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During a House subcommittee hearing on anti-Semitism in K-12 schools Wednesday at the Capitol, a first-term California lawmaker sparred with Berkeley Unified's superintendent and criticized the consultant chosen by the district to create an ethnic studies curriculum.
With five minutes to interrogate, Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, who represents a vast swath of Eastern California, pressed Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium.
The group presents California school districts with an alternative to the state's Ethnic Studies Model curriculum framework that focuses on dismantling Zionism, which equates capitalism, racist systems, and colonialism. Leaders of this group include ethnic studies professors from the California State University and the University of California.
The district hired the group on a one-year contract in June 2023 for $111,120 to serve as what Ford Morthel calls an “incident partner.” Berkeley's memorandum states that the district's Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee recommended the group as a “group of content experts” to “provide educational materials, teacher training, and consultation for the implementation of ethnic studies.”
The consortium contract is scheduled for renewal next month. Jewish parents in Berkeley continued to write to the school board opposing it. In their letter, the parents criticized the consortium for promoting a “non-inclusive, biased, divisive and one-sided ideological worldview.”
Ford Morthel testified Wednesday that the district did not purchase the Liberation Ethnic Studies curriculum. Rather, she said the district takes pride in the fact that teachers and community partners wrote the curriculum. Teachers created a lesson on Israel and Palestine because of “a lot of curiosity, a lot of questions, and frankly, a lot of confusion from a lot of students who wanted to know what was going on.”
The district did not respond Thursday to questions from EdSource about what the consortium would provide the district.
The district did not release the lesson plans, and parent Yossi Fendel sued the district for it. Fendel said she said the content she was allowed to view to her ninth-grade class was biased against Israel and violated the district's policy of teaching controversial issues. The Berkeleyside publication reported.
The Liberated consortium is one of several consulting groups in Sacramento and Berkeley whose curriculum proposals have sparked controversy.
The 16 members of the leadership team are listed on the website of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium and include ethnic studies leaders from across the state.
In 2019, state officials sharply criticized the first draft of the ethnic studies curriculum and ordered state Education Department writers to make extensive revisions. The authors rejected the state's model version of the curriculum and stopped to create a liberated ethnic studies model curriculum.
Critics included State Board of Education Chairwoman Linda Darling-Hammond and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The Jewish Legislative Caucus cited the curriculum’s one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its favorable definition of the “boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement,” which calls for sanctions and boycotts against Israel. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the document was “unbalanced and comprehensive.”
Please answer yes or no.
Early in the two-hour hearing, subcommittee Chairman Aaron Bean, R-Fla. Lawmakers forced Ford Morthel and two other superintendents, New York City Superintendent David Banks and Montgomery County Board of Education Chairman Karla, onto the panel. Silvestre provides one-word answers to a series of complex questions. One was whether the phrase “Palestine will be free from river to sea” was anti-Semitic.
Yes and no, Bean asked.
Ford Morthel responded, “If you demand the removal of the Jews from Israel.” “I also want to say that we recognize that this means different things to different members of our community.”
“I’m going to go with ‘yes.’ I’ll put you down, will I?” Vin said.
Kiley used that answer on her during her questioning. He pointed to a slide from a teacher-prepared curriculum that cited the phrase “from the river to the sea” as a call for freedom and peace, soon paired with a “quote of support” from Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. After the Israeli Hamas attack on October 7. The Congress censured Tlaib in a Republican-led vote of 224-188, which members argued implied support for armed resistance to abolish the state of Israel.
Many people, including most Jews, think so too. Tlaib and others say this invites a future of coexistence in Palestine where everyone can live freely.
“Do you think it would be appropriate to put it on a student slide?” Kiley asked Ford Morthel.
“So we definitely believe that it’s important to expose students to a variety of ideas and perspectives. And I think it’s appropriate if it’s put into perspective.”
“You said earlier that you thought this was anti-Semitism, and you put this on a slide in the classroom, and then the students went around the halls saying: I don’t think there’s anything surprising about that,” Kiley said.
Ford Morthel said of the district passing a policy against hate speech last year. “Public schools reflect the values and aspirations of their communities. Berkeley is no different.
“The history of activism, social justice, diversity and inclusion is alive and well today. And we recognize the need to teach students to express themselves with respect and compassion.”