SAN DIEGO (Press Release) — This past month, in response to antisemitic and anti-Zionist curricular resources published by the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Equity and Belonging and Ethnic Studies departments, AJC San Diego’s Education Committee mobilized. American Jewish Committee (AJC) lay leaders were pivotal advocates in lobbying the SDUSD Superintendent and the district’s senior staff and Board of Education to remove these heinous curricular resources included in newsletter.
In addition, AJC San Diego submitted a letter to the SDUSD Board of Education calling for the removal of this harmful content, which was further amplified by the Education Committee through a grassroots letter-writing campaign. In addition, multiple local organizations and 29 Rabbis from the San Diego Rabbinic Association wrote letters of support for our requests, bolstering our advocacy efforts.
We also were incredibly proud to see so many engaged community members present at the March 12th SDUSD Board meeting. Parents, students, and alumni connected to SDUSD spoke during public comments to advocate for the removal of this content, including a high school student from SDUSD who bravely described her experiences at school.
In response to comments made by an Ethnic Studies Program Manager during public comments, AJC submitted a follow-up letter signed by leaders in the community, further articulating our concerns, requests, and position. As a result, the antisemitic and anti-Zionist content was removed from the newsletters. AJC continues to monitor, advocate, and update the community as the situation evolves and is proud of the members of our Education Committee for their responsiveness and effectiveness.
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Preceding column originally appeared in AJC San Diego’s April newsletter. Below are the texts of the letters referenced in the column above.
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March 11, 2024 — Letter#1 from the American Jewish Committee to the San Diego Board of Education
Dear Members of the Board of Education,
The Equity and Belonging department and the Ethnic Studies departments of San
Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) have circulated and promoted curriculum
materials for teaching about Palestine and the current conflict in Gaza that are not
only tendentious, but knowingly distort history.
One would never know from looking at these materials that the state of Israel was
created by the United Nations, that seven Arab nations invaded it as soon as the state
of Israel was declared, that Israel at one time occupied the West Bank and Gaza
because it won a war designed to drive its Jews into the sea, that over half of Israel’s
Jews are people of color, that Arab citizens serve on the Israeli Supreme Court, that
the current conflict in Gaza was set off by Hamas’ “barbaric” (to use U.S. President
Joe Biden’s term) assault on Israel, including mass murder of civilians and mass
rape.
Instead, second graders are offered a map to color that simply erases the state
of Israel entirely and they are told to color it in the colors of the Palestinian flag.
The most cursory review of these materials reveals that this is propaganda, not
education, and that they are more fit for a totalitarian country than a democracy.
We know that the Board of Education never discussed this approach to the Middle
East conflict, much less approved it. Indeed, we have no reason to believe that this
is anything but the Ethnic Studies department’s declaration of independence from
the control of the board, erroneously justified by sanctimonious claims of equity,
and bundled in preemptive attacks on anyone who challenges the curriculum using
charged partisan or anti-Israel terminology.
Several years ago, the state legislature adopted AB101, legislation both mandating
a program of ethnic studies in the schools and insisting on guard rails to protect all
students against the excesses which were evident in the initial proposed ethnic
studies model which was based upon a liberated ethnic studies model. That
curriculum elicited widespread criticism from Governor Newsom on down.
In particular, section 51225.3(a)(1)(IV) provides that a locally developed ethnic studies course “shall be first presented at a public meeting of the governing board of the school district … and shall not be approved until the subsequent public meeting of the governing border governing body, at which the public has had an opportunity to express its views on the proposed course.”
We already know the public did not have an opportunity to review and express its views on the incendiary curricular resources promoted by the Equity and Belonging and Ethnic Studies departments. We also know the School Board was not granted an opportunity to weigh in, either.
The same legislation, in subsection V, provides that a curriculum must be appropriate for “use with pupils of all races, religions, nationalities … and diverse, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.” It is too obvious for argument that the preferred curriculum is not appropriate for Jewish or Israeli students.
We support ethnic studies. We do not insist that Israel be immune from all (age appropriate)
rational criticism. What has been proposed by the SDUSD Equity and Belonging department and its Ethnic Studies department is none of these things. Its adoption ignores the requirements of California law, and it is simply offensive to anyone who has the temerity to disagree with the hateful propagators of the current curriculum. It raises the question of whether the Board of Education controls what is taught in the San Diego Unified School District or if a rogue group of ideologues is free to do what it pleases.
We are requesting the following actions to correct this egregious misstep by the district and assure the community that San Diego Unified is not creating a discriminatory environment for its students.
1. Immediately remove ALL of the links from all of the March newsletters and send retraction
emails to the newsletter distribution lists, explaining to recipients the problematic nature of the links and that they should not be used to guide instruction due to their offensive and antisemitic content (which is in violation of California law);
2. Suspend all newsletters and professional development training provided by Equity and
Belonging and Ethnic Studies until the departments are subject to an independent investigation of how these resources were approved and measures are taken to ensure this does not occur again; and
3. Review and reconstitute the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee to ensure transparency, more representation from the mainstream San Diego Jewish community, and to ensure that anyone with known antisemitic views be removed from the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee.
