Updated on April 15
A California Department of Education investigation has found that two San Jose high school teachers delivered one-sided instruction on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that “discriminated against Jewish students.”
The CDE, which released its report late last week, mandated that the Campbell Union High School District must conduct teacher training about presenting “controversial topics in a balanced and non-discriminatory manner.”
State investigators interviewed district leaders and the two teachers, who taught ethnic literature classes to seniors at Branham High School in San Jose. The inquiry stemmed from a formal complaint about classroom conduct during the 2023-2024 school year.
The CDE’s findings marked a win for parent Ivy Chesser and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a grassroots group formed after Oct. 7, 2023, that includes advocates for families facing antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in schools.
Chesser, a Jewish parent in the district, filed the complaint with BAJC’s help on behalf of a larger group of Jewish parents.
“This is a critical milestone for ensuring education is accessible and equitable for all students,” Chesser said in a statement.
Chesser told J. on Monday that she first raised her concerns about unauthorized ethnic studies lessons at Branham directly with school and district leaders last school year, and then filed a complaint. After the district dismissed her complaint, she said, she appealed to the CDE. The investigation concluded in March, and Chesser received the results on Friday.
“The goal was not to fight the district. The goal was to collaborate with the district,” Chesser told J.
In the report, investigators described two instances when “Ethnic Studies materials and instruction discriminated against Jewish students” and violated California education codes.
One incident began with 12th-graders being shown two videos. The first was a 10-minute video from Vox Media titled “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: a brief, simple history.” The second video, “Zionism is not the same as Judaism,” was a clip from the Al Jazeera English YouTube channel.
The second video features Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, who is an anti-Zionist haredi activist and a spokesperson for the Neturei Karta, an extremist sect that has long called for the dismantling of the modern State of Israel because it believes that only God can return Jews to their land. In the video, Weiss explains the difference between Judaism and Zionism.
Weiss wears two pins, one depicting a Palestinian flag and the words “A Jew is not a Zionist.” A second pin displays the Israeli flag, with a red circle and line through it.
After watching the two videos, students were asked discussion questions presented on classroom slides that included “Is Israel a settler colonial state? What is the difference between Zionism and Judaism? Why is this difference important in this conflict?”
The slide deck also included a quote by Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire, with the question, “How can Paulo Freire’s theoretical approach to oppressors/oppressed, humanization and dehumanization help us understand what is going on between Israel and Palestine?”
The CDE determined that the lesson was biased and discriminatory to Jewish students.
“In this lesson, in order for the information to be unbiased, there would have needed to be a video that reflected a pro-Israel perspective,” the report states. “This would have encouraged students to create authentic answers regarding the questions provided in the lesson.”
The second instance noted in the CDE report involved a student-created project with a slide about the “genocide of Palestinians.” It was later featured on the classroom Instagram account but has since been deleted.
J. viewed a screenshot of the Instagram post with the slide, which paints a one-sided portrayal of Israel as a violent oppressor of Palestinian civilians and states that Israel has occupied Palestinians’ native land “for 75 years.” The slide accuses Israel of committing “war crimes” against innocent Palestinians by bombing schools and hospitals in the current war. The slide does not mention the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in Israel that started the war, nor the 250 people taken as hostages.
The same slide also shows a series of four maps of Israel and the Palestinian territories over time, with the caption “Israel’s occupation of Palestine since 1946.”
“It is vital that the UN pushes for a ceasefire immediately to prevent any further loss of life,” the slide’s concluding paragraph reads.
After the slide was presented, the teacher did not follow up with additional information, according to the CDE report.
By not commenting on the slide alleging a Palestinian genocide, “it could have been interpreted by the student audience as approval of the presented thesis,” the report states.
The report also included information from interviews with the two unnamed teachers.
Investigators noted that one of the teachers confirmed that they taught a lesson about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was outside the scope of the course curriculum and presented it in a “community circle” format. The other teacher denied having taught a lesson at all, telling investigators they only facilitated a “community circle” discussion.
By August, the school district must provide anti-bias training to all English language arts and social studies high school teachers as part of the corrective actions mandated by the CDE.
A BAJC spokesperson’s statement described the outcome as the “culmination of more than a year of dedicated advocacy.”
In response to the state’s findings, Campbell Unified Superintendent Robert Bravo said in an April 14 statement that the district “unequivocally denounces anti-Semitism in all its forms” and is “committed to providing a learning environment that is inclusive, respectful, and aligned with the values of our diverse community.”
“We are currently reviewing the report in detail and are taking its findings seriously. While this statement is not intended to convey agreement or disagreement with the Department’s conclusions, we will respond thoroughly and thoughtfully within the 30-day period outlined in the Department’s notice,” Bravo said.
Another complaint in Santa Clara County
Other schools in Santa Clara County are facing new scrutiny for alleged anti-Jewish bias, as well as claims that their school district is not doing enough in response.
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition and StandWithUs, a nonprofit that advocates for Israel and fights antisemitism, announced Friday that they have filed a Title VI complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against the Santa Clara County Unified School District over allegations of antisemitism across the district’s elementary, middle and high schools.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, color and national origin” in federally funded programs. A 2019 executive order expanded some Title VI protections to address antisemitism.
The filing alleges that the school district’s leadership acted with “deliberate indifference” and failed to address issues of pervasive discrimination and bias against Jewish students.”
“After 1.5 years of continuous attempts to constructively address the situation to no avail, SCUSD Jewish students feel abandoned, leaving us no choice but to file this official complaint,” David Rosenberg-Wohl, the attorney representing BAJC, said in a statement.