SDUSD Division of Equity & Belonging March 2024 Newsletter: Ed Code Violations

Following the publishing of the March 2024 Newsletter from the Equity & Belonging Division, which includes Ethnic Studies, multiple teachers alerted us to problematic, antisemitic, and deeply troubling links under the guise of celebrating Ramadan. 

This is not the first time PeerK12 has reported these issues to the District. In June 2021, an Ethnic Studies newsletter containing links to classroom resources and professional development opportunities with the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium was sent to 1,900 SDUSD teachers. While we were successful in eventually having the newsletter removed, the process for oversight is clearly still lacking.

PeerK12 created a petition which was signed by more than 785 people in 24 hours before sending it to the SDUSD Superintendent and School Board. The petition included:

A preliminary list of California Ed Code and Federal Law violations perpetrated by the Division of Equity & Belonging in direct defiance of our state, federal and SDUSD Board of Education policies (full descriptions of all Ed Code violations below in Appendix Section):

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

ARTICLE 1. Section 51500 Prejudices 

ARTICLE 4. Section 51530 Advocacy or Teaching of Communism with intent to indoctrinate

ARTICLE 5. Section 233 Hate Violence Prevention Act 

ARTICLE 9. Section 260 (Educational Equity) Enforcement

AB101 - Anti-Bias Guardrails Violation

San Diego Unified School District BP 6144 Controversial Issues

San Diego Unified School District Board Policy 0410

These are just the obvious ones - if these infractions were to be litigated, there would undoubtedly be additional violations brought forward by legal counsel.

It is imperative that immediate action be taken to address these violations and ensure that the Division of Equity & Belonging, which includes the Ethnic Studies department and all associated activities, correspondences, materials, lessons, resources, etc. be subject to intense scrutiny as well as constant and vigilant oversight.

We call on our esteemed District Leadership to catalyze positive change by implementing and following existing Ed Codes thoroughly within our district.