Orange County School of the Arts shut down a student meeting on Palestine after being contacted by the Anti-Defamation League. Students say the administration won’t acknowledge that it was censorship.

California has become the first state in the country to adopt an ethnic studies curriculum for its high schools, but the history of Palestine has been scrubbed from the educational program following pressure from pro-Israel groups.

A coalition of anti-Zionist organizations in San Diego raise concerns over progressive candidate Georgette Gómez who is running for Congress.

Instead of putting anti-racist education in the hands of the pro-Israel lobby, the California Department of Education should recommit to a true ethnic studies curriculum.

Ethnic Studies does not politicize a neutral curriculum; it is provides an historical corrective to the simultaneous absence and caricature of Arab Americans, Palestinians included, that already exists in the curriculum.

At the California Democratic Party’s fall convention on November 17, activists pushed a resolution that would have recognized the Palestinian right of return. Although the amendment ultimately failed to be voted into the platform, supporters point to the fact that no vote tally was actually taken and that the results could have been too close to call.

A bill that would have required all California high school students to take an ethnic studies course will be delayed for at least a year after pro-Israel groups complained that the curriculum failed to address anti-semitism and singled “Israel out for condemnation.” Some of the backlash was initiated by an organization that is funded by the Israeli government.