California
Opinion | California Parents Say No to Anti-Semitic Ethnic Studies
A bunch of Jewish public-school dad and mom and academics filed a federal lawsuit Thursday difficult the adoption of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist curricular supplies in Los Angeles public colleges.
Final 12 months California Gov.
Gavin Newsom
signed a regulation requiring public-school college students within the state to finish a course in ethnic research to graduate from highschool. He stated it was wanted as a result of “college students need to see themselves of their research, and so they should perceive our nation’s full historical past if we count on them to sooner or later construct a extra simply society.” However the ethnic-studies motion has by no means been about illustration or justice. A creature of Nineteen Sixties radical left-wing activism, ethnic research was from the beginning about attacking the U.S., capitalism and Zionism.
Advocates—together with academics union officers, public-school academics and different ideologues—have fashioned the Liberated Ethnic Research Mannequin Curriculum Consortium, by means of which they hope to affect the educating of ethnic research within the state. The consortium, which disseminates educating supplies lifted straight from radical anti-Israel web sites, rejects the concept that all cultures needs to be studied. It asserts that ethnic research is about solely 4 teams: Native Individuals, black Individuals, Chicanos/Latinos, and Asian-Individuals/Pacific Islanders. That final group consists of Arabs from the Center East—however not Jews, who’ve lived in that very same area for millennia.
The consortium’s supplies—lots of which have been taken offline in current months—are crammed with assaults on Jews and the Jewish state. They deny that Jews are indigenous to the Center East and educate that Israel is a “colonialist” and “settler state” based by means of “genocide,” “ethnic cleaning” and “apartheid.” They falsely outline Judaism, educating that “Zionism is distinct from Judaism” and that Zionism isn’t a Jewish spiritual perception however an invention of the “late nineteenth century.”
Inform that to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who finish their Passover Seders with “subsequent 12 months in Jerusalem,” or finish each Jewish wedding ceremony by breaking a glass to mourn Jerusalem’s destruction, or pray every day going through Jerusalem—or whose bible, prayer guide and calendar have for 1000’s of years been crammed with the craving for a return of the folks of Israel to sovereignty within the land of Israel.
The consortium’s supplies describe Zionism as a “nationalist colonial ideology” that seeks the “enlargement of the Jewish state into historic Palestine by any means needed,” and says Israel and the U.S. are “white settler states,” though Israel’s Jewish inhabitants is greater than half “folks of shade”—together with folks whose ancestors lived in Africa and India and extra three million Israelis descended from Jews who’ve lived within the Center East since earlier than the Babylonian exile 2,600 years in the past.
California regulation requires that publicly funded educating supplies be public, so that folks and taxpayers know what’s occurring within the colleges they use and pay for. However the consortium instructs academics to violate that mandate. Lessons instructing academics in regards to the curriculum are by invitation solely. The consortium urges sympathetic academics to “fly below the radar” and advises that it might be greatest to “shut their doorways” earlier than educating the “liberatory curriculum”—together with the denunciation of Jewish beliefs and the Jewish state—so dad and mom can’t discover out what’s occurring.
The lawsuit has two goals: removing of educating supplies denouncing the plaintiffs’ sincerely held spiritual beliefs, and public disclosure of all ethnic-studies supplies in Los Angeles public colleges. The dad and mom and academics we signify search public disclosure of what’s truly being taught with public cash in public colleges and an finish to using taxpayer-funded anti-Semitic educating supplies. Jewish academics have the precise to a office, and Jewish dad and mom to a public faculty for his or her youngsters, the place government-paid academics don’t denounce their homeland, characterize their folks as genocidal criminals, or disparage their spiritual beliefs.
If the Liberated Ethnic Research Mannequin Curriculum Consortium prevails in California, it’s prone to be deployed elsewhere. Israel and the Jews are solely the primary of the left’s perceived ideological enemies to be denounced on the general public dime. If proponents of the curriculum aren’t stopped, different enemies—and their denunciations—are prone to observe.
Ms. Marcus is authorized director of the Deborah Mission and lead counsel in Involved Jewish Mother and father and Lecturers of LA v. Liberated Ethnic Research Mannequin Curriculum Consortium. Mr. Fried is a professor at Harvard Regulation Faculty and chairman of the Deborah Mission’s board of administrators.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Firm, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared within the Might 13, 2022, print version.
California
2 dead, 3 injured in shooting in Louisville’s California neighborhood
USA epidemic of gun violence and mass killings
Find out about the growing problem of gun violence and mass killings in the USA and learn how the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) categorizes different types of gun violence.
Two men are dead and three others injured in a mass shooting in the California neighborhood Saturday night, Louisville Metro Police said.
Second Division officers initially found four men with gunshot wounds in the 2200 block of Garland Avenue when they arrived at 7:30 p.m., LMPD spokesperson John Bradley said in a statement.
Two men were pronounced dead at the scene, while the other two were taken to the University of Louisville Hospital for treatment. As of Sunday, one man was in “critical but stable condition,” while the other was in stable condition, Bradley said.
A fifth man was later found in the area, Bradley said Sunday. He was also taken to UofL Hospital, but his condition was unknown.
Police had not located a suspect Saturday night. LMPD’s homicide unit is investigating, Bradley said. Anyone with information about the shooting could call LMPD’s anonymous tip line at 502-574-5673.
The two men who died have not yet been identified.
Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@gannett.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter
This story has been updated to add video.
