Summary of Judge Fernando M. Olguin’s decision in Concerned Jewish Parents & Teachers of L.A. v. Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium:
The Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles, a group of Jewish, Zionist teachers and parents in the Los Angeles Unified School District, filed a complaint on May 12, 2022. The court found the complaint to be confusing and unclear, with allegations that were often contradictory and difficult to follow. The lawsuit revolves around the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (LESMC), which the plaintiffs claim contains anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic content. However, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for various reasons, including significant First Amendment concerns.
The court highlighted that the plaintiffs’ claims infringe on the First Amendment rights of the non-District defendants, who have the right to express their views and petition for curricular changes. The court also raised concerns about potential restrictions on teachers’ speech in the classroom, emphasizing the importance of academic freedom and the potential chilling effects of litigation over curricular material.
In essence, the court’s decision underscores the protection of free speech and academic freedom in educational settings, cautioning against attempts to suppress differing viewpoints or control curriculum through legal action.
In short, permitting lawsuits against school districts on the basis of the content of literary works [or curriculum] to proceed past the complaint stage could have a significant chilling effect on a school district’s willingness to assign [material] with themes, characters, snippets of dialogue, or words that might offend the sensibilities of any number of persons or groups.
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that the freedom to receive ideas, and its relation to the freedom of expression, is particularly relevant in the classroom setting.” Students have a right to receive information and “lawsuits threatening to attach civil liability on the basis of the assignment of [curricular material] would severely restrict a student’s right to receive material that his school board or other educational authority determines to be of legitimate educational value.”
The Supreme Court has also noted “the importance of protecting the ‘robust exchange of ideas[.]'” By their nature, these exchanges may sometimes involve uncomfortable conversations—but a system of education “which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues” must allow teachers and their students to explore difficult and conflicting ideas. “[W]e must be careful not to curb intellectual freedom by imposing dogmatic restrictions that chill teachers from adopting the pedagogical methods they believe are most effective.”
Determining the content of curricula is a complicated, important matter, and it is for this reason that school boards generally retain broad discretion in doing so, and that teachers must have some discretion and academic freedom in implementing and teaching the curriculum. It would be of great concern for the educational project and for academic freedom if every offended party could sue every time they did not like a curriculum or the way it was taught….
You can read the opinion for more details, but here’s an excerpt from the court’s conclusion that most of the defendants aren’t government actors, and thus aren’t constrained by the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause:
Taken together, the gist of plaintiffs’ allegations appears to be that: (1) the Consortium developed the challenged curriculum; (2) UTLA has supported the challenged curriculum; and (3) members of UTLA and the Consortium serve or have served on the ESC, and as a result, the non-District defendants are effectively determining the curriculum and thus engaged in state action. But plaintiffs’ allegations that LAUSD has effectively walked away from developing an ethnic studies curriculum and left it to the non-District defendants are simply not plausible, especially given the other allegations in plaintiffs’ [Complaint]. As plaintiffs acknowledge, LAUSD established the ESC as an advisory committee—under LAUSD’S control—to provide input on the development and implementation of an ethnic studies curriculum. And there are no specific and plausible allegations to establish, as plaintiffs contend, that the non-District defendants “have stepped into th[e] vacuum” left by LAUSD merely because they have advocated for the challenged curriculum. Such reasoning would sweep up virtually every group that succeeds in advocating for changes to public programs….
And an excerpt from the court’s rejection of plaintiffs’ Free Exercise Clause challenge:
“Offensive content that does not penalize, interfere with, or otherwise burden religious exercise does not violate Free Exercise rights.” This is so even where such content contains material that plaintiffs may find “offensive to their religious beliefs.”
Plaintiffs contend that the substantial burden on the exercise of religion “in this case is not only a function of the impact of the teaching on Jewish children who hold this belief: it is also on other children who are being taught to hate that belief and to oppose it actively.” But plaintiffs do not cite to any portions of the [Complaint] to support their contention that instruction from the challenged curriculum burdens the exercise of their faith. Indeed, plaintiffs’ [Complaint] does not identify any burden at all—it does not allege that plaintiffs have somehow been prevented from practicing their faith, or that the parent-plaintiffs have been barred in any way from instructing their children at home. In effect, the only hardship plaintiffs allege is that the existence of the challenged curriculum—and its possible adoption—offends them. But mere offense is insufficient to allege a burden on religious exercise [citing cases holding that “class materials offensive to Hindu [and Muslim] plaintiffs did not violate Free Exercise Clause”]….
