where they remain as an attorney handles their case.

    “I want my daughters to grow up and realize all their goals in the United States,” said Hector. “They’re all so intelligent, hardworking, and really amazing people to serve this country.”

    Before the ICE raids started, his daughters had felt safe in their home and neighborhood.

    “They’re so happy here. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, and their school is nearby,” Hector said. “They’re really happy.”

    He said Maywood Academy is in constant contact, offering support, though the school declined to comment on the case. 

    Austin Santos, a geography and world history teacher who has taught both of Hector’s daughters in high school, said Johanna is on the path to becoming valedictorian and is “all-around a great student.” 

    “We made sure to tell the other students to be careful and used Johanna’s story to bring awareness to the situation because it’s not only happening at our school,” said Santos. “Her classmates and everyone around her — once the story broke, and they found out who was detained, they all rallied around her.”

    Beyond Maywood

    The area surrounding Maywood Academy is a hotbed of ICE activity. And it isn’t alone. 

    “We saw an ICE vehicle going toward St. George Church; I have friends in the court, and they’re not coming out; I saw two immigration officers on the sidewalk; there’s a community school nearby where the raid happened,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), reading Rapid Response notifications aloud during an interview with EdSource. 

    LAUSD was early to establish itself as a sanctuary district — and the school board unanimously affirmed its commitment to immigrant students in November. The resolution also vowed to “aggressively oppose” any efforts to make districts work with federal agencies on matters dealing with immigration enforcement. 

    Months later, administrators at Lillian Street Elementary and Russell Elementary, both in South Los Angeles, denied entry to two officials from the Department of Homeland Security. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KibeV-R_k

    “The district has acted superbly and bravely — and they have set up the atmosphere to … welcome everyone and ensure that every child, regardless of their immigration status or background, feels safe,” Cabrera said. 

    “They are an example for us to follow, and we will continue to collaborate with them on as many opportunities as possible.” 

    Roughly five and a half miles from Maywood, in Boyle Heights — the home of Roosevelt High School and Garfield High School — sightings of ICE agents and unmarked cars have become more common. A checkpoint was stationed just outside a freeway entrance. 

    At the same time, June 8 was supposed to be about celebrating. 

    But in a community like Boyle Heights, with its history of law enforcement violence, Roosevelt High social studies teacher Thalia Cataño said the district’s approach to commencement safety was “tone deaf.” Volunteers organized hours ahead of the graduation ceremony to have teachers, locals and members of CHIRLA’s Rapid Response team patrol the area. 

    At the same time, leading up to the ceremonies, students contemplated whether to have their families come and support them. Others wondered if they should attend their graduation.

    Most did. 

    And when the now-alumni of Roosevelt High returned to school on June 9 to officially wrap up their high school careers, they reminisced on the ceremony — the highs and lows. 

    “We’re there. We’re happy,” Cataño heard her students sharing. “But we’re looking over our shoulder … just waiting for anything to happen.” 





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  • ‘Happy, but tense’ – LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity

    ‘Happy, but tense’ – LAUSD graduations continue safely amid regional ICE activity


    Jackie, a Maywood Academy High School graduate, wrapped the Mexican flag around her gown as she looked for her mother in the crowd after the ceremony.

    Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Top Takeaways
    • Students and families experienced a mix of joy and anxiety before and during ceremonies
    • Commencements remained safe amid regional ICE presence
    • LAUSD deployed school police and communities established volunteer efforts to ensure safety

    Maywood Academy High School’s graduation Thursday was classic in a county where nearly half its population identify as Latino. 

    Students decorated their caps with photos of loved ones, and messages of gratitude to God and their immigrant families. A student’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was met with cheers from the crowd; some graduates carried lavish bouquets of roses, commonly known as ramos buchones; their guest speaker was a prominent record label owner pivotal in the rise of corridos tumbados, a now-mainstream genre of Mexican-American music with a stronghold in Los Angeles; some students’ stoles featured flags from both the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala — their families’ home countries. 

    Among them was Jackie, a graduating senior who plans to study cosmetology at Cypress College in the fall. She was wrapped in the Mexican flag, and in Spanish, her cap reads: “For my mom, who arrived with nothing and gave me everything.” 

    “I’m first-generation – everything is for my mami,” said Jackie, who declined to share her last name out of fear of immigration raids by federal agents. “I’m proud of my culture.

    Anxiety of immigration enforcement actions was omnipresent. They have largely targeted predominantly working-class, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods like Maywood, a densely populated city that is just over 1 square mile wide.

    “I apologize to you for the words of many who insult and demean and diminish your parents, in some cases yourselves, and I have to admit to you, me. For I am you,” said Los Angeles Unified superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was once an undocumented immigrant, during the ceremony.

    Children of color make up the great majority of the district’s students, with nearly 75% identifying as Latino or Hispanic. And with families hunkering inside their homes to avoid potential interactions with ICE, many parents and relatives of this year’s graduates took the risk to celebrate.  

    “I’m so proud of her because she’s always worked hard,” said Rocio, Jackie’s mother. “We’re here with fear, because of everything that is happening. And, we’re happy — but tense.” 

    Monday, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced a series of protocols to keep graduations as safe and normal as possible. 

    District police forces were deployed and formed a “perimeter of safety” around each LAUSD site where a graduation took place. Families were welcomed to stay at the graduations as long as possible to avoid contact with ICE, and principals were instructed to avoid lines, so parents didn’t have to wait on the streets. 

    The measures proved effective. And graduation ceremonies across Los Angeles Unified’s 86 senior high schools were not interrupted by any sign of immigration authorities’ presence. The final graduation ceremony is scheduled for Monday evening. 

    “We made a promise that our graduations are an extension of the school experience, therefore they’re protected spaces,” Carvalho said. 

    At the heart of ICE raids in Los Angeles

    Part of the Maywood Academy campus sits within the city limits of Huntington Park, where, on the early morning of graduation day, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was present at an ICE raid at the home of a pregnant U.S. citizen. 

    Friday, the day after the graduation, immigration agents were seen accosting and detaining people in Maywood. In the days leading up to the ceremony, immigration agents chased day laborers at the local Home Depot.

    And then there was the unspoken awareness that one of their peers, a 17-year-old Maywood Academy sophomore, is one of the hundreds of Angelenos recently detained by immigration agents. On June 3, 18 months after fleeing violence in their home country of Guatemala, Johanna, alongside her mother, Elizabeth, and youngest sister, Jessica, was detained by ICE while attending a scheduled immigration court appearance for their legal asylum case. The family declined to share their last name out of security concerns.

