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Lawsuit alleges that California school district illegally approved ‘antisemitic’ ethnic studies curriculum
(JTA) – Several Jewish groups are suing a large school district in Orange County over an ethnic studies curriculum they allege is antisemitic and was approved covertly in violation of California law requiring public participation in decision making.
The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee and Potomac Law Group, with support from StandWithUs, seeks to bar the Santa Ana Unified School District from implementing the recently approved curriculum.
The lawsuit is an early entrant into what could become a crowded field now that California has delegated decision making over mandated high school ethnic studies to hundreds of school districts. That decision followed a bruising fight over the handling of Jewish issues in a statewide curriculum.
At issue is material that the groups say promotes a biased narrative of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and portrays Israel as illegitimate by applying labels such as “settler colonial” and “racist” to it. The lawsuit alleges that the school board robbed the public of opportunities to object when it held discussions about the curriculum in private, in apparent violation of a legal requirement for open meetings, and failed to give enough notice before public deliberation. When it did allow public comment, the lawsuit says, the board allegedly failed to protect Jews who spoke against the curriculum from harassment and intimidation.
“It’s clear that the Santa Ana Unified School District violated the law in their rush to approve antisemitic content within their ethnic studies curriculum,” said James Pasch, a senior director of national litigation for the ADL. “Closed-door discussions prevented input from marginalized communities — in direct contrast to the goal of the ethnic studies program, which is to support marginalized communities.”
The district, which educates about 45,000 students, doesn’t comment on pending litigation but a spokesperson provided a previously released statement about the curriculum controversy. The district says it has developed its curriculum with input from the Jewish, Palestinian and Muslim communities and that the approved material falls within academic norms and adheres to state guidelines.
“The goal is to provide balanced, multiple perspectives from all groups involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the district’s statement says.
Not all Jews in Santa Ana agree with the position of the lawsuit that the curriculum is antisemitic.
Shira Klein, a local Jewish parent who chairs the history department at nearby Chapman University and researches antisemitism, said she read the curriculum approved by the school district from cover to cover and found little that was objectionable.
Klein, who recently helped organize an open letter calling on protesters against Israel’s government to focus more on Palestinians, said she thought the criticism of Israel appearing in the material is appropriate and should not be conflated with antisemitism.
“I see nothing in this unit that is antisemitic and nothing that strays from mainstream academic findings,” Klein said. “I can well imagine a Jewish student in Santa Ana feeling uncomfortable in class, and it pains me, but to change that, we need to change the reality in Israel, not the curriculum.”
Meanwhile, Robin Gurien, another local Jewish parent, who teaches communications at Cal State Fullerton in Orange County, said she supports the lawsuit calling content in the curriculum “antisemitic” and “inaccurate.”
“Until now, the district has been unwilling to address these concerns, and this lawsuit is an important and necessary step to make sure that this dangerously biased content is removed from Santa Ana classrooms,” said Gurien, who spoke against the curriculum in public meetings before its adoption.
The dispute in Santa Ana represents the next phase in a fight over mandated ethnic studies in high schools that started at the state level and went on for years before lawmakers gave hundreds of local school boards power to decide how to handle curriculum decisions regarding the mandate.
Jewish groups successfully lobbied state lawmakers to get content they said was aligned with the Israel boycott movement out of a proposed state curriculum and lessons about antisemitism added in.
But rather than make the curriculum mandatory for all school districts as originally planned, state lawmakers were persuaded to further change their legislation and recommend the curriculum developed by the state while allowing local boards freedom to create their own ethnic studies materials instead.
That outcome ended the state-level fight but opened up battles in Santa Ana and other places where school boards went on to pick curriculums that Jewish groups thought they had successfully mobilized to strike down.
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The post Lawsuit alleges that California school district illegally approved ‘antisemitic’ ethnic studies curriculum appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.