The discovery process has yielded new evidence about a lawsuit filed in September against the Santa Ana Unified School District by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee and Covington & Burling.
The organizations announced that they had filed a motion on Monday to add evidence to its case, which charges that the district violated California’s open meetings law to hide the antisemitic nature of its ethnic-studies curriculum.
A release highlighted examples uncovered through discovery, including Ethnic Studies Steering Committee officials suggesting using Jewish holidays to approve courses at the board level to make it difficult or impossible for Jews to attend.
The committee also hired a consultant who had posted on social media about Israel as a “settler-colonial” entity and wrote that “the Zionist CA Jewish Caucus hijacked ethnic studies.”
James Pasch, the ADL’s senior director of national litigation, stated that “open meetings are required by law specifically to prevent this type of situation.”
He said evidence shows that “the district intentionally hid information from the public to try to get away with teaching antisemitic lies to the next generation in Santa Ana. The antisemitism that infected this process sent a clear message to Jewish students and families that their voices are not welcomed, and that they were intentionally excluded.”