    Maywood Academy graduates accepting their diplomas. Some wore stoles featuring flags from the United States as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala – their families’ home countries. (Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales)
    Photo: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Johanna’s father, Hector, suddenly stopped receiving messages from his wife and daughters soon after they arrived at the court, and then they vanished for two days. He and his third daughter, Dulce, searched for them on Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s website. By the time their information appeared on the site, they had been transferred to a detention center in Texas, where they remain as an attorney handles their case.

    “I want my daughters to grow up and realize all their goals in the United States,” said Hector. “They’re all so intelligent, hardworking, and really amazing people to serve this country.”

    Before the ICE raids started, his daughters had felt safe in their home and neighborhood.

    “They’re so happy here. It’s a beautiful neighborhood, and their school is nearby,” Hector said. “They’re really happy.”

    He said Maywood Academy is in constant contact, offering support, though the school declined to comment on the case. 

    Austin Santos, a geography and world history teacher who has taught both of Hector’s daughters in high school, said Johanna is on the path to becoming valedictorian and is “all-around a great student.” 

    “We made sure to tell the other students to be careful and used Johanna’s story to bring awareness to the situation because it’s not only happening at our school,” said Santos. “Her classmates and everyone around her — once the story broke, and they found out who was detained, they all rallied around her.”

    Beyond Maywood

    The area surrounding Maywood Academy is a hotbed of ICE activity. And it isn’t alone. 

    “We saw an ICE vehicle going toward St. George Church; I have friends in the court, and they’re not coming out; I saw two immigration officers on the sidewalk; there’s a community school nearby where the raid happened,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), reading Rapid Response notifications aloud during an interview with EdSource. 

    LAUSD was early to establish itself as a sanctuary district — and the school board unanimously affirmed its commitment to immigrant students in November. The resolution also vowed to “aggressively oppose” any efforts to make districts work with federal agencies on matters dealing with immigration enforcement. 

    Months later, administrators at Lillian Street Elementary and Russell Elementary, both in South Los Angeles, denied entry to two officials from the Department of Homeland Security. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KibeV-R_k

    “The district has acted superbly and bravely — and they have set up the atmosphere to… welcome everyone and ensure that every child, regardless of their immigration status or background, feels safe,” Cabrera said. 

    “They are an example for us to follow, and we will continue to collaborate with them on as many opportunities as possible.” 

    Roughly five and a half miles from Maywood, in Boyle Heights — the home of Roosevelt High School and Garfield High School — sightings of ICE agents and unmarked cars have become more common. A checkpoint was stationed just outside a freeway entrance. 

    At the same time, Sunday, June 8, was supposed to be about celebrating. 

    But in a community like Boyle Heights, with its history of law enforcement violence, social studies teacher Thalia Cataño said the district’s approach to commencement safety was “tone deaf.” Volunteers organized hours ahead of the graduation ceremony to have teachers, locals and members of CHIRLA’s Rapid Response team patrol the area. 

    At the same time, leading up to the ceremonies, students contemplated whether to have their family come and support them. Others wondered if they should attend their graduation.

    Most did. 

    And when the now-alumni of Roosevelt High returned to school Monday to officially wrap up their high school careers, they reminisced on the ceremony — the highs and lows. 

    “‘We’re there. We’re happy,” Cataño heard her students sharing. “‘But we’re looking over our shoulder… just waiting for anything to happen.’” 





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  • Amid faculty objections, UC considers limiting what faculty can say on university websites

    Amid faculty objections, UC considers limiting what faculty can say on university websites


    UCLA campus in Westwood on Nov. 18, 2023.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    This story was updated on Friday to include that the UC Academic Senate urged the regents to reject the policy.

    In a move faculty say infringes on their academic freedom, the University of California will soon consider a policy restricting them from using university websites to make opinionated statements. Such statements have come under scrutiny since last fall, when some faculty publicly criticized Israel over its war in Gaza.

    The proposed policy, which goes to the system’s board of regents for a vote next week, would prevent faculty and staff from sharing their “personal or collective opinions” via the “main landing page” or homepages of department websites, according to a new draft of the policy. Faculty would be free to share opinions elsewhere on the university’s websites, so long as there is a disclaimer that their viewpoint doesn’t represent the university or their department.

    The final version of the policy may not be complete until next week. Regents accepted feedback from the university’s Academic Senate through Friday. Following a systemwide review, the Senate’s Academic Council is asking the regents to reject the proposed policy.

    Whatever the final version says, the fact that regents are considering the issue at all is alarming to some UC faculty. They argue that issues of academic freedom are outside the purview of the regents and question how the university would enforce the policy. And although the policy doesn’t explicitly mention a specific issue, faculty see it as an attempt to prevent them from discussing Israel’s war in Gaza.

    “At a moment when across the country, academic freedom is being challenged, we’re worried that the regents have lost their way on this issue,” said James Vernon, a professor of history at UC Berkeley and chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association. “I think it’s out of their purview, and I think they’re doing it for very obvious reasons. It’s about Palestine and the political positions of some regents.” 

    UC officials have said action is needed to ensure that faculty opinions are not interpreted as representing the views of the university as a whole. The regents previously discussed a similar policy in January but delayed a vote until March. At the time, one regent said the board was considering the policy because “some people were making political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians,” seemingly referring to the statements made by some faculty last fall in support of Palestine. 

    By only disallowing statements on “main landing pages,” the latest version is less restrictive than the policy initially proposed in January, which would have banned statements made on any “official channel of communication.”

    To some faculty, the issue was already settled in 2022, when the Academic Senate determined that UC faculty departments have the right to “make statements on University-owned websites,” so long as the statements don’t take positions on elections.

    “The Academic Senate came out with very clear recommendations,” said Christine Hong, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz. “We have a group of regents who are running roughshod over what you would think would be the core commitments of the university to academic freedom and to the principle of shared governance.”

    Some faculty find the revised version of the policy to be an improvement, including Brian Soucek, professor of law at UC Davis and previous chair of the UC Academic Senate’s university committee on academic freedom. While he remains concerned with the regents “micromanaging” what faculty departments can say, Soucek said the revised policy “is not a major threat to academic freedom,” given that it only limits what can be said on the main landing pages of websites.

    UC officials declined to comment on this story, saying only that regents would consider the policy at next week’s meeting. 

    Traced to Oct. 7 attack

    The new push to limit faculty statements can be traced to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with about another 240 taken hostage. Since Israel launched its military response, more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children.

    On Oct. 9, UC system leaders issued a statement condemning the Hamas attack as an act of terrorism resulting in violence that was “sickening and incomprehensible.” Several of UC’s campus chancellors also issued their own statements condemning the attack.

