Every competent Jewish adult in America put down their space laser and started rubbing their temples as soon as they read that, while being interviewed as a potential vice president running mate for Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was asked if he had ever been a double agent for Israel.
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
What was worse was the question Harris herself posed to Shapiro as one former attorney general of her state to another.
Shapiro had been outspoken in his criticism of post-Oct. 7, 2023 student conduct at the University of Pennsylvania — conduct that included (among other things): (1) violent threats to Hillel and Chabad; (2) nonstop bullying and intimidation of Jewish students, impeding their access to their education to which they were entitled; and (3) continuous harassment of Jewish community members through encampment members’ genocidal chanting in praise of Hamas’s slaughter and mass rape of Israeli Jews.
In their one-on-one meeting, Vice President Harris asked if Governor Shapiro would apologize for and retract his statements defending the civil rights of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania.
This just blew my little doggy mind.
In essence, Harris was asking Shapiro to abandon his commitment to the law — and to perform a ritual dance of humiliation, submission, and fealty to progressive Democrats’ antisemitism.
But to his credit, Shapiro said, nope, not going to do that.
More specifically, he said, “I believe in free speech, and I’ll defend it with all I’ve got. Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected. But some wasn’t peaceful.”
Shapiro refused to ditch his duty to ensure equitable education in his state, and so has the California Department of Education (CDE).
As we have seen in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, since Oct. 7, 2023, Bay Area K-12 schools have experienced an alarming rise in antisemitic discrimination incidents in schools, as well as in the number of uniform complaints for discrimination that have been filed because of them.
These are instances of discrimination, grounded in the California Education Code. The definition of antisemitism doesn’t even come into play; these cases rely solely on the Education Code’s legal requirements for nondiscrimination and equitable education in K-12 public schools. Uniform complaints that are judged to be actual instances of discrimination mean that the CDE has concluded a student’s legal rights were violated in their school district based on an investigation’s findings of fact that there was obvious harassment, intimidation, or bullying due to the targets’ belonging to a protected group.
Here in the Bay Area, these complaints have led to a high number of reversals and CDE decisions. As the highest-level arbiter of the Education Code in California, the rulings and reversals by the CDE represent the authoritative interpretation of education law for all of California’s 1,000-plus public school districts. A CDE-authored decision against one particular school district provides definitive and binding guidance to all school districts on key aspects of equitable education enshrined in California law.
But California families and citizens need three specific changes from the CDE to ensure that California’s K-12 education system lives up to its promise of equitable education for all students. These three big changes are: (1) active prevention; (2) meaningful consequences; and (3) full transparency.
1. Active Prevention
As part of its mandatory annual start-of-year online trainings for all school staff across the state, the governor and the Legislature need to require that the CDE mandate a training module on California’s nondiscrimination laws.
This should be part of the regular staff training package that all public schools and school districts are required to provide and track for compliance.
These mandatory online trainings on legal frameworks are California’s time-tested method for ensuring that every educator in our state knows what the law is in key areas. These modules covered mandated reporter requirements, sexual harassment laws, and other foundational laws and school safety procedures.
California’s nondiscrimination laws should be added to this training package — even if that means rejuggling the mix of assigned training minutes.
If an educator refuses to fulfill their mandatory training requirements, that should be a state-mandated decision point. Nondiscrimination trainings need to be like immunizations — if you don’t do them, you can’t come back.
Isn’t it essential that every educator in our state understand how to comply with California’s nondiscrimination laws for education?
California public schools cannot fulfill their missions if teachers, paraeducators, and administrators don’t know the law against discrimination in schools. Because our teachers don’t learn about this in teacher training programs, they need to get it on the job.
This lack of knowledge has high, untracked financial costs that school districts and the state must bear. Every uniform complaint of discrimination comes with a hefty price tag — the investigation alone costs school districts between $20,000 and $50,000 per case.
Since Oct. 7, 2023 in the Bay Area alone, there have been close to 100 uniform complaints filed for antisemitic discrimination. That means Bay Area school districts have spent between $2 million and $5 million just on the specialized boutique law firms that know how to perform these investigations. Those numbers get doubled once factoring in all the attorneys’ fees for defending a school district and reimbursement for complainants’ attorney fees when a district loses.
