In today’s decision by Judge Fernando M. Olguin (CD Cal.) Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of LA v. Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium:
Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles…” is “an unincorporated association of Jewish, Zionist Los Angeles teachers teaching in Los Angeles. [Los Angeles Unified School District] “Jewish, Zionist Parents of Children of LAUSD Students” initiated this action on May 12, 2022.
As to the first issue, the court held that the plaintiff’s [Complaint] It is riddled with baffling, largely unrelated and sometimes contradictory claims, none of which rarely make it clear with any degree of certainty what the plaintiff believes the defendant did and, more importantly, how the plaintiff was harmed. In fact, the claim that the plaintiffs spend about a third of their Omnibus Memorandum of Points and Authorities opposing the defendants’ motions and trying to explain exactly what they are arguing is so confusing. Yes. [Complaint] claims, sometimes attempting to retract certain claims or add new ones. The lack of clarity is especially troubling considering this is the plaintiff’s fourth repeat complaint…
In any case, the plaintiffs’ claims appear to revolve around the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (“LESMC” or “Challenge Curriculum”), a set of educational materials developed by an independent non-profit organization that LAUSD has not adopted. The plaintiffs claim that starting in 2020, LAUSD required high school students to take ethnic studies classes and “integrate ethnic studies into the PreK-8 curriculum.” Plaintiffs allege that UTLA and consortium defendants, non-district defendants, have advocated implementation of the challenged curriculum and are “inserting or attempting to insert” these materials into LAUSD schools…
According to the plaintiffs, the curriculum in question “denounces capitalism, the nuclear family, and the territorial integrity of the lower 48 states of the United States.”[,]”and “designed to expunge from the public square Zionist ideas and the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel.[.]” Plaintiffs claim that “class discrimination” is inherent in LESMC because the curriculum in question “contains statements that the existence of the State of Israel is based on ethnic cleansing, land theft, apartheid, and genocide,” among other things. Zionism is different from Judaism.” Because the curriculum in question contains anti-Zionist material, the plaintiffs allege that the curriculum is anti-Semitic…
The court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim on various grounds. it discusses It’s too detailed to render here. However, to outline the Court’s key concerns:
[B]It is important to note that in addition to the specific claim failures described above, important First Amendment concerns form the basis of Plaintiffs’ claims and requests for relief. In effect, the plaintiffs are seeking to litigate the validity and legality of a potential curriculum with which they disagree. Their claims therefore conflict with the First Amendment in many respects and are largely prohibited on that basis.
First, the plaintiff’s claims directly concern the defendants’ First Amendment rights, not the district court’s. Plaintiffs take issue with Defendants’, and not the District’s, discussion, representations, and petition format with respect to the challenged curriculum. Notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ claims and immunity that they are only challenging publicly funded government activities, Plaintiffs seek to have this Court place limits on the non-local Defendants’ protected speech. (see, for example, ID.Prayer for Relief ¶ 6) (“Requests an injunction restraining all defendants from using the LESMC elements at issue in this case in educational sessions that are publicly funded or paid by LAUSD). In particular, plaintiffs Seeks to have the court suppress non-local defendants’ speech during teacher training sessions that may include use of “elements” of the contested curriculum.
However, non-local defendants have the right under the First Amendment to express their views on the curriculum and to petition for curriculum changes under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. There is no liability for the conduct of the petition.” This principle also applies to state actors. Non-district respondents therefore have a protected right to petition and express their views on the ethnic studies curriculum. Moreover, if the issue Even if teaching the proposed curriculum was unlawful and the non-district defendants were encouraged to teach the material, the non-district defendants’ activities would be protected because the plaintiffs did not allege that they incited the imminent illegal act.
In opposition, plaintiff withdraws his claim and asserts that he seeks only the alleged control exercised over the curriculum by non-provincial defendants. However, characterizing non-local defendants’ petition activities as an effective exercise of state control does not change the fact that they are engaging in protected activity.
Second, the plaintiffs claim that the only speech they seek to suppress is that of LAUSD classroom teachers, and they specifically ask the court to prohibit LAUSD teachers from teaching the curriculum in question. However, this request raises serious concerns about the First Amendment and academic freedom principles.