    In a letter the following week, the UC Ethnic Studies Council criticized UC’s statements, saying they lacked context by not acknowledging Israeli violence against Palestinians, including “75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid.” The ethnic studies faculty also said UC’s statements “irresponsibly wield charges of terrorism” and called on UC to revoke those charges. UC later said it stood by those assertions.

    UC ethnic studies faculty then engaged in a back-and-forth with regent Jay Sures. Sures wrote a letter responding to the Ethnic Studies Council letter, saying it was “rife with falsehoods about Israel and seeks to legitimize and defend the horrific savagery of the Hamas massacre.” The ethnic studies faculty subsequently criticized Sures for not condemning Israeli violence and called on him to resign.

    Sures also wrote in his letter that he would do “everything in my power” to protect “everyone in our extended community from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.” Now, Sures is the regent most fervently pushing the proposal to limit what faculty can say on UC websites.

    Since last fall, some faculty departments have displayed statements on their websites condemning Israel. The website for UC Santa Cruz’s critical race and ethnic studies department, for example, includes a statement calling on “scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide” to take action “to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” 

    Involving faculty

    UC isn’t the only university to move to restrict faculty from making political statements on department websites. 

    At Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college in New York, the department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies published a statement last fall expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine. The college removed the statement and then rewrote its policy on political activity to prohibit faculty departments from posting political statements on college-owned websites. The quick response prompted an outcry from some free speech advocates who criticized the college for making the policy change without consulting faculty.

    The American Association of University Professors, an organization that advocates for academic freedom, doesn’t have guidance regarding whether departments should take political positions, a spokesperson said. However, if universities are to create such policies, they should “be formulated through shared governance channels, with substantial faculty input,” said the spokesperson, Kelly Benjamin.

    In that regard, UC officials have made progress since January, Soucek said. 

    Prior to the January meeting, Soucek co-authored a letter to the regents urging them to reject the policy being considered at that time. Among other criticisms, Soucek wrote that the development of the policy was “sudden, opaque, and seemingly devoid of any collaboration at all” with the staff and faculty it would impact.

    Following the January meeting, regents shared a revised version of the policy with Academic Senate leaders, requesting their thoughts and giving them until this Friday to share that feedback.

    In an interview, Soucek commended the regents for “taking a breath” and accepting feedback on the revised policy. “That’s a great thing, and that’s what they should have done from the beginning,” he said.

    Even with the changes to the policy, some faculty still see it as a major threat. Hong, the UC Santa Cruz professor, is concerned with the intention behind the policy, even if the latest version is less restrictive than the original.

    Hong pointed out that UC’s general counsel, Charles Robinson, said during the January meeting that the intent of the policy was to “make sure that landing pages wouldn’t be associated with types of speech that the university would feel uncomfortable with.”

    Hong called that a “really striking disclosure,” saying that it violates the principle of academic freedom. 

    “Whatever revisions they make, we have to address what the intention behind this policy is,” Hong said. “This is a joke of an exercise. Why are we being forced to go through this?”

    Faculty also say it’s unclear how UC would enforce the policy. The revised version doesn’t define what constitutes an opinionated statement and states that the “administrator responsible for maintaining the website” will be responsible for “assuring compliance with this policy.”

    To Soucek, that suggests that the policy will be managed by UC’s IT staff. 

    “That’s how it sounds,” he said. “Our IT staff has enormous expertise. For most of them, it doesn’t extend to issues of academic freedom.”

    Whoever is ultimately in charge of scanning the many departmental websites across UC’s 10 campuses will have a “gigantic task,” said Vernon, the UC Berkeley professor. 

    “And then the next question is, who’s going to enforce it once they’ve actually found someone who’s violated this policy? That is really important to have clarified,” he said.





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  • Amid Israel-Hamas war, colleges draw lines on faculty free speech

    Amid Israel-Hamas war, colleges draw lines on faculty free speech


    University of Arizona faculty senate chair Leila Hudson, a Palestinian American, attends a board of regents meeting at the University of Arizona last November.

    Credit: Michael McKisson / Arizona Luminaria

    This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity.

    Leila Hudson treads carefully when discussing the Israel-Hamas war.

    As a Palestinian-American and the elected faculty chair at the University of Arizona, she says she has no choice.

    University policy forbids staff from using the college’s resources, including websites, computers and letterhead, to take a position on any ongoing public policy controversy, and it carries a mandate that staff who engage in political activity do so on their personal time.

    So when Hudson made a statement condemning the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 on behalf of the faculty senate, she made clear that she was speaking for herself when she said, “War crimes do not justify more war crimes. Terrorism does not justify terrorism.”

    In an interview, Hudson, an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, said, “I knew that I would be subjected to a higher degree of scrutiny and attempts to invalidate my speech if I didn’t frame it as my own individual opinion. And that was very deliberate.”

    In the seven months since the attacks that triggered the Israel-Hamas conflict, colleges and universities have struggled to strike a balance between defending free speech and denouncing hate speech. And as protests continue to grow on college campuses, faculty are becoming more visible, joining protests or issuing statements critical of university response.

    “As of late, certainly since October 7th, I think the lines are increasingly up for debate around controversy and conversation on campuses,” said Kristen Shahverdian, program director of campus free speech at PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression.

    Weeks after Hudson’s statement, the University of Arizona suspended two education professors who implied during a class lecture that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, a view that’s contrary to the U.S. State Department’s. Audio recordings of the comments went viral on social media. After weeks of student and faculty protests, the university reinstated the pair.

    The University of California’s board of regents is weighing a similar policy that would prohibit faculty from using some university websites to make opinionated and political statements.

    At Barnard College, a private all-women’s college in New York City, a decision to monitor and remove pro-Palestinian statements and other speech that administrators consider too political has drawn widespread condemnation. 

    “It’s heartbreaking. I believe in democracy, and I believe in knowledge as something that can contribute to democracy. The mission of higher education is to produce and share knowledge,” said Janet Jakobsen, a professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the college. 

    Shahverdian of PEN America said the war has affected “many, if not most campuses” across the country. 

    “What we want to advise against is that knee-jerk reaction to curtail free expression,” she added.

    UC mulls faculty ban 

    In California, the proposed policy before UC’s board of regents would prevent faculty departments from making political statements on the homepages of university-owned websites, something many faculty members say would infringe on their academic freedom. Faculty would be permitted to make statements elsewhere on the websites, with a disclaimer that the opinions don’t represent the university as a whole.

    Votes on the proposal have twice been delayed to get further input from UC’s academic senate. It’s next scheduled to appear before the regents in May, though it’s possible a vote could be delayed again.

    The regent driving the proposal, Jay Sures, said in an interview with EdSource that while he hopes the board approves the policy in May, he’s “not planning to rush anything.”

