The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating whether an unauthorized teach-in by Oakland educators last month about Palestine amounted to discrimination against students on the basis of their shared Jewish ancestry.
In a Jan. 16 letter to Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, an attorney with the agency wrote that the Office of Civil Rights received a complaint on Dec. 12 about the teach-in.
“The complaint alleges that the District discriminated against students on the basis of national origin (shared Jewish ancestry) when District teachers held a teach-in on Palestine during the school day on December 6, 2023, and allegedly taught elementary school students that a ‘free Palestine means the annihilation of Jews,’” the letter says.
The authorities are investigating whether OUSD failed to comply with the Civil Rights Act to respond to alleged harassment of Jewish students by district employees.
An OUSD spokesperson said the district does not comment on ongoing legal matters.
The investigation was announced last week. Other schools and districts being probed for ethnic discrimination include San Francisco Unified, Newark Public Schools, and universities including Yale, Northwestern, Temple, and Arizona State. By Jan. 23, 18 investigations had been opened in 2024. The exact nature of these other investigations isn’t known because the Department of Education doesn’t publicly disclose the reasons it has launched a probe of a school district.
The Oakland teach-in was not organized by the school district or the Oakland Education Association teachers union. Rather, an independent group of teachers whose aim was to highlight Palestinian perspectives on the war in Gaza were behind the one-day event.
“Oakland educators have worked to find resources, by reputable organizations or individuals, that are relevant to the current events in Gaza and highlight Palestinian perspectives on Palestinian resistance and liberation not found in resources provided by OUSD,” educators wrote in a list of lessons and resources they compiled for the Dec. 6 teach-in.
Some Jewish families in OUSD felt that the curriculum for the teach-in was one-sided and disparaged Israel, Israelis, and Jewish people. The teach-in came weeks after the Oakland Education Association issued a since-deleted statement unequivocally supporting Palestine and calling Israel’s policies and actions toward the Palestinians “genocidal.” These incidents have left some families feeling that antisemitism is prevalent in OUSD.
Over the past few months, more than two dozen Jewish families have withdrawn their students from the district, according to news reports.
Following the news of the investigations into Oakland and San Francisco school districts, the Jewish Community Relations Council, an organization that represents Jewish communities in the Bay Area, released a statement saying its members “have been concerned since October 7 about the safety and belonging of Jewish students in both districts.”
“In this difficult time, JCRC Bay Area urges our local districts to prioritize curriculum on Jewish identity and antisemitism, and develop proactive measures to ensure an inclusive environment for Jewish students and families.”
The letter to OUSD explains that the Office of Civil Rights hasn’t made a determination in the investigation and that the agency is a neutral fact-finder. The office made several requests for records that OUSD must fulfill by Jan. 31. This includes copies of the district’s policies around investigations into discrimination, copies of reports and complaints to OUSD about discrimination in connection with the Dec. 6 teach-in, a list of the classrooms that participated in the teach-in, including students and teachers, emails and social media posts the district received about the teach-in, all complaints made this…
This article was originally published by a oaklandside.org . Read the Original article here. .