Two Bay Area school districts already under fire for canceling or postponing appearances by a gay, Muslim, pro-Israel activist and writer are now being sued by a new Jewish legal-aid group.
The Jewish Community Advocacy Council (JCAC) announced Nov. 4 that it had filed suit against the Alameda Unified School District and the Fremont Union High School District, claiming the districts engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by canceling Luai Ahmed’s appearances.
Ahmed, who was born in Yemen and now lives in Sweden, is known for his advocacy around LGBTQ rights, Jewish-Muslim coexistence, opposition to Islamic extremism and defense of Zionism. Ahmed had been invited by Jewish student clubs to tell his personal story at Alameda High School, Homestead High School in Cupertino and Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, but the districts canceled or postponed the events after organized protests by anti-Zionist advocacy groups. Ahmed also was scheduled to speak at San Francisco’s Lowell High School, where the talk was canceled after organized protests. However, the S.F. school district is not a part of the lawsuit.
JCAC’s complaint argues that by canceling the talks, the two districts violated First Amendment free speech protections, as well as the public’s right to receive information. According to JCAC, a writer from the Jewish Legal News, the media arm of JCAC, had planned to attend and report on Ahmed’s talks.
The group also contends that both districts have allowed speakers aligned with certain perspectives, such as from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an anti-Zionist advocacy organization, while barring speakers who express different viewpoints, such as Ahmed.
“This journalist has a First Amendment right to receive information,” said Mark Javitch, JCAC’s founder and attorney, referring to the writer who had planned on attending the talks. Javitch would not disclose the person’s name. “The districts exercised blatant viewpoint discrimination based on their preferred narratives,” Javitch said. “We’ve seen from the ethnic studies curriculum that it commonly exhibits negative material about Israel, so [we know] that is their preferred narrative.”
The lawsuit seeks “a declaration that the schools’ cancellations violated the First Amendment, the enactment of neutral speaker policies and an injunction against future suppression of opposing viewpoints, and compensatory and nominal damages for the infringement of its rights.”
“This is really important, because almost every time we’re upset about anti-Israel speech, about people calling us genocidal, calling us names — there’s nothing we can really do about it because of the First Amendment,” Javitch said. “But this is the rare case where we can.”
Diana Blum, a spokesperson for JCAC, said in a statement that the cancellations resulted from pressure by activist groups and a reluctance by school officials to host speakers who challenge prevailing campus narratives. “Ahmed could not be allowed to speak because he challenges the schools’ progressive narratives,” Blum wrote.
According to Javitch, the JCAC was established this year as a Jewish legal-aid foundation and community organization focused on addressing antisemitism and protecting civil rights through litigation, education and community outreach. The group says its mission is to “reorient the legal strategy for Jewish advocacy” by defending constitutional freedoms and equal access to public forums.