    “We want to get it right as opposed to having the time frame dictate anything around it,” he said.

    Sures maintains that the proposal protects academic freedom. He said it closely mirrors recommendations made by the academic senate in 2022, when the senate considered whether faculty departments should be allowed to make political statements.

    However, the senate recommendations would allow faculty departments to share statements on the homepages of websites, as long as there is a disclaimer.

    Senate leaders have called on the regents to accept their recommendations rather than create an entirely new policy. In a letter to the board, senate leaders said they are concerned that the proposed regents’ policy is ambiguous, offers “an overly broad and simplistic approach to a complex set of issues” and has the potential to limit free speech.

    “Freedom of speech and of inquiry are cornerstone values of the University of California. Faculty members should have the right to express their opinions, whether as employees or subject matter experts, even if their views differ from those of peers and senior leaders,” wrote the senate leaders, UC Irvine professor Jim Steintrager and UC San Francisco professor Steven Cheung.

    As the war in Gaza rages on, pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the country — from Columbia University in New York to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles — have ramped up.

    One case in California illustrates how divisive the free speech debates have become and how faculty can become entangled. In April, the dean of UC Berkeley’s Law School, who is Jewish, confronted a Palestinian student who staged a protest during a private dinner at his home. The incident, which raised concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia, grabbed international headlines.

    ‘A vexing challenge’

    In addition to UC, EdSource and the Center for Public Integrity contacted more than two dozen colleges and universities around the country, public and private, to ask about their policies on faculty and political speech. Just eight of the institutions replied. The responses ran the gamut, from state laws that mandate political neutrality to those that support free speech, albeit with conditions. And there was no political pattern with restrictions surfacing in blue states and red states.

    Regardless of a state’s leanings, high-profile institutions are under pressure from members of Congress and national conservative leaders.

    Barnard College was one of the first to create new policies restricting faculty speech after Oct. 7. The college generated headlines last fall when it removed a statement in support of Palestine from the website from the college’s department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies.

    The college then made changes to its policies governing political activity and what can be published on college-owned websites. Under the policies, faculty are barred from making political statements on any Barnard website or on social media websites “bearing a Barnard name.” Faculty also can’t display signs on campus that make political statements. 

    A spokesperson for the college did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    “This is a vexing challenge for campus leaders right now,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and former president of Mount Holyoke College, a private women’s college in Massachusetts.

    To Jakobsen, the new policies are a direct attack on academic freedom. For some faculty, making statements about Palestine is a way for them to apply their academic expertise to a global issue. For example, one of Jakobsen’s colleagues in gender and sexuality studies, professor Neferti Tadiar, has conducted research into why the occupation of Palestine is a feminist issue. 

    “We think about things very broadly. And then we share that expertise with the public,” Jakobsen said. 

    UC faculty feel similarly. In their letter to the regents, the senate leaders argued that department websites are often platforms for “scholarly communications” and a place to apply academic expertise to ongoing social and political issues. “Imposing blanket restrictions on personal or collective opinions could hinder scholarly discourse and limit academic freedom,” they said.

    University of Southern California’s policy does not allow use of the university’s logos, graphics or websites to express political positions. Faculty members “must be mindful when they speak or write as citizens to indicate that they are not speaking for the university, given that the public may judge the university by their statements,” the university’s faculty handbook states.

    At the University of Virginia, faculty should not post political positions on university-owned websites in a manner that implies institutional endorsement or support.

    The University of Chicago faculty are “free to speak or issue statements in their individual capacities, including on their individual faculty webpages hosted by their university,” a statement from the university read.

    State law requires schools in the University of North Carolina system to remain neutral on political controversies. The policy extends to content on university-owned websites and social media accounts.

    In a statement, the University of Michigan wrote that “freedom of speech and academic freedom are bedrock principles” but did not address whether university policy allows faculty to address political controversies on its website. After a group of students protesting Israel interrupted a cherished academic ceremony on campus in late March, administrators are weighing a policy that would penalize faculty, staff and students for activity deemed disruptive to university operations.

    In a letter to the university protesting the policy, the ACLU of Michigan argued that it will “almost certainly lead to discriminatory enforcement against disfavored speech” and harsh disciplinary outcomes.

    Public universities “should be especially sensitive to protecting and promoting the freedom of speech and expression of its students and faculty — especially when that speech is controversial or critical of the University,” the ACLU letter read. 

    As it considers its own policy, UC isn’t paying much attention to what other colleges are doing, according to Sures.

    “I believe we’re the leaders in many regards, in terms of setting a policy that most people or a lot of the universities tend to follow,” he said. “So what we do is we try to figure out the best policy for the University of California, what makes sense for our campuses, and go from there.”

    Most schools have policies that limit speech in some manner, said Alex Morey, an attorney who leads the Campus Rights Advocacy program at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. They may make promises about freedom of expression, but at the same time, they have policies on information technology, web hosting, harassment and bias reporting, Morey noted. “So there’s all these other policies that are sometimes written in a way that conflict with those broad protections of expression and freedom.”

    Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said that while faculty can speak freely as citizens, colleges and universities do not have to provide a platform or resources for exercising free speech rights.

    “Public universities have to pay attention to First Amendment rights. So I think they do have a special responsibility to promote the free exchange of ideas, the unfettered pursuit of the truth,” she said. “But there’s some responsibilities that go along with that. Your role as a faculty member in a public institution … imposes special obligations. And you’re likely to be judged not only in terms of your role as a citizen but as a representative of the institution.”

    While the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression advocates for free speech for faculty, staff and students, the organization encourages universities, administrators and trustees to remain institutionally neutral.

    It urges administrators to protect speech and academic freedom in all cases. The Israel-Hamas war has made that difficult for schools because it’s such a divisive issue that remaining neutral is seen as a political move.

    “The bigger the controversy, the more pressure on a university administrator, the more likely they are to be looking for a way to silence that speech rather than returning to core principles like free expression or academic freedom for controversial speech, even when it’s difficult,” Morey said.

    The American Association of University Professors advises universities to involve faculty leaders when developing any policies regarding academic freedom, including those that govern political speech.

    “It should not be simply unilaterally developed and imposed on the entire campus by a board or by an administrator,” said Michael DeCesare, a senior program officer with the organization.

    ‘Chilling effect’

    Hudson, the University of Arizona faculty chair, said campus policy reasonably prevents professors from using their authority to advocate for legislation and candidates. Still, the threat of being reported for addressing public policy controversies looms for her and other faculty members.

    When Hudson delivers her lectures on Palestine’s history, for instance, she has to consider if students with strong ideological opinions will file complaints that she’s breaking that rule.

    In the past, advocates have pushed back against policies and decisions that clamped down on speech about Israel.

