Bay Space college district discriminated towards Jewish college students, CDE finds

In a newly launched report, the California Division of Training decided Oakland Unified College District discriminated towards Jewish college students, because the state makes an attempt to crackdown on antisemitism in California colleges.

The report launched this week surrounds a state antisemitism criticism filed by Oakland’s Legislation Workplace of Marleen Sacks. Filed in Might of final yr, it alleged the district discriminated towards Jewish college students when it despatched out supplies in celebration of Arab American Heritage Month that didn’t embody Israel on a map of the present Center East, as a substitute labeling the complete territory as Palestine. The criticism additionally accused Oakland Unified of discriminating towards college students by publicizing Arab American Heritage Month extra favorably than Jewish Heritage Month and linking to the Arab Useful resource and Organizing Heart, which the regulation agency alleges is anti-Israel.

In accordance with the newly launched state report, Oakland Unified’s investigation of the criticism — concluded in Aug. 2025 — discovered that whereas the district didn’t unfairly publicize Arab American Heritage month over Jewish Heritage Month, the district violated board insurance policies by excluding Israel and utilizing content material from the Arab Useful resource and Organizing Heart — a corporation the district was conscious may very well be thought-about antisemitic. However the district’s investigation didn’t tackle the allegation of antisemitism, implying there was no discrimination, the California Division of Training report stated.

In its report, the Division of Training concluded that Oakland Unified discriminated towards Jewish college students when Israel was excluded from the map and didn’t adjust to criticism procedures — taking on a yr to subject its investigative report when state regulation requires a most of 60 days. The division additionally stated Oakland Unified refused handy over its investigative report, citing attorney-client privilege, which the division stated was an inadequate foundation for refusal.

Oakland Unified has confronted quite a few complaints of antisemitism within the final yr over educating supplies associated to the Israel-Hamas struggle in Gaza, prompting Jewish households to drag their youngsters from the district. A December 2023 teach-in on Palestine held by the district’s lecturers prompted a federal civil rights investigation and a separate Oakland Unified investigation discovered a instructor “created a hostile environment” for Jewish college students by hanging anti-Semitic posters inside their classroom.

Sacks additionally filed a lawsuit towards the district on behalf of the Oakland Jewish Alliance in April, alleging the district has repeatedly didn’t correctly examine allegations of antisemitism and has created a “hostile environment” for Jewish households and employees.

The California Division of Training directed Oakland Unified to coach its employees on the state criticism procedures and anti-discrimination and bias and supply a duplicate of the coaching supplies and an inventory of employees in attendance.

However legal professional Sacks stated the division’s directed trainings as a corrective measure for Oakland Unified had been “wholly inadequate” to handle the issues within the district.

“The district is permeated with systemic antisemitism, anti-Israel bias and indoctrination,” Sacks stated in an announcement. “This issue with the maps is just one of dozens of issues that we have brought to the district’s — as well as CDE’s — attention and neither of these agencies are doing anything substantive to correct the problems.”