California
California man beheaded his 1-year-old son with a knife, authorities say
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A man has been arrested on suspicion of beheading his 1-year-old son, Northern California authorities said.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday that deputies responding to an early morning family disturbance call found a woman outside a home who told deputies that her husband Andrey Demskiy, 28, assaulted her and her mother.
Deputies forced their way into the house in northern Sacramento County when they learned Demskiy was inside with the boy. As they took him into custody, they found a “severed child’s head” in the bedroom where Demskiy was detained.
Detectives said Demskiy used a knife to behead his son after his wife and mother-in-law left the house, according to the statement. He was in custody and ineligible for bail, and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
The sheriff’s department and the county public defenders office did not respond to emails seeking information on whether Demskiy had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
California
Protests Swept California Campuses Last Year. Schools Are Now Blocking Them | KQED
At UC Santa Cruz, police arrested one student who was using a megaphone during a demonstration on Oct. 7, according to an eyewitness who spoke to LookOut Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office public arrest reports show one person was arrested on the Santa Cruz campus for obstruction of a public officer and battery without injury that day.
While no arrests were made, Pomona College has suspended 12 students for the remainder of the 2024–25 academic year following an Oct. 7 demonstration in which they entered, damaged and vandalized a restricted building, according to the student newspaper. The college also banned dozens of students from the four other campuses of the Claremont Colleges, a consortium that includes Pomona.
Private colleges have implemented their own policy changes. Pomona College now requires students and faculty to swipe their ID cards to enter academic buildings. Since last semester, students and visitors entering USC are also required to show a school or photo ID.
Some students are still facing charges from last year’s protests
Few charges have been filed after UCLA’s encampment made headlines in April when counterprotesters led an attack on encampment protesters while law enforcement did not intervene for several hours. The following day, 254 people were arrested on charges related to the protest encampment. In October, two additional people were also arrested for participating in the counter-protester violence.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office is pursuing three felony cases against individuals arrested at UCLA in relation to violence during last spring’s protests.
Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office is reviewing 93 misdemeanor cases from USC and 210 from UCLA, according to information it provided to CalMatters last month.
Lilyan Zwirzina, a junior at Cal Poly Humboldt, was among the students arrested in the early morning of April 30 following protesters occupying a campus building and ignoring orders to disperse from the university. Law enforcement took her to Humboldt County Correctional Facility, where she faced four misdemeanor charges, including resisting arrest. Zwirzina thought she’d have to cancel her study abroad semester, which conflicted with the court date she was given.
“I was pretty frustrated and kind of freaked out,” Zwirzina said. Authorities dropped the charges against her in July.
The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office didn’t pursue charges against 27 of the 39 people arrested, citing insufficient evidence. The 12 remaining cases were referred to the Cal Poly Humboldt Police Department for investigation. Those cases remain under investigation, according to the university.
For 13 people, including students, arrested at Stanford University in June, the Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen has not pressed charges as of Nov. 20, according to information his office provided CalMatters.
Elsewhere across the state, some district attorneys are pursuing misdemeanor and felony charges against student protesters. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is pursuing misdemeanor charges against 50 people, including two UCI professors, a teaching assistant, and 26 students, stemming from a protest at UC Irvine on Oct. 22, 2023. Charges include failure to disperse, resisting arrest and vandalism.
At Pomona College, 19 students were arrested on April 5 on charges of trespassing after some protesters entered and refused to leave an administrative building. Students arrested either had their cases dismissed or have accepted community service in lieu of further legal action. James Gutierrez, the attorney representing the arrested students, said he asked that the college drop charges against its students, citing their right to protest the use of paid tuition dollars.
“They are righteously demanding that their colleges, the ones they pay tuition to and housing fees and pour a lot of money into, that that university or college stop investing in companies that are directly supporting this genocide and indirectly supporting it,” he said.
Students fight back against campus protest policies
As administrators face the challenge of applying protest policies more uniformly and swiftly, the truer test of California public higher education institutions’ protest rules will be playing out in court.
In one already resolved case, UC leadership agreed in August to comply with a court order requiring the campus to end programs or events that exclude Jewish students. A federal judge ruled some Jewish students in support of Israel who were blocked from entering the encampment had their religious liberties violated — though some Jewish students did participate in UCLA’s protest encampment.
Now, students have filed at least two lawsuits against their campuses and the UC system for violating their rights while ending student encampments last spring. In September, ACLU NorCal filed suits against the UC and UC Santa Cruz for not providing students due process when they immediately barred arrested students from returning to campus.
“Those students should have gotten a hearing, an opportunity to defend themselves or to explain themselves, and the school would have shown evidence of why they created a risk of disturbance on campus,” Chessie Thacher, senior staff attorney at ACLU of Northern California, said.
UC Santa Cruz spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said the university “appreciates the court’s careful deliberation” and that the university “is committed to upholding the right to free expression while also protecting the safety of its campus community.”
In October, ACLU SoCal filed lawsuits on behalf of two students and two faculty members against the UC and UCLA, alleging the actions the university took to break down the encampment violated their free speech rights.
UCLA spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez told CalMatters via email that the university would respond in court and that UCLA “fully supports community members expressing their First Amendment rights in ways that do not violate the law, our policies, jeopardize community safety, or disrupt the functioning of the university.”
“The encampment that arose on campus this spring became a focal point for violence, a disruption to campus, and was in violation of the law,” Vazquez said in the email statement. “These conditions necessitated its removal.”
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