    In 2015, the American Association of University Professors voted to censure the University of Illinois because it rescinded a job offer to a professor after he wrote social media posts criticizing Israel. Some donors complained that the messages were antisemitic.

    The professor, Steven Salita, successfully sued the university, winning an $800,000 settlement in a case that garnered national attention. The university’s chancellor resigned in the wake of the ruling.

    But that was an isolated case.

    “This seems a little bit different from that because that was one faculty member and his tweets,” said DeCesare of the American Association of University Professors. “This is now at the institutional level.”

    What’s troublesome to some organizations is that a different set of rules seems to apply to political speech on the Israel-Hamas war. When departments issue similar statements against police brutality, many colleges and universities don’t clamp down, said Morey with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

    “They’re making subjective judgments about what’s sufficiently political and which political views do we like and want to keep up, and which political views do we want to suppress. That’s very clear viewpoint discrimination,” she said. “They can’t start deciding which political views are acceptable or not.”

    The University of Arizona policy on faculty speech does not define public policy controversies, a term that could apply to a wide range of topics.

    One example: Republican lawmakers in the state are pushing legislation that would allow people with concealed carry permits to bring their firearms onto college campuses. Faculty members wanted to pass a resolution in opposition to the bill, but a professor argued the body should not weigh in because of the public policy controversy restriction. 

    The administration suggested that it didn’t apply in the case because the legislation would impact university operations. Faculty approved the resolution.

    In March, Hudson, the faculty chair, said she believes that in every state, “whether it’s red, blue or purple,” people have “a deep understanding” of the importance of free speech. But the recent crackdown by universities and law enforcement on pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country has her questioning that assumption.

    “The advance of knowledge depends on the ability to express, debate, test the unpopular, the improbable, the out-of-style topics that might enrage some people,” she said. “You need to be able to speak freely without fear or favor. That’s why students from all over the world have historically come to American universities. I hope that is still the case in the future.”





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  • Amid division, attempt to remove Fresno City College academic senate president fails

    Amid division, attempt to remove Fresno City College academic senate president fails


    Tenured communication instructor Tom Boroujeni, who is on involuntary administrative leave, spoke at the May 8, 2024, Fresno City College Academic Senate meeting, in which the senate voted on removing him as president.

    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    This story has been updated with the exact number of yes, no and abstention votes counted. The membership secretary for the academic senate provided the numbers to EdSource Thursday evening. A statement about the votes has also been clarified.

    The Fresno City College Academic Senate on Wednesday failed to take action on tenured communication instructor Tom Boroujeni, who has been on involuntary administrative leave since Nov. 30 but has refused to step down as president. 

    During the final meeting of the semester, not enough members of the senate voted to remove Boroujeni as president, and not enough voted to table the removal until next semester in August. Many senators abstained from the votes. Even though more instructors voted to remove him as president than to table the matter, without a majority, the academic senate will end the semester and likely start a new school year under the leadership of the president-elect and acting president, Jackie Williams. 

    It leaves the academic senate in limbo, said theater design instructor Christina McCollam-Martinez, who had filed two petitions to remove Boroujeni as president.

    “We can’t move forward; we’re stuck,” McCollam-Martinez said during the meeting. “When you don’t get to choose anymore, you get stuck; you don’t have an option.”

    Members of the senate were divided over whether a removal impacts due process, speaks to one’s belief about the allegations, puts the senate back on track or sends a message about faculty rights — a contention made by Boroujeni. 

    “I’m not doing that (stepping down) because I’m an advocate for faculty,” Boroujeni told his colleagues during the meeting, at which he had permission to speak, not as a member of the academic senate but as a member of the public. He did not speak as a community member, though, but twice during discussions by the senators.

    Boroujeni was put on leave following a Nov. 29 EdSource report that revealed that a Fresno State investigation determined that Boroujeni committed an “act of sexual violence” against a professor and colleague who also works at Fresno City College. Some professors canceled classes. Boroujeni denied that any sexual violence took place. He also claimed that the Fresno City College suspension stemmed from disagreements with State Center Community College District over academic policies.

    With a recent change in Fresno City College senate bylaws, the executive board recommended the removal of Boroujeni because his administrative-leave status caused Williams to become acting president with no one serving as president-elect, a key post on the executive board. 

    ”Voting to remove the current president is not about whether they did or did not do what they are on leave for,” said Alana Jeydel, a history and political science professor. “It’s simply about the fact that our senate can’t go for a semester or possibly longer with someone who hasn’t been here. … We need the person who’s been here for the past semester to keep working for us.” 

    No longer “silent” about what to do when an officer is on leave, the bylaws now state that a leave of absence can trigger a process to fill the vacancy. The bylaws of many academic senates across the state reportedly have language requiring a senator to relinquish the seat for any leave. 

    A removal would have made Williams president starting next semester and led to elections for a president-elect. 

    Though no decision was made about Boroujeni’s role as president, the failed attempt to remove him is indicative of the division at the college. Eleven senators at the meeting abstained from the removal vote.

    Waiting on outcome of investigation?

    When the community college district put Boroujeni on paid leave in late November, the district also launched an investigation.

    Boroujeni told his colleagues that his administrative leave, which district and college administration hasn’t publicly disclosed details about, is not related to the Fresno State case but to three Fresno City College complaints filed months ahead of the district’s decision to place him on leave, following EdSource’s report on the Fresno State sexual violence investigation and subsequent decision by his colleagues to cancel classes. 

    Boroujeni said that the investigation was set to end this week but was extended until May 31. He has characterized the complaints as allegations of “gender discrimination.” 

    “The road map that you need is: Wait for the investigation to end,” Boroujeni told his colleagues before their vote. “If there is anything in the investigation, use that to remove me because that will give you the ammunition so you can preserve the power of the academic senate.” 

    Because the college has not yet concluded the investigation, some instructors said they preferred to wait on the outcome before voting on the removal. Nikki Visveshwara and Eileen Gonzalez, professors in the nursing department, said Boroujeni has the right to due process. 

    “I think we should’ve waited to find out what the judgment from the district was … so that we have full information when we’re making the vote,” said Michael Takeda, past academic senate president and member of the executive board, who did not support the recommendation for Boroujeni’s removal. 

    Expecting a judgment or specific details to be publicized or shared by the district may not be realistic. Over the last six months, district spokesperson Jill Wagner has not disclosed details of the investigation, stating that it is a personnel matter. 

    Even when it is resolved, “we don’t necessarily talk about it because it’s still a human resources matter,” Wagner told EdSource in mid-February. Wagner did not immediately respond to requests for additional information or comment on Wednesday.  But, when the investigation concludes, the findings will be subject to California’s Public Records Act which requires the release of personnel investigations when allegations are confirmed.

