Ethnic Studies in California and Anti-Semitism

I am cross-posting an op-ed by my friend and colleague, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. It concerns the controversial ethnic studies movement in California and how it contributes to anti-Semitism in our schools and universities. At issue specifically is California Assembly Bill 715, which is intended to protect Jewish students in grades K-12. It is being fiercely opposed by the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council. Also highlighted is a local school board meeting (Pajaro Valley Unified School District) in which the ugly divisions were on full display.

 The link to Tammi's article can be accessed here. I have also cut and pasted the text below.

The Other Antisemitism of Liberated Ethnic Studies

 

By: Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
Published: August 27, 2025

AB 715 — a bill that sets basic protections against antisemitism in K–12 curricula, particularly ethnic studies — passed the California Assembly unanimously in June and now heads to a Senate vote. The fiercest opposition comes from the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council and other advocates of the “liberated” ethnic studies movement, a narrow, extremist variant of the discipline whose published materials have trafficked in dangerous antisemitic tropes. In a recent Instagram post, the council escalated from policy debate to personal attack, dubbing the bill’s Jewish author the “2025 Top Genocide Denier” and a “Champion of Racism.”

The tactic is familiar: deny antisemitism and discredit those who try to address it. That playbook was on full display at an April Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) board meeting.

Jewish community members had come to oppose renewing the district’s contract with Community Responsive Education (CRE), a consulting group led by San Francisco State professor Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. She chaired the committee behind California’s original ethnic studies curriculum — a version criticized for antisemitic content and rejected by the governor. PVUSD had tapped CRE to help implement AB 101, the 2021 law requiring all California high school students to take ethnic studies to graduate.

Community members warned that CRE’s framework erases Jewish identity, delegitimizes Jewish self-determination and dismisses antisemitism concerns.

Instead of listening, Trustee Gabriel Medina accused speakers of “propaganda” and “manipulative tactics,” claiming they only show up to “tell brown people who they are,” dismissing concerns as “lies,” and mocking emotional testimony. Trustee Joy Flynn invoked antisemitic tropes, referencing “the economic power historically held by the Jewish community.”

This reflected a pattern familiar to Jews concerned by growing evidence of antisemitism in ethnic studies: Critics aren’t engaged; they’re smeared as racists or oppressors.

That pattern appeared early, during the development of the state’s curriculum. One co-author, Cal State Northridge professor Theresa Montaño, later a founder of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, responded to Jewish criticism by blaming a “very rich, very wealthy, very well-connected segment of the (Jewish) community” for derailing the curriculum. She claimed it proved “white privilege and white racism” in California.

The same tactics surfaced in higher education. When UC faculty raised concerns about an ethnic studies admissions requirement — including cost, unclear standards and lack of consultation — they were met with denunciation, not dialogue. In a press release titled “UC Ethnic Studies Under Attack,” the proposal’s authors, professors Christine Hong and Andrew Jolivette, accused colleagues of supporting “racist, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous” policies, casting academic objections as “white supremacist backlash.”

When the UC Academic Senate ultimately rejected the proposal, the backlash was swift. Faculty who voted no or abstained were publicly doxxed by the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, which encouraged followers to “CONDEMN THEM NOW!” One council leader declared opponents “complicit with white supremacy.” The message was clear: dissent is not allowed.

Far from being an unintended consequence, this dynamic is central to how “liberated” ethnic studies operates. The discipline, as promoted by its most vocal advocates, treats disagreement as oppression and uses ideological jargon to punish nonconformity. Every critique becomes proof of the discipline’s necessity, and every dissenter, a villain.

To be clear, AB 101 doesn’t mandate a particular version of ethnic studies. But in practice, the approach that embraces antisemitism is the one rapidly gaining ground, because its architects are training the next generation of teachers, and few dare to challenge them.

The PVUSD meeting wasn’t an outlier. It was a warning. When Jews raise concerns, they are vilified. When faculty object, they are harassed. This isn’t how an academic discipline behaves, it’s how an ideological movement enforces conformity.

Whatever one thinks of AB 715, the antisemitic rhetoric marshaled against it — denial, inversion, scapegoating — confirms the problem. California’s students deserve better. The state must rethink its ethnic studies mandate.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the executive director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit organization that combats campus antisemitism. She served as faculty at the University of California for nearly two decades.
 

https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/08/26/guest-commentary-the-other-antisemitism-of-liberated-ethnic-studies/
 

It is striking and depressing at the same time to see the apparent hostility that the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council has towards the Jewish community in their opposition to AB 715, which is intended to protect Jewish students from being ostracized and bullied. They are pushing teaching programs that lump Jews into some "privileged white" category that is supposedly hostile to other minorities. They are peddling a false narrative that is intensifying anti-Jewish feeling in our schools and universities. Those who must suffer the consequences are our Jewish students, teachers, and other school employees.

As one who taught part-time within the University of California system (UC Irvine 1998-2016), I find it reprehensible that UC university officials are involved in this misguided movement that can only divide school communities by race and religion while exacerbating an already exploding wave of anti-Semitism. They are not representing the University of California well, in my humble opinion.