Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Page 1
Ninth Circuit:
Case Over Use of ‘Antisemitic’ Materials at LAUSD Is Revived
Opinion Agrees With Judge That Plaintiffs, Who Allege Two Teachers Are Using Controversial Curriculum, Have Failed to Establish Standing but Says Should Have Been Granted Leave to Amend Pleading
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday resurrected a lawsuit accusing an advocacy group of working with union officials for Los Angeles-area schools to push an ethnic-studies program for high schoolers that contains purportedly “antisemitic” and “anti-Zionist” themes in purported violation of the plaintiffs’ civil rights.
Yesterday memorandum opinion, signed by Circuit Judges Kenneth K. Lee, Patrick J. Bumatay, and Jennifer Sung, agrees with District Court Judge Fernando M. Olguin of the Central District of California that the plaintiffs, a group of Jewish parents and teachers, had failed to sufficiently allege an injury-in-fact to withstand a standing challenge to their pleading due to concessions that the school district had yet to formally adopt the curriculum at issue.
They opined that the assertion that two instructors within the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”), the nation’s second-largest school district, had adopted the materials was insufficient to establish standing under Article III when they were no accompanying claims that the plaintiffs’ children were in those classes or suffered discriminatory actions that were plausibly attributable to the use of the curriculum.
However, they declared that “we reverse the district court’s dismissal with prejudice” and remarked:
“In briefing and during argument, the plaintiffs offered several proposed amendments that could potentially cure the standing deficiencies. These include, for example, that the challenged curriculum has proliferated in the two-plus years that have passed since the lawsuit was filed, and that the plaintiffs’ children have suffered related antisemitic acts at school (such as bullying).”
Concerned-Parents Group
Appealing the dismissal was the Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles, described in court documents as “an unincorporated association comprised of Jewish, Zionist Los Angeles teachers who teach in the LAUSD and Jewish, Zionist parents of children who are students in the LAUSD.”
In 2022, the group, together with two teachers and two parents of students enrolled in Los Angeles-area public schools, filed a complaint against the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, United Teachers of Los Angeles, and LAUSD, as a nominal defendant, among others. They asserted claims including violations of the First Amendment, brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983, as well as violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
They alleged that the consortium has so involved itself into the district’s curriculum-selection process as to qualify it as a “state actor,” saying:
“All Defendants, in concert with certain public school teachers employed by LAUSD, have…entered into a conspiracy, to introduce the [Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (“LESMC”)] materials into the LAUSD for use in the classroom, and to conceal such use from Plaintiffs, the public, the LAUSD itself….”
In the operative second-amended pleading, the plaintiffs characterized the LESMC materials as being “infected by explicitly racist and antisemitic principles” and commented:
“It falsely and libelously makes the accusation and teaches and attempts to teach California’s public school teachers and children that the Jewish state commits unspeakable crimes including genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the imposition of apartheid, all of which accusations are false, and all of which accusations are barred by law from being included in California Ethnic Studies curricula or teaching materials.”
Motions to Dismiss
On Nov. 30, 2024, Olguin granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, highlighting that “the court notes that plaintiffs’ SAC is difficult to understand and contains a morass of largely irrelevant—and sometimes contradictory—allegations.
The panel on Friday, while agreeing with Olguin that standing had not been established, said:
“While it is true, as the district court noted, that plaintiffs have amended the complaint on multiple occasions, the previous amendments appear to be mostly technical in nature, and the district court has only once ruled on the standing issue. Thus, we reverse the district court’s dismissal with prejudice.”
The judges declared:
“Because we reverse the district court’s denial of leave to amend, we must vacate the district court’s order granting the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion and their request for fees and costs.”
They added in a footnote:
“Because the district court concluded that plaintiffs lacked standing, it should not have reached the merits of the plaintiffs” claims. It was appropriate to address sovereign immunity…, but sovereign immunity issues could also be affected by amendments to the complaint. The parties also presented arguments on the merits in their briefs, and the panel asked questions about the merits. But because we are deciding only the Article III jurisdiction issue, we do not opine on the merits issues.”
The case is Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles v. Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, 24-7676.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company