    “Unacceptable to have this cloud hanging over us”

    Boroujeni has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student. The victim of the alleged sexual misconduct is also a professor and Boroujeni’s colleague at the community college. The State Center Community College District, parent agency to Fresno City College, learned of the sexual misconduct investigation when the alleged victim requested a no-contact order, which was granted in the spring semester of 2022.

    Fresno State opened the investigation in 2020 based on the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX, records show. The investigation determined that Boroujeni committed sexual violence in 2015. At the time of the incident, Boroujeni was a part-time instructor at Fresno City College while finishing a master’s degree at Fresno State, records show.

    Boroujeni was never disciplined in the sexual violence matter because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State in 2022 after officials said the act-of-sexual-violence report would be placed in his personnel file.

    Despite Boroujeni’s assertions linking the senate’s proposed action to the investigation, most of the professors who spoke in favor of the removal said their position had nothing to do with the allegations but the senate’s ability to perform its duties.

    Business instructor Robert Schmalle, who didn’t take a position on the allegations against Boroujeni, reminded his colleagues that the academic senate is a political body making political decisions. 

    Both he and anthropology professor German Loffler said keeping Boroujeni as president reflects poorly on the college and senate.

    “It’s just simply unacceptable to have this cloud hanging over us,” Schmalle said. 

    And a removal is not about the administrative leave, Jeydel, the political science professor, reiterated. 

    “It’s simply to replace somebody who is on leave — for whatever reason it is,” she said. “I don’t see the vote as about passing judgment on what one person has or has not done.”

    The academic senate president works with the college’s administration in setting academic policy and represents the senate and faculty at college, districtwide and public meetings. 

    Amended bylaws have been months in the making

    With an April 24 change in bylaws, Wednesday’s meeting was the first time that the senate has been able to vote on action to handle Boroujeni’s inability to fulfill the duties of president during his leave. 

    The academic senate amended its bylaws last month, but the process has been months in the making, dating back to before Boroujeni was placed on leave. 

    But Boroujeni accused the academic senate of changing the bylaws due to his leave. 

    The bylaws, according to Williams, were addressed the entire semester with proposed changes being brought to the senate for feedback.

    “It was not precipitated or initiated in response to President Boroujeni being placed on administrative leave,” she said. “There was already the plan for revise.” 

    She told EdSource in January that as the senate went line by line through the bylaws, members learned that the bylaws were silent on what to do when officers are on leave.

    Language on quorum, absenteeism, proxy attendance, officers and officer responsibilities were tweaked alongside the addition of: “In special circumstances, e.g., the removal/resignation of multiple officers, or leaves of absences of an officer, the Executive Board shall determine the process for filling the vacancies.”

    Before the bylaws were amended, the only way to remove Boroujeni was through a petition with at least 25% of senators signing to initiate a vote, during which 50% must be present, and 75% must vote for removal. The revision changed the voting requirement to two-thirds, or 66%.

    Since December, there have been three petitions calling for Boroujeni’s removal as president. 

    Under the added process in the bylaws, removing Boroujeni, who is on leave, required a majority vote of members present. Of the 62 members present, 29 voted to remove him and 15 voted to table the removal. Thirty-two votes would have constituted the majority. 

    Boroujeni: Stepping down hurts faculty

    Before McCollam-Martinez, the theater design instructor, started the second and third petitions to remove Boroujeni as president, she sought clarity from a past president of the academic senate for California Community Colleges about how most colleges handle a leave of absence. 

    She learned that most presidents step down because of the mere fact that he or she cannot fulfill the duties of the role. 

    “Normally, that’s what would happen,” she said. 

    Boroujeni said during the meeting that stepping down would have been the “easy thing” to do. 

    “Let me explain to you why I haven’t stepped down. Stepping down would send a very specific message to the administration — that you can put the president on leave and that the president will step down,” he said.

    He spoke not once as a community member as he had permission to but twice during the senators’ discussions, which further fractured the already splintered community college community, said a college employee who attended the meeting but asked for anonymity.  

    The community college district counsel and Fresno City College president confirmed to EdSource that Boroujeni requested permission to speak as a community member, not as a senator. 

    “It reflects his character of manipulation and bullying,” the college employee said. 





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  • ‘Liberated’ ethnic studies courses challenged amid allegations of antisemitism

    ‘Liberated’ ethnic studies courses challenged amid allegations of antisemitism


    Santa Ana Unified board President Carolyn Torres, right, and board member Rigo Rodriguez speak at the board meeting on August 27, 2024. Both sit on the district’s Select Committee on Ethnic Studies.

    Credit: YouTube / Santa Ana Unified

    The hearing on the case has been rescheduled to Friday, Oct. 25 at 10 a.m. in Orange County Superior Court. The court gave no reason for the change. Updated Sept. 16.

    Santa Ana Unified staff members on a steering committee led by two school board members expressed antisemitic views while designing new ethnic studies courses, newly released legal documents reveal.

    The comments have tainted the new courses, which were written out of public view, in violation of state law, according to the motion asking a state court to invalidate the courses.

    “The students of Santa Ana will be taught damaging, biased views about Jews and Israelis — views that the State has expressly warned school districts against teaching,” the 31-page document reads. “Once these biases are imparted onto impressionable youth, they cannot so easily be undone.”

    Attorneys for two nationally known Jewish legal groups — the American Jewish Committee and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law — are asking the court to throw out four ethnic studies courses that they say are biased against Jews and that the school board passed in violation of the Brown Act, which requires open meetings with advance notice to the public. They want a court to order compliance with the Brown Act as a condition for working further on ethnic studies curricula.

    A judge for Orange County Superior Court has set a hearing on Sept. 19 to consider the motion. The initial lawsuit in the case was filed in August 2023. 

    The attorneys uncovered prejudiced remarks through depositions, affidavits, documents, text messages and emails that the district turned over in response to subpoenas. 

    One ethnic studies steering committee member, identified in the memorandum as “Employee 1,” referred to the Jewish Federation of Orange County as “racist [Z]ionists” to whom the District should not “cave” in a text to another district employee. In a deposition, Employee 1 called the Jewish Federation “racist Zionists.”

    Employee 1 referred to the lone Jewish member of the steering committee in a chat as a “colonized Jewish mind,” as well as a “pretender,” a “f—— baby,” and as “stupid” because of the person’s reservations about some of the committee’s work.

    In an online chat, the Jewish member wrote this summary of what he heard when he and the other members were preparing to meet with the Jewish Federation: “Jews greatly benefit from White privilege and so have it better,” and “We don’t need to give both sides. We only support the oppressed, and the Jews are the oppressors.”