Thank you for your immediate attention to our concerns.
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The letter above was signed by Mark D. Stern, Chief Legal Officer and Sara E. Brown, PhD, Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee.
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March 20, 2024, Letter #2 to the Board of Education from the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federation of San Diego, StandWithUs, and the San Diego Rabbinical Association
We, the leaders of the Jewish community of San Diego, are writing in response to remarks
made by Ms. Toya Profit, the Program Manager for Ethnic Studies, during the public comment section of the March 12, 2024, SDUSD Board of Education meeting.
We appreciate her acknowledgment of the pain and suffering caused by the October 7 terror
attack perpetrated by Hamas. But Ms. Profit asserted that she was addressing the concern by
“some of our Jewish community has about ethnic studies.” She further claimed that for some
the fear and pain “has turned into the need to control the narrative about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine,” and that “[they are using] political pressure to force SDUSD staff into only using some perspectives, thereby silencing others.”
Ms. Profit does not appear to understand the objections to the most recent dissemination of one-sided, antisemitic materials to the SDUSD faculty and community. To not raise temperatures, we will refrain from a point-by-point argument of what Ms. Profit
said and how she said it. But to be clear, we have NO objection to ethnic studies, and we did
not call and are not calling for defunding of Ethnic Studies. What we object to is the teaching of oversimplified, ahistoric, and antisemitic material. And we would object to any educational
material that was factually inaccurate and denigrating to peoples and cultures.
Any attempts to vilify us as anti-Ethnic Studies are spurious attempts to distract from our real and legitimate concerns which we set out in our previous letters and at board meetings.
We would have expected the Program Manager for Ethnic Studies to show some understanding and even remorse for the decisions that led to the dissemination of antisemitic curricula that did, in fact, present a one-sided and deeply biased narrative.
Her remarks only underscore the problematic process behind the selection and dissemination of curricular content that led to such materials being promoted to educators, an urgent need for examination of all the content being recommended and taught by the Ethnic Studies department, and an immediate retraction of the March newsletters containing the links to the materials.
Ms. Profit’s comments assume that concern about the existing curricula is a Jewish problem. It is not – it is a societal problem. Left unabated, other groups could eventually find themselves targeted as well. Our goal is to ensure that the education of our most precious resource, our children, is fact-based, fair, and equitable. As Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, once noted, “In any country where antisemitism and other forms of hatred are left to rage, democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk.”
With thanks again for your leadership and attention to our concerns,
The letter above was signed by Sara E. Brown, PhD, Regional Director, American Jewish Committee; Heidi Gantwerk, President and CEO, Jewish Federation of San Diego; Oz Lanaido, Executive Director Southwest, StandWithUs, and Rabbi Yael Ridberg, President, San Diego Rabbinic Association.
Supportive letter from the San Diego Rabbinic Association, undated, to the San Diego Board of Education:
As members of the San Diego Rabbinic Association, we are writing to amplify and reinforce the letter sent to you by the American Jewish Committee regarding the Equity and Belonging and the Ethnic Studies departments of San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), and their circulation and promotion of curriculum materials for teaching about Palestine and the current conflict in Gaza.
The letter then quoted from the March 11, 2024 letter from the American Jewish Committee before adding the following:
As rabbis, we support ethnic studies because we understand that every human being has a personal story connected to a larger people’s history. We support ethnic studies because we believe in the inherent value of the unique customs, religious practices, culture, food, language, and identity for different ethnicities. We do not insist that the Jewish narrative of the establishment of Israel be the dominant one, or that Israel be immune from all (age appropriate) rational criticism. We do, however, insist that the SDUSD comply with its own legislative imperatives when it comes to teaching a complex, complicated and 100+ year history between two peoples with attachment to one land.
More quotations from AJC’s March 11, 2024 letter came next, followed by this paragraph:
We stand together with other representatives of the Jewish community and request the following actions to correct this egregious misstep by the district. We want assurance that San Diego Unified is not creating a discriminatory environment for its students.
The rabbis then joined in the three demands enumerated in the AJC letter
Thank you for your immediate attention to our concerns.
The letter was signed by Rabbi Yael Ridberg of the San Diego Rabbinic Association and by the following rabbis who are its members: Richard Agler, Gabi Arad, Alexis Berk, Aliza Berk, Michael Berk, Arlene Bernstein, David Castiglione, Ralph Dalin, Matthew Earne, David Frank, Susan Freeman, Benj Fried, Jeremy Gimbel, Phil Graubart, Ron Herstik, Ally Jacobson, David Kornberg,, Marty Lawson, Avi Libman, Devorah Marcus, Mathew Marko, Scott Meltzer, Jason Nevarez, Michael Leo Samuel, Sammy Seid, Ron Shulman, Jonathan Stein, and Yaffa-Shira Sultan.