As Part I explored the legislative and ideological groundwork of ethnic studies in California, part II dives into the curricular fault lines where conflicting visions of inclusion and resistance define what students encounter in the classroom.
California’s journey to institutionalize ethnic studies is not merely a legislative one. At its core lies a fundamental curricular divide: the Model Ethnic Studies Curriculum approved by the State Board of Education in March 2021, and the alternative promoted by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum Consortium which first convened in April of 2020 Their curriculum was presented to the public in September of 2022.
The Model Curriculum affirms four foundational disciplines: African American, Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x, Native American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. According to its preface, it aims to give students the opportunity to learn histories and contributions of these historically marginalized groups. It allows local educational agencies the flexibility to adapt courses to reflect the demographics of their communities.
Yet, such flexibility carries risks. The notion that a curriculum should shift depending on the racial and ethnic makeup of a classroom introduces fragmentation. How would a teacher manage an ethnic studies class that is extremely ethnically diverse; Punjabi, Lebanese, Palestinian, Persian, Sudanese, Irish, Cahuilla, Haitian, Korean, Mexican and Peruvian? Education should aim to unify through shared understanding—not reinforce divisions based on ethnicity or the nationality of one’s family. Cultural heritage, history and lived experiences can be taught without being divisive. This division is reinforced further when addressing, or more accurately, not addressing Jewish cultural identity in a meaningful or accurate way.
Is a high school teacher, educated by a college Professor who supports the BDS movement, likely to teach students about the pogroms and expulsions Jews faced in Arab countries?
The Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum reaches beyond education and advocates for activism and anchors its narrative in White privilege oppressing People of Color.. The six chapters of the curriculum focus on the Comparative Ethnic Studies and the African American, Chicanx/Latinx, Asian American (including Arab American), and Native American communities.
It is important to note that in the six assignments outlined in the Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum, Jewish Americans are not considered. Sometimes, omissions speak volumes. Zionism is consistently referred to as a perpetrator of ‘settler-colonialism’ in ethnic studies literature; a spurious claim based on a host of politically biased literature posing as objective scholarship, themselves built on antizionist propaganda.
One notable example is from UCLA Professor Loubna Qutami, who wrote: “Herein lies the convergence of two forms of refugeehood—on the one hand, the longevity of Palestinian indefinite statelessness resultant from Zionist settler colonialism since the 1948 Nakba… and on the other, global refugee subjectivities caused by multiple systems of oppression driving massive waves of contemporary displacement worldwide, including as a result of environmental degradation, economic precarity, war and violence, and political repression.”
The Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum does not even name Jewish Americans as one of the core groups to be studied. This omission is revealing. Jewish history, culture, and struggles are not given the same status as other communities of color. Instead, Jewish identity becomes suspect by association with Zionism, which is cast as inherently oppressive. This, paired with the ahistorical belief that individual Jewish successes are all somehow a product of racial privilege is used to firmly justify a clearly discriminatory pedagogy. Jews are oppressed when they are White, Brown and Black from Poland, Yemen, Ethiopia for example. This adds a touch of complication to liberated ethnic studies unless “liberated” means liberated from the truth.
Will a professor educated by a Professor who supports the BDS movement consider teaching students about the pogroms and expulsions Jews in Arab countries have experienced?
Dividing the experiences of ethnicities based on the color of a community’s skin color is simplistic and problematic. For example, how will the liberated ethnic studies teacher handle the significant racial diversity in the Jewish Diaspora. How will they teach students about how the Nazis considered all Jews to be racially inferior regardless of skin color or nationality?
In which lesson plan will it be taught that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini conspired with Adolf Hitler, or are all of these inconvenient truths that are not worth mentioning?
The Liberated Ethnic Studies paradigm aligns disturbingly with the ideology of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s founding 1964 National Charter, which denounces Zionism as colonial, racist, and illegal. “Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal…racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims.” This logic has not only seeped into the ethnic studies discipline, but is taught as a fundamental principle. This line of thinking is clearly communicated in the ideology of the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, a key advocate of Area H. This council openly advances an interpretation of ethnic studies rooted in decolonization and anti-colonial resistance.
Thankfully, in signing AB 101, Governor Newsom pushed back against the ideology of liberated ethnic studies. He said, “I appreciate that the legislation provides a number of guardrails to ensure that courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students.”
The five guardrails that are part of California Assembly Bill 101 constrain the materials which can be taught in a California public school. They are intended to make ethnic studies inclusive rather than divisive and promote education over indoctrination. These guardrails were needed because the authors of the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum went all in on their objective of demonizing Israel. They even included a demonic rap song that advocates violence against the State of Israel in a lesson plan.
(I) Be appropriate for use with pupils of all races, religions, nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, and diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, pupils with disabilities, and English learners.
(II) Not reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons on the basis of any category protected by Section 220.
(III) Not teach or promote religious doctrine.
(vi) It is the intent of the Legislature that local educational agencies, including charter schools, consider that, pursuant to Section 51226.7, the Instructional Quality Commission undertook a lengthy, thorough, deliberative, and inclusive process before submitting a model curriculum in ethnic studies to the state board. To the extent that local educational agencies, including charter schools, choose to locally develop an ethnic studies program for approval by their governing board or governing body, it is the intent of the Legislature that local educational agencies not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.
However, In a 2023 letter, the council criticized the state for “censorship” through the implementation of such “guardrails” designed to prevent bias and bigotry in ethnic studies courses. Yet, they were established explicitly to comply with California law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, and other protected characteristics.
The danger here lies in the fact that many of the educators shaping ethnic studies in California endorse the framing of Zionism as racism. These professors take refuge in a disingenuous defense claiming that advocating for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish State is not antisemitic.
Members of the same UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council have published letters that lay the blame of the October 7 Hamas massacre on Israel. They accuse the UC system of erasing Palestinian suffering and misrepresenting genocide. Their October 16, 2023 statement reads in part: “Rather than meet the moment with intellectual honesty and an understanding of history, UC administrative communications grossly decontextualize the structure of violence, daily death and suffering, and destruction of over 75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid. This near century of colonial brutality and militarized repression must be understood as a normalized condition of state terror and dehumanization.” Their statement makes it crystal clear they view the October 7th massacre of Jews as legitimate resistance.
The question remains: who defines what is an appropriate lesson plan for a high school ethnic studies class and what is political indoctrination?
When one curriculum omits entire communities and purposefully misconstrues core aspects of their identity is it not itself engaging in bias and bigotry? Contrary to the Palestinian National Charter and the professors who parrot its rhetoric, Zionism is not a racist settler colonial enterprise. Israel is the legitimate state of the Jewish people by every definition.
This is not just an academic debate. It shapes what will be taught to thousands of students across California. The choice between the Model Curriculum and the Liberated Curriculum is not merely pedagogical. It is a choice between education and indoctrination. If ethnic studies is to fulfill its promise, it must be inclusive, balanced, and grounded in fact—not dogma.
