Los Angeles just delivered an important victory for families concerned about growing political activism and anti-Israel and antisemitic conduct in public schools. Following a civil rights complaint initiated by my organization, the North American Values Institute (NAVI), the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) substantiated all 11 allegations concerning political advocacy at Canoga Park High School and ordered extensive corrective action. The LAUSD ruling will impact the entire school district and even set a precedent for the state.
For L.A.’s Jewish community, which has endured so many troubling incidents of antisemitism in education, this is welcome news. Teachers used instructional time and school resources to advance an anti-Israel political agenda. Parents and community organizations challenged their conduct and the district investigated and required changes.
For L.A.’s Jewish community, which has endured so many troubling incidents of antisemitism in education, this is welcome news. Teachers used instructional time and school resources to advance an anti-Israel political agenda. Parents and community organizations challenged their conduct and the district investigated and required changes.
We are proud to have helped bring about this outcome. We hope it encourages families across Los Angeles who have wondered whether raising concerns about their children’s schools can accomplish anything if they come forward.
It can. And LAUSD deserves credit for taking the evidence seriously.
Our investigation began with a CODEPINK teacher-training webinar called “Challenging Zionism in Schools.” We documented efforts to bring anti-Israel advocacy into classrooms under broadly worded state instructional standards. After publishing our findings, we partnered with JewTLA on a public records request and retained Emet Legal to prepare and file the complaint.
The evidence showed teachers using their authority to advance a political cause.
A dance teacher taught “Palestinian resistance,” dedicated performances to the “children of Gaza,” and required students to review a YouTube channel using “martyrs of Gaza” framing as part of a graded final exam. Teachers recruited students for Students for Justice in Palestine, including during class. Other instructional materials compared Gaza with the Holocaust and accused Israel of genocide.
Emails obtained through our public records request showed at least six teachers involved in the club, writing its constitution, setting meeting agendas and planning protests. One teacher rejected presenting competing perspectives on the conflict, comparing that approach to giving the Nazi perspective a hearing when teaching the Holocaust. Teachers also consulted CODEPINK’s Marcy Winograd about school matters and involving students in political activities.
How did a public school become so hospitable to political activism? In 2021, California enacted AB 101, establishing an ethnic studies graduation requirement. That same year, the state adopted a model curriculum whose guidelines encouraged students to analyze systems of oppression and whose sample courses included developing “critical consciousness.” Although the model curriculum was optional, its influence could extend beyond a dedicated ethnic studies course: state guidance explicitly envisioned integrating ethnic studies into existing subjects, including history, English and the arts.
For educators who shared this worldview, that framework offered a rationale for bringing their political judgments about America, the West and Israel into the classroom. At Canoga Park, one teacher explicitly described developing students’ critical consciousness as a central educational goal. Once teachers understood their role as awakening students to oppression, it was a short step to presenting their own account of Palestinian oppression as an educational obligation.
Groups like CODEPINK and activist networks within teachers unions knew how to exploit that opening. In the webinar we investigated, presenters advised educators to tie Palestine-related lessons to state standards to protect themselves against objections. They offered a ready justification for bringing their advocacy into multiple subjects. The door had been left wide open, and they were showing teachers how to walk through it.
Schools should teach difficult subjects, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Students should examine competing claims, confront uncomfortable facts and develop their own judgments. Teachers have an obligation to conduct classroom discussions fairly, present competing perspectives honestly and give students room to reach their own conclusions. They should never put their finger on the scale to steer students toward their own political views.
LAUSD’s determination established that boundaries had been crossed in Canoga Park. Its remedies included mandatory training on Title VI, preventing antisemitism and restrictions on employee political advocacy. The district required removal of unlawful political materials, administrative review of supplemental lessons and performances, curriculum changes, and limits on staff involvement in SJP to custodial supervision.
I imagine that well-meaning school officials in the LAUSD central office could see how out of control the situation had gotten in Canoga Park and other places where schools went along with radical teachers. These LAUSD officials took substantial steps to clamp down. We will follow their implementation and continue pressing for staff accountability and appropriate instruction to address what students were taught.
The outcome also offers two lessons that reach beyond Canoga Park.
First, we in the Jewish community can win in places where success might seem unlikely.
Los Angeles has influential activist networks and a political culture in which anti-Israel advocacy easily takes root. Families who encounter that advocacy in schools may reasonably wonder whether anyone will listen to their objections. This case gives them grounds to try.
It also challenges a tendency within the Jewish community of treating certain institutions, districts or states as lost causes. That judgment can sound realistic and cause us to aim low in our advocacy.
Evidence, capable partners and persistence, however, can create opportunities that defy our political assumptions. We should be willing to test those assumptions at every opportunity and not reconcile ourselves to school-endorsed politics in the classroom.
The second lesson concerns the people working inside school systems.
LAUSD officials examined the complaint, substantiated the allegations and ordered meaningful remedies. Their response suggests there is room for constructive engagement with people who share concerns about ideological excesses in education.
Many educators and administrators want schools to maintain professional standards and help students think independently. They may be uncomfortable with colleagues turning lessons, performances or student clubs into vehicles for political advocacy.
A documented complaint gives those concerns a concrete focus and tips the balance in favor of intervention. It identifies conduct that officials can investigate and rules they can enforce.
For L.A.’s Jewish community, this is a moment to rev up its engines.
Parents need help obtaining records and understanding their options. Community organizations need the expertise to turn troubling accounts into well-supported cases. District officials need to hear from families who expect consistent standards. And successful complaints need sustained attention so that promised changes reach classrooms.
The winds of change may be blowing in our direction. Jewish families across America now have an example of what organized, persistent engagement can accomplish. Other communities have a case they can study, learn from and replicate.
That should expand our sense of what is possible, and our determination to make it happen again.
David Bernstein is the founder and CEO of the North American Values Institute (NAVI).
