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.

In a struggle that is eerily similar to the battle for the Mexican American Studies a decade ago, teachers, students, and community activists in California are fighting to defend the content and pedagogy of ethnic studies.

Instead of targeting the real source of antisemitism in the United States — white supremacy — proposed revisions to California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum target Palestinian children and their families.

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.