In the Bay Area, school districts are losing around 20 percent of these complaints and appeals — an extremely high percentage for appeals. But Northern California is the smaller part of California. As soon as Jewish civil rights groups in Southern California catch up with their Bay Area counterparts, those figures will escalate dramatically.
Isn’t it essential that every educator in our state understand how to comply with California’s nondiscrimination laws for education?
And wouldn’t it just be better to make sure that all of California’s K-12 educational staff are well-prepared to deliver an inclusive and nondiscriminatory education?
2. Meaningful Consequences
It’s no joke to say that the corrective actions assigned by the CDE when a school district loses a discrimination complaint are a joke. In fact, it’s an open secret that teachers and administrators mock them whenever they hear that another “one-hour training on antisemitic discrimination” has been assigned and is being scheduled.
This is not how we’re going to reduce hate in California schools.
Teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District have flat-out refused to attend such assigned trainings. My union actually held its own counterfeit counter-trainings as a protest — with no consequences whatsoever.
Can anybody really be surprised that Jewish students at San Francisco Unified high schools are still experiencing widespread discrimination in curriculum, instructional practices, and school cultures — in spite of the large number of complaints filed and won against the school district?
And can anybody be surprised that the CDE has declared Oakland Unified — California’s leader in deliberate indifference (29 uniform complaints!) — to be a persistently “hostile environment for Jews and Israelis”?
Where is our state superintendent of public instruction?
Obviously, the CDE’s catalogue of remedies is not working. Consequences for all forms of unlawful discrimination need to be strengthened.
We need the CDE, the state superintendent, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the Legislature and the governor’s new office of civil rights to put their heads together and come up with stronger and more meaningful consequences that can fulfill the California Constitution’s promise of equitable education for all students (even Jews).
3. Full Transparency
We need the CDE to stop equivocating and start fulfilling its obligation to make its library of discrimination decisions and rulings accessible and searchable online.
California’s commitment to open government is codified through the California Public Records Act. This law requires public access to all public records concerning the conduct of the People’s business. It allows for appropriate safeguards for privacy and confidentiality, such as student privacy issues, which the CDE surely is aware.
Unfortunately, there’s been tremendous resistance to providing these public records, both at the district and state levels.
And because of that resistance, these decisions can only be obtained through media coverage or directly from the parties involved. Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad explained the policy best: You have to “know a guy who knows a guy.” This is clearly neither the spirit nor the letter of the California Public Records Act.
Californians need and deserve transparency.
We need the governor and the Legislature to require that the CDE host a public database or webpage where the public can search and access the full text of its Uniform Compliant Procedure decisions and decisions of appeal, with appropriate redactions as necessary to protect student and employee privacy rights. This is the only way to provide this essential guidance on how California’s nondiscrimination laws should be applied across all public education institutions.
That will open the door for other partners who support good governance, such as the California School Boards Association and the California Bar Association’s Continuing Legal Education Section, to step in and provide the specialized training, technical support, and guidance needed by their members, including school district general counsels and legal departments.
Right now, the lack of transparency should be viewed as presenting a blank slate — an opportunity to ensure broader transparency into the future. But it raises a number of additional questions about transparency that the governor and the legislature ought to be asking.
For example:
– Should all California high schools be required to report their start-of-year testing compliance numbers, as well as any adverse discrimination decisions against them, on their School Accountability Report Cards?
– Should California high schools be required to report adverse decisions as part of their accreditation self-study reports?
– Should California’s 1,000-plus school boards be required to monitor and report publicly on adverse uniform complaint decisions on unlawful discrimination in their districts, the way they currently monitor Williams Complaints on, say, textbook sufficiency?
– Should the CDE be reporting its statistics on discrimination complaints to the Commission on the State of Hate in California? And to the attorney general’s office?
– Is the CDE communicating its decisions and decisions of appeal to California’s school boards and their general counsels, so they can ensure that their board policies support an equitable and nondiscriminatory learning environment, free from discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying, as required by the Education Code?
Those questions are all above my pay grade.
But they are definitely not above your pay grade as citizens and voters, and they are certainly the kinds of questions you should be asking candidates for superintendent of public instruction who are asking for your vote.
The time to demand improvement in equitable education across California is now.