SAUSD Superintendent Jerry Almendarez said that the board would not be removing any "narratives" from its new ethnic studies curriculum.
Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) Superintendent Jerry Almendarez said Tuesday that the board would not be removing any “narrative” from its new ethnic studies curriculum, despite complaints of its anti-Israel rhetoric.
SAUSD approved two courses, “Ethnic Studies: World Geography” and “Ethnic Studies World Histories,” in April, which have been criticized for promoting the idea that Israel is a “colonial empire” and guilty of the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. The SAUSD board held a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, and after giving out several end-of-the-year awards to faculty and students, Almendarez addressed concerns about the recently passed ethnic studies curriculum, according to recordings of the meeting on the district’s YouTube account. (RELATED: California School District Approves Curriculum Accusing Israel Of ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ ‘War Crimes’)
“First I want to address some comments and concerns regarding our newly adopted ethnic studies curriculum,” Armendarez said. “We recognize as a district that this complex content requires careful consideration and should be viewed through multiple perspectives. Comments have been shared with the district that we are looking to eliminate certain perspectives and narratives from our curriculum. I want the public to know that the district has no intention of removing any narrative from the curriculum that will be developed in the future. Our intent is to listen to all sides, to learn from all sides, and to approach this in a balanced manner.”
Several public commenters thanked the board for sticking with the curriculum, with one saying that it was “historically accurate and morally correct.” Another commenter identified himself as a Ph.D. student at the University of California Davis, saying that Palestinians were “forced into exile” by Israel while accusing the board of being too “cowardly” to stand up to the Zionist movement if they decided to back down from the curriculum.
Prior to the meeting, several groups, including the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), urged district members to show up and voice support for the curriculum. CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter put out a press release on May 19, arguing that Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians is a “factual description” of the Jewish state’s handling of the situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.