After a Jewish advocacy group filed a complaint, the California of Department of Education found that teachers at a San Jose high school discriminated against Jewish students when teaching about Israel and Palestine.
Supporters of former Branham athletic director Landon Jacobs attend the
After a Jewish advocacy group filed a complaint, the California of Department of Education found that teachers at a San Jose high school discriminated against Jewish students when teaching about Israel and Palestine.
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The California Department of Education has ordered two South Bay school districts to provide anti-bias training after finding that teachers discriminated against Jewish students by providing lessons slanted against Israel when teaching about its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
Two ethnic studies teachers at Branham High School in San Jose discriminated against Jewish students and broke state education code by describing Israel as a settler-colonial state and its war against Hamas as a genocide against the Palestinian people, the department said in a report. Branham is part of the Campbell Union High School District.
In the Santa Clara Unified School District, Jewish students experienced discrimination when a world history teacher took a “clear” pro-Palestinian stance during class, and when another teacher told a student it would be a “bad look” to invite an Israeli speaker to campus, the department found. It did not identify the school or schools in its report.
Last year, Jewish advocacy groups and students filed several formal complaints against the two Silicon Valley districts after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza ignited flashpoints about teaching on the topic in Bay Area schools.
State education officials released their report finding discrimination against Jewish students at Branham High School earlier this month.
The department’s investigators found bias in the lesson in an Ethnic Literature course that claimed Israel is a settler-colonial state. In a different class, a student’s project discussed the “Genocide of Palestinians” and a teacher didn’t respond appropriately, according to the investigation released on April 4. The content violated state education codes that outlaw bias on the basis of religion, ethnicity or other protected statuses, the department found.
In response, state officials ordered the Campbell school district to implement an anti-bias training lasting at least an hour for high school English and social studies teachers before the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
“We are currently reviewing the report in detail and are taking its findings seriously,” Jada Chiu, a spokesperson for the district, said in an email. It’s unclear whether the required training must specifically include content about Israel and Palestine, she said.
Maya Bronicki, education director for the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, which pursued the complaints, said the required trainings fell far short of the broad action she’d like to see the school districts take to prevent future antisemitism and “correct the harm already done.”
“We would like to see systemic attention to ensure that there is no discrimination or bias to any student,” Bronicki said.
Santa Clara district officials held their mandatory training in March, Bronicki said, and it was a letdown.
“Very few minutes were dedicated to explaining anti-semitism and why is that a concern,” she said.
State officials also ordered the Santa Clara district to implement more training for teachers on student’s rights to be free of discrimination and retaliation after the two incidents at the unnamed schools.
In one of those instances, in December 2023, a world history teacher directed students to present on a contemporary genocide and listed the “Genocide in Palestine” as an example, according to the state’s report. The class materials also described “apartheid in Palestine” and “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” by Israelis against Palestinians.
The content, including memes touting anti-Zionists as “cool,” could reasonably make students feel uncomfortable given the political climate and “could reasonably be construed as a clear stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” state education officials concluded.
Previously, the Santa Clara school district investigated the incidents and found violations of district policies such as the “treatment of controversial issues,” but concluded that they did not constitute discrimination or harassment. A spokesperson for the district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The rulings are just the latest in a slew of instances of alleged discrimination against Jewish as well as Arab and Muslim students in Bay Area schools since the searing war in the Middle East exploded in 2023.
The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a federal civil rights complaint against Santa Clara Unified School District in October, alleging “systemic anti-Palestinian discrimination that has reportedly created a hostile environment for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, parents, and educators” within its schools.
The Bay Area branch of CAIR “is deeply concerned that teaching about Palestinian experiences and critiques of Israeli policy is being repeatedly mischaracterized as discrimination by pro-Israel groups,” executive director Zahra Billoo said in an email. “Ensuring classrooms are inclusive means making space for all narratives–including those of Palestinians, living under occupation and not experiencing a genocide, while firmly opposing both antisemitism and Islamophobia.”
Amid the volley of discrimination allegations and legal complaints, members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and many Bay Area Democrats introduced a bill this year that would require the state Board of Education to adopt standards for ethnic studies by January 2028. That would largely push discussion of Israel and Palestine to other courses, such as world history, according to its sponsors.
Legislation passed in 2021 requires California public high schools to offer a course in ethnic studies by the 2025-26 school year, and by 2030, students won’t be able to graduate without it. Currently, California teachers have more leeway to teach ethnic studies than other subjects.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Assemblymember Dawn Addis, said the incident at Branham High School is “exactly why” content standards are necessary.
“I’m glad to see the process worked in this situation, but we have to be clear: students should never have had to go through this in the first place,” Addis said in a statement. “While enforcement has a role, the true goal of AB 1468 is to set up teachers and school systems to succeed so that every classroom can be a space of belonging and learning, not confusion or harm.”