(TJV NEWS) A California school’s ethnic studies curriculum that included discussions of Israel as a “settler colonial state” was found to have discriminated against Jewish students, as reported by JTA.

The California Department of Education issued the ruling last Friday after investigating a September complaint filed by the Bay Area Jewish Coalition — Education and Advocacy, affiliated with the local Jewish federation. According to the advocacy group, teachers at Branham High School in San Jose had presented “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum, JTA reported.

The investigation concluded that a lesson discussing whether Israel is a settler colonial state and a teacher’s response to a student presentation on the “Genocide of Palestinians” had been discriminatory toward Jewish students. The complaint was based on the curriculum’s presentation, which failed to offer a pro-Israel perspective, JTA noted.

In the lesson, the teacher showed students two videos about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the investigation revealed that no video provided a pro-Israel viewpoint. After the first video, a Vox explainer titled “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Brief, Simple History,” the topic of whether Israel is a “settler colonial state” was discussed, the report added. “In this lesson, in order for the information to be unbiased, there would have needed to be a video that reflected a pro-Israel perspective,” the ruling stated, as reported by JTA.

Another troubling instance involved a student group presenting a project with a slide titled “Genocide of Palestinians.” The investigation found that the teacher did not respond appropriately to the presentation, leading to concerns that the classroom environment could be perceived as “hostile” to Jewish students. “By not commenting on the slide regarding Palestinian genocide, it could have been interpreted by the student audience as approval of the presented thesis,” the report said, according to JTA.

This ruling is part of the ongoing debate over ethnic studies in California, which has been contentious for several years. While the state mandates that high schools teach the subject to reflect minority communities’ experiences, the curriculum has faced criticism from Jewish groups. A draft of the model curriculum in 2019 drew widespread outcry for its inclusion of antisemitic and anti-Israel statements while neglecting to represent the Jewish experience, JTA reported.

Subsequent revisions to the curriculum have continued to divide the Jewish community. Some praised the revisions for including material on local Jewish communities, while others criticized them for promoting a “narrow political ideology,” as reported by JTA.

Jewish watchdogs have remained vigilant, especially with schools opting to use the original model curriculum or similar versions. In one instance, an Orange County school district ceased teaching the curriculum following a lawsuit that alleged the district had concealed its development of the material. In a February settlement, the Santa Ana Unified School District agreed to stop teaching ethnic studies courses until revisions were made, JTA noted.

In response to the criticisms of California’s ethnic studies curriculum, American Jewish University recently announced the launch of a free online course designed to fulfill the ethnic studies requirement, JTA reported.

To address the findings of discrimination in the San Jose investigation, the California Department of Education has mandated that English language arts and social studies teachers at Branham High School undergo a one-hour training session before the next school year. The training will focus on instruction related to “controversial topics” as part of their anti-bias education, JTA reported.