University of California faculty to consider its own high school ethnic studies mandate

A sign saying in Spanish Make this a great day greets the new high school students Chris Stone This article originally appeared on EdSource School districts are looking to the May revision of the state budget to learn if Gov Gavin Newsom will press ahead with a mandate to offer a high school ethnic studies discipline whose implementation is contingent on state funding That will be unlikely Brooks Allen executive director of the State Board of Development and a Newsom adviser ratified Tuesday that given current revenue forecasts Newsom will not propose funding the mandate He conveyed that message to a representative of the UC Academic Senate he noted On Wednesday however representatives of the University of California faculty will decide whether to recommend that UC regents not wait for state funding and instead independently mandate a program They ll vote on a proposal see pages to to require an ethnic studies program incorporating criteria and content that Newsom and the State Board of Schooling have already rejected as politically extreme for admission to UC campuses Opponents mentioned that adopting the proposal which had been nearly five years in the making would be unwise and ostensibly illegal Requiring such a lesson would entangle the university in the sorts of political and ideological disputes over ethnic studies program content that are at this moment roiling school districts across the state and the nation wrote Richard Sander a law professor at UCLA and Matt Malkan an astronomy professor at UCLA in a letter to the UC Faculty Assembly of the Senate the body that will take up the issue on Wednesday An earlier version was signed by members of the UC faculty Sander and Malkan also mentioned that the proposal would effectively force hundreds of schools to invest large sums in creating the mandated curriculum and finding or hiring teachers to teach it a step that would allegedly ultimately be detected to be illegal if UC acted unilaterally If the faculty assembly passes the proposal it would be forwarded to UC President Michael Drake and then to the UC regents this summer for final approval Ethnic studies faculty at UC campuses pushed for including ethnic studies among the courses required for admission known as A-G It would be satisfied through an English history or an elective module taught through an ethnic studies lens as UC defines it Ethnic studies would become H a new area of concentration When adopting bill in authorizing the creation of a voluntary model ethnic studies curriculum the Legislature was vague about what it intended for an ethnic studies unit It disclosed the objective was to prepare pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures school districts could adapt courses to reflect the pupil demographics in their communities UC s proposed criteria for high schools would take a more directive and controversial approach reflecting the content of several college-level courses Ethnic studies is aimed at producing critical knowledge about power inequality and inequity as well as the efforts of marginalized and oppressed racialized peoples to challenge systemic violence and the institutional structures that perpetuate racial injustice wrote the co-lead writers UC Riverside teaching professor Wallace Cleaves and UC Santa Cruz critical race and ethnic studies and literature professor Christine Hong in a preface explaining the intent of the criteria Hong and Cleaves say it is appropriate to set rigorous curriculum criteria for students entering UC because ethnic studies faculty created the foundational theories and instructional strategies for the academic discipline and the State Board of Mentoring and local district teachers lack their expertise But the effect of adopting their subject for entry into UC would be an end run around the state board s open-ended guidance It would also deviate from several legislators vision of ethnic studies as the inquiry of the cultures and achievements of minority groups as well as their past and ongoing struggles with racism and discrimination The UC criteria would become the standard version that high schools would offer In turn UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty would become the go-to private consultants for creating districts curricula and training teachers Emergence of Liberated Ethnic Studies UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty were primary writers of the first draft of the state s model curriculum in but President Linda Darling-Hammond and other members of the State Board of Guidance rejected it as biased and the board hired new writers The California Legislative Jewish Caucus objected to its characterization of Israel as an oppressive white colonial state and the call for a boycott of companies doing business with Israel A model curriculum should be accurate free of bias appropriate for all learners in our diverse state and align with Governor Newsom s vision of a California for all Darling-Hammond s report explained The writers of the initial draft disavowed the final revised model curriculum that the state board passed in They then formed the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortiumand have encouraged school districts to adopt the original draft as the true alternative More than two dozen districts have Both Hong and Cleaves are affiliated with the consortium Having gone through five revisions the final proposal before the Assembly pages to is a toned-down version but its purpose and guidelines for progressing skills are clear For example toward the goal of applying critical analysis it reads Scrutiny histories of imperialism dehumanization and genocide to expose their continuity to present-day laws ideologies knowledge systems dominant cultures institutions and structures that perpetuate racial violence white supremacy and other forms of oppression Sander announced It s still very clearly a Liberated syllabus by which I mean it s very ideological It has a particular point of view on various controversial issues Under Assembly Bill the state law high schools would have to offer a one-semester ethnic studies program starting in fall and students would have to take it for a high school diploma starting in - Legislators explicitly referenced the rejected first draft in the law It is the intent of the Legislature that districts not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted due to concerns related to bias bigotry and discrimination it reads Since then California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Newsom administration have reminded school districts to follow the law s requirements for inclusivity sensitivity and accuracy We have been advised however that selected vendors are offering materials that may not meet the requirements of AB Brooks Allen executive director of the State Board of Tuition and an mentoring adviser to Newsom wrote in a memo to districts in The liberated version has prompted several lawsuits see here here and here by Jewish families and supportive law firms charging that its one-sided perspective fosters discrimination A target for Trump The vote Wednesday coincides with fraught relations with the Trump administration The president has threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from school districts and California universities that fail to curb antisemitism and teach undefined woke ideology on race including critical race theory Passing the curriculum criteria now would be like putting a target on our back Sander noted in an interview and undermine the university s best defense against Trump s effort to dictate whom to hire and what ideas can be taught It is fundamentally wrong and inconsistent with the very spirit of a university to mandate courses that are framed by an ideology whether that ideology comes from the left or from the right he declared EdSource is California s largest independent newsroom focused on Mentoring