Jewish teachers and parents of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District sued the district, a teacher’s union, the union president, the founders of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum Consortium, and the Consortium itself. They’re alleging the use of antisemitic materials in the district’s ethnic-studies curriculum, and a conspiracy to conceal that use. Plaintiffs sought injunctive and declarative relief for their claims under the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and California’s Education Code. Defendants moved to dismiss and filed anti-SLAPP (vexatious litigation) motions. The trial court, without holding a hearing, granted the motions and dismissed the complaint without leave to amend. In its order, the trial court found plaintiffs lacked standing, brought unripe claims, and failed to state a single claim.
Now on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, MI has filed a brief explaining that (1) plaintiffs’ allegations don’t tread on the defendants’ First Amendment rights, because school curriculum is public speech, and it’s that which is being challenged, (2) in considering teachers’ speech protections, the court must consider the highly impressionable nature of the child mind, and (3) the lower court misunderstood the relationship between Zionism and Judaism in dismissing the free-exercise claims.
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
Tim Rosenberger is a legal fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
With thanks to law school associate Noam Josse
Photo: runna10 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
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