Orange County parent Robin Gurien never expected that speaking out at a school board meeting about a new ethnic studies curriculum could lead to a successful lawsuit against it — or become a main topic of discussion at a statewide gathering of Jews two years later.
“When it comes to Santa Ana, I really was just your friendly neighborhood loud-mouth Jew,” she told J. on Monday while attending the Jewish Public Affairs Committee’s two-day legislative summit in Sacramento.
The lawsuit alleged that the Santa Ana Unified School District wasn’t transparent with the public in spring 2023 when it approved new high-school ethnic studies courses with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content. In February, the school district settled the suit and agreed to stop teaching the ethnic studies courses until they undergo revision with public input.
On Monday evening, the Santa Ana case was dissected onstage for hundreds of Jewish community advocates from across California attending the JPAC summit.
It was JPAC’s largest summit yet, with over 600 attendees who congregated to learn more about its goals for the current legislative session and to prepare to lobby for those issues at meetings with 46 legislators scheduled for the following day.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the group in a prerecorded video, emphasizing the relevance of JPAC’s advocacy to the current moment.
“Antisemitism is a uniquely insidious form of hate that demands precise as well as aggressive action,” Newsom said. “Fighting it requires more than just policy. It requires partnership, and California will always be a partner to the Jewish community. The state is with you, and we will not waver in making the world a better, safer place for everyone.”
JPAC, which calls itself the “voice of California’s Jewish community,” lobbies for state-level issues that range from combating antisemitism to obtaining security grants for Jewish institutions. It also weighs in on issues that affect all Californians, such as gun safety and homelessness.
Among the issues top of mind for JPAC this year is keeping anti-Israel content out of ethnic studies courses, which are set to become mandatory in public high schools across the state.
Monday’s panel discussion took a deep dive into the Santa Ana ethnic studies lawsuit, exploring it as a case study. The ADL collaborated on the case with the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed the initial complaint, along with the American Jewish Committee and StandWithUs.
The panel also discussed Assembly Bill 1468, a new bill aiming to set statewide curriculum standards for high-school ethnic studies courses.
Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-San Luis Obispo), who was part of the panel, said that AB1468 is not only a priority for the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.
The caucus “has made this ethnic studies legislation our only piece of priority legislation for this year. So we have one bill,” said Addis, who is the bill’s co-author and a caucus member.
Corena Larimer, ADL associate counsel on national litigation, shared details about the Santa Ana school board’s internal communications when it was considering its ethnic studies curriculum.
“As we saw the discovery documents coming in, we saw messages back and forth about ‘What should we do about the Jewish question? Does it need to be addressed, or can we just let it go?’” Larimer said. The board went on to approve the curriculum without giving the public a chance to review it, the lawsuit contended.
The Santa Ana lawsuit exemplifies the primary issues that AB1468 attempts to address. Once the state sets ethnic studies curriculum standards under AB1468, Addis said, they must be implemented transparently.
“This is what ethnic studies is supposed to be, so that we let go of the rogue actors who want to bring their own politics into the classroom, whether those politics be antisemitic or anti any other group of students,” Addis said. “In addition to that, we are working on transparency.… We’ve heard it up and down California from dozens of school districts that families just don’t know what’s going on.”
Most recently in Northern California the ethnic studies debate came to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District south of Santa Cruz, when Jewish community members who voiced concerns over a new teacher training contract during an April school board meeting were met with statements characterized by the ADL as “blatant antisemitism.”
Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, moderated the ethnic studies panel and highlighted the relevance of the issue for all minority groups in the state.
“We have always stood on the right side of social justice, and we know that for African American, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander and Indigenous Californians, their holistic stories have been left out of our textbooks in ways that our community can understand,” Gregory said. “Too often in our own schooling experiences, there’s a tiny piece about ancient Israel, and there is a section on the Holocaust. But does that summate the multi-millennial experience of our community? Absolutely not.”
Sherman Oaks high school student Aleksandr Davidov agrees. He came to Sacramento to lobby for both AB1468 and Senate Bill 472, which asks the state for $10 million to fund a grant program to expand Holocaust education programs statewide, per the recommendations of Newsom’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education.
“I’m in 11th grade and I’ve gone through three history classes, and I’ve barely learned about the Holocaust,” said Davidov, 16. “I definitely feel like that grant could do a lot for students. It will really open a lot of people’s eyes to what really happened in the Holocaust.”
Assembly Bill 395, another new bill on JPAC’s agenda, would require school districts to avoid scheduling public meetings, among other notable events throughout the school year, on religious holidays.
During a dinner on Monday, JPAC executive director David Bocarsly introduced members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. State Sen. and Jewish caucus co-chair Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) was given the Jerry Sampson Memorial Award, named after the JPAC’s founder, which annually honors a state legislator’s dedication to civic engagement, leadership and advocacy.
“I am so proud to be in this fight with you,” Wiener said during his acceptance speech. “Together, we are going to make sure that we have a brighter future for the Jewish community, and for all communities on this planet.”
Bocarsly told J. on Tuesday that the palpable energy in the room on Monday evening continued through the summit’s second day, which focused on lobbying.
“There’s a reason why our conference and engagement keeps growing, because people recognize that there is a lot of power in state government,” he said. “We have the ability to elevate our voices and make a real difference for both our community and all vulnerable communities.”