Although high school teachers do not have free speech rights under the full First Amendment, it is questionable that “permitting the judicial system to address complaints seeking to impose civil liability or enjoin a school district’s allocation of curriculum materials.” There is no. It has a broader and potentially chilling impact on language. In other words, a teacher’s right to speak in the classroom may be reasonably limited by his employer, but such restrictions are fundamentally different from speech restrictions imposed by a court at the request of a group of private citizens. The Ninth Circuit faced a similar lawsuit over curriculum materials. Monteiro v. Tempe Union School Dist. (9th Cir. 1998) wrote:
Did the plaintiff win this lawsuit or succeed in forcing the defendant to go to trial for that lawsuit? [curricular material]The threat of future lawsuits will inevitably lead many school districts to “buy peace” by avoiding the use of books or other materials that express messages or simply use terms that could be argued to cause harm to groups of students. . In other words, it allows lawsuits against school districts based on the contents of literary works. [or curriculum] Proceeding past the complaint stage can have a significant chilling effect on a district’s willingness to make an offer. [material] Content that contains topics, characters, parts of dialogue, or words that may be offensive to the sensibilities of any individual or group.
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that the relationship between freedom to receive ideas and freedom of expression is particularly relevant in the classroom environment.” Students have a right to be informed and to be subject to “lawsuits threatening to impose civil liability based on assignments.” [curricular material] “Severely restricts a student’s right to receive material that the school board or other educational authority determines has legitimate educational value.”
The Supreme Court also noted that “it is important to protect the ‘robust exchange of ideas.’”[.]'”By their very nature, these exchanges can sometimes involve uncomfortable conversations. But an education system that “discovers truth in diverse languages” must enable teachers and students to explore difficult and conflicting ideas.”[W]We must be careful not to stifle intellectual freedom by imposing arbitrary restrictions that prevent teachers from adopting the pedagogical methods they believe will be most effective.”
Determining the content of the curriculum is a complex and important issue. For this reason, school districts generally have broad discretion in doing so, and teachers must have some discretion and academic freedom in implementing and teaching the curriculum. It would be a huge problem for the educational project and academic freedom if every offending party could file a lawsuit every time they didn’t like the curriculum or teaching methods…
you can read opinion Here are the details: This is an excerpt from the court’s conclusion that most defendants are not government actors and therefore not subject to the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause.
Taken together, the gist of the plaintiff’s claim is as follows: (1) the consortium developed the curriculum at issue; (2) UTLA supported a challenging curriculum. (3) UTLA and its consortium members work or have worked at ESC and, as a result, non-district defendants effectively determine curriculum and participate in state actions accordingly; However, Plaintiff’s claim that LAUSD substantially stopped developing its ethnic studies curriculum and left it to non-district defendants is untenable, especially in light of Plaintiff’s other claims. [Complaint]. As Plaintiff acknowledges, LAUSD established the ESC as an advisory committee under LAUSD’s control to provide input on the development and implementation of the Ethnic Studies curriculum. And there is no specific, plausible allegation that the Non-Local Defendants were “involved in anything” as Plaintiff asserts.[e] LAUSD left a “space” simply because it advocated for a challenging curriculum. Such reasoning would sweep away almost any group that has succeeded in advocating for changes to public programs…
And an excerpt from the court’s denial of the plaintiff’s free exercise clause challenge:
“Offensive content that does not punish, hinder or burden religious exercise does not violate the right to free exercise.” This is true even if such content contains material that the plaintiff may consider “offensive to their religious beliefs.”
The plaintiff states that “in this case, the significant burden of religious practice is not only a function of the impact of education on Jewish children of this faith, but also of hating and actively opposing that faith.” However, the plaintiff does not cite any part of the above. No. [Complaint] To support their claim that teaching a challenging curriculum puts a strain on the exercise of their faith. In fact, the plaintiff’s [Complaint] It does not identify any burden at all. It does not allege that Plaintiffs were in any way prevented from practicing their faith or that Parent-Plaintiffs were in any way prohibited from teaching their children at home. In fact, the only difficulty the plaintiffs claim is that the existence of the curriculum in question and its possible adoption offends them. However, a mere offense alone is not sufficient to claim a burden of religious activity. [citing cases holding that “class materials offensive to Hindu [and Muslim] Plaintiff did not violate the free exercise clause.”]…