    The Jewish member continued, “When I very respectfully said that those comments were personally offensive and racist, (name redacted) told me to ‘check my tone’ so as not to “ruin the spirit and mood of the room.”

    The lawsuit focuses on the work of the ethnic studies steering committee. Since its inception in March 2020, school board members Carolyn Torres and Rigo Rodriguez have served on the committee; one veteran administrator said they ran it “like a dictator.” They enlisted only staff members to the project who agreed with their views. They “consisted of a narrow and insular group of individuals who were close to the board members and were ‘handpicked’ to promote a ‘very pro-ethnic studies’ vision, without any “naysayers,” the complaint said.

    Torres, the current board president, is a seventh-grade teacher and longtime ethnic studies advocate. Rodriguez is an associate professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at CSU Long Beach. Both were deposed in this lawsuit.

    Torres is not cited in the complaint with making antisemitic remarks. The complaint said Rodriguez  “freely shared in his deposition his reductive belief that Jewish Americans are ‘racialized as under the White category,’ which is why they do not belong in the ethnic studies curriculum.

    The committee has adopted a “liberated” ethnic studies orthodoxy, the complaint said, that  “classifies Jewish people as white — regardless of their actual skin color or historical perceptions of Jews as nonwhite — and the Jewish people as oppressors.”

    The “liberated” perspective frames ethnic studies as a struggle against white supremacy, capitalism and the legacy of European imperialism, in which Israel is a modern outpost. The liberated approach was woven into the first draft of the state’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Framework, but the State Board of Education criticized it and ordered it rewritten in 2019.

    When it passed Assembly Bill 101 in September 2021, mandating that all high school graduates take an ethnic studies course for a diploma, the Legislature stated that districts should not include unadopted content from earlier drafts of the framework. The Newsom administration and state Attorney General Rob Bonta have reiterated that warning in guidance to districts.  

    Despite this rebuke, Santa Ana’s steering committee “created a curriculum animated by the rejected draft of the Model Curriculum, including portions that were removed due to bias,” the complaint said. 

    Behind closed doors

    For years, the steering committee worked, as one member put it, “under the radar” to avoid scrutiny from the public, especially Jews. 

    When it came time to present two ethnic studies courses to the full school board, two senior district officials in text messages suggested scheduling the approval on a Jewish holiday so that Jews would not attend. “We may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved,” one suggested.  The other official responded, “That’s actually a good strategy.” 

    The select committee has no community members, and the district has not published the names of the staff members on the committee. However, one active member is Roselinn Lee, a curriculum specialist for the district who was among State Board of Education’s appointees to an advisory committee for the ill-fated first draft of the state model curriculum framework. After the state board ordered it rewritten because of bias, Lee and the other advisers, primarily CSU and UC ethnic studies faculty members, disavowed the framework and denounced “the pressures and influences of white supremacist, right-wing, conservatives” in a letter to the state board. They created the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium as an alternative.

    Santa Ana’s school board subsequently hired the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO), a consultancy group, to train teachers in the district’s ethnic study courses. Its leader, Sean Arce, is a team member of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium. The complaint characterizes his social media postings as “an extended anti-Israel and extremist screed,” including an April 11, 2022, Facebook post that denounces “Zionist control of the CA Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.”

    At a meeting earlier this week, the Santa Ana board renewed a contract with XITO for $80,633 for 11 days of professional development training in ethnic studies.

    Redacted names

    Attorneys for the complainants have redacted the names of select committee members who made antisemitic remarks from exhibits that have been made public. Marci Miller, an attorney for the Brandeis Center, said, “We sued the district itself, and we want the focus to be on the district, not on these individuals. We don’t want individuals attacked by the public, because obviously what they did was outrageous and heinous. However, that is not what we’re suing for.”

    In a statement this week, the district denied allegations that it violated the Brown Act and that it approved materials for teachers that negatively portrayed the state of Israel and the Jewish community. It will defend its actions approving ethnic studies courses at the September hearing, it said.  “The District denies these claims and will present counterarguments and facts to the Court for consideration and is optimistic that the Court will ultimately find in favor of the District.”

    The complaint said that three Jewish community groups reached out over two years to express interest in the select committee’s work and support for the state’s model ethnic studies curriculum. Board members and the select committee ignored all the inquiries, it said.

    The Jewish community, the attorneys for the complainants wrote, “was seen simply as a roadblock to their vision rather than a stakeholder and constituency that deserved to be heard.” Orange County, with Santa Ana as its second largest city, had 87,000 Jewish residents in 2020. In 2022, the county had 3.12 million residents.

    The complainants argue the select committee falls under the Brown Act, because the school board created it indefinitely as a legislative body with no end date. The complaint said that the committee has met monthly and set agendas but did not publish them or open meetings to the public, in violation of the law.

    Approved with no discussion

    The strategy of secrecy kept the public in the dark. State law under AB 101 requires school boards to present proposed ethnic studies curricula twice, first at an information hearing intended to encourage discussion and then for formal consideration at a second board meeting.

    The select committee presented the World Geography and World Histories ethnic studies courses to the school board in spring 2023. The board treated the item perfunctorily; there was no discussion, public comment or presentation by the select committee. It consisted of “merely reading the titles of the courses. The entire ‘presentation’ was over in less than thirty seconds,” the memorandum said.

    The school board then approved the courses at its April 25, 2023 meeting without discussion after one member of the Jewish community who “heard about the courses and could attend the meeting in time to make a public comment” objected. Only subsequently, after they learned about the content, did Jewish residents show up at meetings to urge the board to change its mind, to no avail.

    The Jewish community “had expressed their concerns throughout the process, unaware that the process was taking place behind closed doors by this secretly run committee,” said Miller. “There was no way of knowing what was coming to the board and that it would be essentially rubber-stamped when it got there.”

    “There is reason to require that meetings have to be open to the public,” said Miller. “When the Brown Act is not followed, people can be free to impose their ideology. When nobody is watching, people will be left to their own prejudices.”

    To prevent scenarios like the one depicted in Santa Ana, the Legislative Jewish Caucus joined Assemblymembers Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, and Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, in authoring legislation that would strengthen AB 101’s public disclosure provisions. Assembly Bill 2918 would have required school districts to create a committee of teachers, parents and representatives of community organizations “with experience assisting children build cultural awareness and understanding” to review proposed ethnic studies curricula and materials. Districts would also have to notify parents how they could participate in the review or comment on the proposed courses and materials.

    Faced with strong opposition from UC and CSU ethnic studies faculties and the California Teachers Association, the authors pulled the bill this month and said they would continue negotiations for a new bill next year.





