When the new school year begins in the fall, California high-school students will be required to take at least one class in ethnic studies before graduating. The model curriculum for the subject, issued by the state Department of Education, involves a highly ideological form of instruction, meant to “address institutionalized systems of advantage.” And Jewish parents in California are especially worried, as Kayla Bartsch explains:
This earlier edition [of the Model Curriculum, from 2019], honored Palestinians’ “struggle” for liberation from Israel, praised the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, defined Israel as a “settler-colonialist state,” scorned the “Zionist genocide” against Palestinians, and excluded the word “anti-Semitism” from its glossary. Unsurprisingly, many groups responded critically to this first draft, so the state sent it back to the workshop.
Still, Jewish parents have every reason to fear that the improved version won’t be much better. Their concerns have not always been well received:
In one particularly egregious skirmish that took place in April, members of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) Board hurled incendiary words at the Jewish parents in the audience. [One] board member, Gabriel Medina, waved his finger at the Jewish parents and grandparents in the room [and] referred to them as “you people.”
The trustee Joy Flynn echoed Jewish stereotypes in a Marxist word salad that described racial power dynamics: “Something I have been a little bit taken aback by is the lack of acknowledgment of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community, that the community of black and brown people don’t have.”
Read more on National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/04/ethnic-studies-activists-infiltrate-california-curriculum-allies-shame-jewish-parents-who-object