Shocking New Developments in Lawsuit Jewish Groups Filed Against Santa Ana School District

Several Jewish organizations suing the Santa Ana Unified School District for surreptitiously approving an anti-Semitism riddled ethnic studies curriculum in violation of state laws have uncovered more evidence of crass anti-Semitism and chicanery by the people involved with the curriculum.

And school officials this week refused to disavow the employee who made the most vulgar remarks about Jews. She remains happily ensconced in the school system.

The crass language and illegal attempts to exclude the Jewish community from consideration of the curriculum were explicated in a motion recently filed by the American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center asking a California Superior Court judge to invalidate the curriculum.

The lawsuit was originally filed in September 2023. It charges that the School District violated California’s Brown Act requiring open meetings and AB 101 which says ethnic studies courses should be free of biased content when it circumvented required feedback from the Jewish community and sneakily approved a curriculum that demonized Israel.

The new motion, which includes material obtained through depositions and public records requests, depicts members of the ethnic studies committee that the school board created trying to shut out Jewish feedback and painting Jews as white oppressors. One committee member, for example, referred to a Jewish member of the committee as a “colonized Jewish mind.”

Another committee member suggested holding meetings on a Jewish holiday so Jews could not attend. “We may need to use Passover to get new courses approved.”

American Jewish Committee lawyer Marc Stern said in a statement that “Discovery in this case has revealed a persistent pattern of antisemitism in the steering committee. Antisemitism has no place in any governmental body and it is doubly concerning when it involves children and their education. That proponents of this proposal made a concerted effort to hide their antisemitism is yet further evidence that they knew what they were doing was wrong and did not want it disclosed publicly.”

Brandeis Center general counsel Rachel Lerman told the California Globe that the material gathered “shows the intent of the board and committee to exclude the public generally and the Jewish community in particular from the opportunity to participate, a right guaranteed by the Brown Act. The board was successful in excluding the Jewish community from the creation of the curriculum and from knowing it was being voted on until it was too late for anyone to raise public objections.”

She added that the end result was course content that is “anti-Semitic and paints Israel as a demonic entity.”

Lerman explained that the AB 101 law which makes ethnic studies courses a high school graduation requirement also dictates that the “ethnic studies curriculum be presented during two separate board meetings for public comment.”

But Santa Ana School officials flouted that requirement. “No course substance was ever presented to the public. No members of the public commented during the first meeting, and only one commented during the second meeting due to the Board’s failure to give adequate notice of what was contained in these courses or the opportunity to provide input as required by AB 101 and the Brown Act.”

The lawsuit says that “Discovery in this case has revealed not only how SAUSD failed to comply with the Brown Act but also why SAUSD kept the creation of the ethnic studies curricula behind closed doors. SAUSD did not want members of the Jewish community of the public generally to know what was going on.”

The ethnic studies “Steering Committee sought to exclude any voices–especially Jewish ones–that might stray from so-called ‘liberated’ ethnic studies orthodoxy, which classifies Jewish people as White–regardless of their actual skin color or historical perceptions of Jews as non-white and the Jewish people as oppressors, even though this term is wholly inappropriate when applied categorically to groups or individuals based solely on the color of their skin, and is especially inapt when applied to Jews of any color, given their centuries-long experience of oppression and persecution, which persists into the present.”

The amended complaint then explains how this world view played out among Steering Committee members whose communications manifested a “deeply troubling evidence of extreme bias and anti-Semitism.”

It gives a litany of examples.

• ”In text messages two senior SAUSD officials discussed scheduling ethnic studies course approvals by the full Board on a Jewish holiday so Jews could not attend and comment on the course content. One stated: on a good note…no public comment on ethnic studies. We may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved.” The other official responded “that’s actually a good strategy.”
• ”Senior members of the Steering Committee reportedly stated among other things, that ‘Jews are not a disadvantaged group in the U.S. because they were never slaves’ that ‘Jews greatly benefit from white privilege, so they have it better’ and ‘we don’t need to give both sides. We only support the oppressed and Jews are the oppressors.’”
• ”Without conducting any due diligence or a competitive bidding process, the Steering Committee retained an external consultant to train SAUSD teachers on ethnic studies. SAUDS hired this consultant despite a serious prior domestic charge and unhinged social media rantings in which he used anti-Semitic tropes about ‘Zionist control,’ claimed that the ‘Zionist Jewish Caucus hijacked Ethnic Studies” and asked ‘how TF can anyone support the settler colonial state of Israel.”

But internally the most vulgar remarks came from somebody the lawsuit identifies as “Employee 1” who took umbrage that the Jewish Federation of Orange County wanted input on the curriculum, referring to them as “racist Zionists” to whom the District should not “cave.”

“She doubled down in her deposition on her view that the Jewish Federation are ‘racist Zionists,'” the complaint says.

And “In another exchange Employee 1 referred to the lone Jewish member of the Steering Committee as a “colonized Jewish mind” as well as a “pretender” a “fucking baby” and “stupid” because of his reservations about some of the Committee’s work.”

“Employee I” also said in a Committee meeting that “Jews have it better” and that it wasn’t necessary to provide “both sides” because “we only support the oppressed and Jews are the oppressors.”

The California Globe has learned that “Employee 1” is Roselinn Lee, a curriculum specialist for the Santa Ana Unified School District.

Lee forwarded an emailed inquiry to Santa Ana Unified School District communications director Fermin Leal, saying “he is the one who handles outside media requests.”

Asked if the District had any problems with the views Lee expressed about Jews, Leal told the California Globe that “Unfortunately, we are not able to provide comment on specific questions regarding any ongoing litigation.”

So it looks like Lee remains in good standing with the Santa Ana Unified School District. It is hard to imagine that school officials anywhere in the country would display such an insouciant attitude towards an employee caught disparaging blacks or Latinos in the same way that Lee talks about Jews.

But disparaging Jews these days is apparently some form of leftist privilege.

In April 2023 the School Board voted to approve two courses that were created by the Ethnic Studies Committee on which Lee played such an apparently instrumental role. The lawsuit says that the “anti-Jewish” bias of the Steering Committee “seeped into” the two courses that it created, “Ethnic Studies World Histories” and Ethnic Studies World Geography.”

Both contain material that “suggests that the State of Israel is illegitimate and is the product of European imperialism, which is patently false. The narrative denies Jewish people their historic, millenia-old connection to the land of Israel, as well as their present day right to self-determination in the place where millions of them currently live, which is dehumanizing.”

The amended lawsuit is asking the Court to issue an injunction barring the School District from using the curriculum that was approved by the Ethnic Studies Steering Committee.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for September 19th at 1:30pm at Orange County Superior Court.

Brandeis Center lawyer Rachel Lerman told the California Globe that she is cautiously optimistic that the judge will issue an injunction.