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  • Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections

    Community college bachelor’s degrees stall for years amid Cal State objections


    Santiago Canyon College is one of seven community colleges in the state that have yet to get final approval for bachelor’s degrees they proposed in 2023.

    Courtesy of Santiago Canyon College

    Rudy Garcia was excited when he learned that his local community college, Moorpark in Ventura County, planned to offer a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity and network operations.

    A father of four and the only source of income for his family, Garcia believed getting the degree would help him advance in his career in IT support. He had come to realize that more senior jobs typically required a bachelor’s degree. 

    Getting that degree at nearby Moorpark was appealing, especially because he had already finished an associate degree in cybersecurity at the college. 

    Rudy Garcia has two associate degrees from Moorpark College and hopes to enroll in a proposed bachelor’s degree program in cybersecurity.
    Rudy Garcia

    “Being able to add that to my resume, it would help me get a better job, better benefits and everything,” he said.

    But in the two years since Moorpark first proposed the degree, the college has still not received final approval. It’s one of seven degrees across California that received provisional approval from the state community college chancellor’s office in 2023 but remain in limbo because California State University has flagged them as duplicative of its own programs. The two sides have yet to come to a compromise.

    A 2021 law allows the state’s community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degrees annually, so long as the degrees support a local labor need and don’t duplicate what any of CSU’s 23 campuses or the University of California’s nine undergraduate campuses offer. 

    Since the passage of that law, many community colleges have successfully launched new degrees: Thirty-two new degrees are now fully approved across the state, joining 15 that already existed as part of a pilot. Some of the most recently-approved degrees include drone and autonomous systems at Fullerton College, emergency services administration at Mission College in Santa Clara and water resource management at San Bernardino Community College.

    But due to disagreements over what constitutes duplication, some degree proposals have stalled.

    Resolution, however, could be coming soon. The seven degrees delayed since 2023 are currently being reviewed by WestEd, a nonprofit research organization that was selected to serve as a neutral, third-party evaluator.

    Some local community colleges have been under the impression that WestEd would render final decisions on the programs, but that is not the case, a spokesperson clarified. Instead, WestEd will evaluate the programs and share an analysis with the community college system’s board of governors that will “help inform the review process,” the spokesperson said. 

    The spokesperson shared the additional details about WestEd’s role on Tuesday morning. WestEd had previously declined an interview request prior to publication of this story. 

    Colleges have been told to expect the reviews from WestEd as early as this month, though it could take longer.

    Officials with the systemwide chancellor’s offices for both the community colleges and CSU also declined interview requests.

    For the community colleges, getting a verdict will be welcomed as they have grown increasingly annoyed that their degrees are being delayed. 

    “My frustration is on behalf of the students that are missing out on this opportunity,” said Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, which got preliminary approval for a degree in digital infrastructure and location services. “We talk a really loud game about student success and being student centered. But right now, preventing these kinds of degrees from going forward is not student centered.”

    Although officials from CSU campuses declined to be interviewed, memos obtained by EdSource through a Public Records Act request show that those campuses cited a number of reasons for objecting to proposed degrees. 

    In some cases, CSU campuses objected only to a few courses where they believed there was overlap. For example, CSU San Bernardino’s objection to San Diego Mesa’s proposed physical therapy assistant degree came down to three upper-division courses focused on biomechanics, nutrition and exercise physiology that would be part of the Mesa program. San Bernardino staff argued those courses duplicate classes that they offer as part of a bachelor’s degree program in kinesiology. 

    San Diego Mesa officials believe they may have been able to find common ground if they had more time to negotiate. Their only live interaction with San Bernardino staff was a 30-minute Zoom meeting last year, according to Cassandra Storey, dean for health sciences at Mesa. “We never really had the discussion on those three courses,” Storey said. “I would like to think that we could have a conversation and negotiate this.”

    Other proposals faced stronger objections. Moorpark faces duplication claims from seven CSU campuses over its proposed cybersecurity program. One campus, CSU San Marcos in San Diego County, wrote in a memo that the proposal “substantially overlaps” with its own cybersecurity degree. “Almost all cybersecurity issues are directly or indirectly related to network operation. The proposed program description is a typical cybersecurity degree,” San Marcos staff wrote.

    In the view of Moorpark officials, however, there are fundamental differences between its degree and what San Marcos offers. Whereas degrees like the one offered at San Marcos prepare students for engineering and computer science careers, Moorpark would train students to be technicians and work in cybersecurity support, said John Forbes, the college’s vice president of academic affairs.

    “We understand we need more engineers in this world across every type of engineering, and we need good computer scientists that understand coding,” Forbes said. “But our labor force also needs the people that aren’t authoring and designing and engineering. They need the technicians that are using this stuff.”

    Moorpark’s program would not be a calculus-based STEM degree, he added. The San Marcos degree does require a calculus course and other math classes as prerequisites. 

    That itself is a positive for students like Garcia. If he were to attempt a CSU bachelor’s degree, he would essentially have to start over and take several lower-division courses to be eligible to transfer to a CSU campus and potentially pay more in tuition. At Moorpark, he would need only upper-division credits to get his bachelor’s degree and have to pay $130 per credit. On average, community college bachelor’s degrees in California cost $10,560 in tuition and fees over all four years, much less than attending a CSU or UC campus. Much of Garcia’s tuition would also get covered by financial aid, he said. 

    “So that’s a big plus for me,” he said.

    The other major selling point for Garcia is that the Moorpark campus is just a short drive from his house. He’s hoping it will get approved soon and he can start taking classes in the fall. 

    “The college is like four exits from my house,” he said. “I would totally jump on that.”

    Some students are place bound and can’t attend colleges outside their hometown, the community colleges emphasize. But the law does not mention location, allowing CSU campuses to bring objections even if they aren’t located in the same region as the college proposing the degree. 

    Moorpark, for example, has faced objections from CSU campuses other than San Marcos, including Sacramento State and three San Francisco Bay Area campuses: Cal State East Bay, Sonoma State and San Jose State. 

    Those campuses may be worried about losing potential students to community colleges. Sonoma State in particular has seen its enrollment plummet in recent years. Staff at San Jose State, where enrollment has flattened, wrote in a memo that they are concerned the Moorpark program would “draw from the same pool of students” as their bachelor’s degree in engineering technology. 

    Forbes said he understands those worries but believes they may be misguided. “We are big fans of the CSU system, and we want our students to be successful there, and we’re doing everything we can to help them on the transfer end. But for this program, these are not students who would be going to CSU,” he said. 

    Forbes and other community college officials around the state are eager for resolution. “We’re hopeful, with the smart people we have in California, that rational minds can come to the table and figure out a better path forward,” Forbes said.

    This article was corrected on Jan. 21 to include further detail and clarification about WestEd’s role in the review process.





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