Court Blocks School District in California From Enforcing CRT Ban
“has led to anxiety among teachers who remain confused about the policy and fearful of consequences”
The people who live in this district elected a conservative majority on their school board a few years ago, specifically to ban CRT.
EdSource reports:
Court blocks Temecula Valley Unified from enforcing CRT ban
The Temecula Valley Unified School District can no longer implement its ban on critical race theory (CRT) as litigation moves forward, a California Court of Appeals ruled Monday — marking the first time in California that a court has overturned a district’s effort to censor student learning about racial and LGBTQ+ equity, according to Amanda Mangaser Savage of the Sullivan & Cromwell Strategic Litigation Counsel at Public Counsel.
“This ruling binds all of California,” said Amelia Piazza, an attorney with Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project, “and, I think is an important signal to school districts all over the state that this type of censorship, the courts aren’t going to tolerate it — and that students shouldn’t be deprived of a fact-based education now for any reason, and certainly not because it conflicts with the ideological positions of school board members.”
The decision is the latest chapter in the lawsuit Mae M. v. Komrosky, filed in August 2024, on behalf of the district’s teachers union, teachers, parents and students — alleging that the December 2022 ban on critical race theory has led to a hostile environment at schools, censored teachers and infringes on students’ right to equal protection and to receive information.
Monday’s opinion also called the district’s policy “unconstitutionally vague” and said it has led to anxiety among teachers who remain confused about the policy and fearful of consequences — even if there are accidental violations.
But supporters of the district’s policies maintain that they do not discriminate against students of color or transgender students.
“Critical race theory and its offshoots have no place in public institutions that are meant to serve all individuals equally. These ideas promote division, resentment, and a distorted view of history that punishes students and staff based on skin color rather than character,” said Nicole Velasco, a spokesperson for Advocates For Faith & Freedom, a law firm representing the district for free, in an email to EdSource. “We remain committed to defending lawful policies that reject this kind of racialized thinking and instead promote unity and equal treatment under the law.”
Velasco added that while disappointed in the ruling, they “remain confident in the legality of Temecula Valley Unified School District’s actions and the strength of the case as it proceeds.”
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Comments
b/c racism brings us together
CA is under control of dem super majority, it really is one party rule. You can live in small town in CA, and elect republican mayor, and republican city council, and republican school board. But you are still controlled by the dems in the bigger cities in LA and SF, who force their values on the small communities far away.
It is times for Trump to issue an EO banning CRT or otherwise crippling promotion of CRT.
Local authority except when what the locale wants runs counter to progressives desires.
Except the ruling doesn’t guarantee that students may not be “deprived of a fact-based education now for any reason” but rather guarantees that they cannot be given a fact=based education as prohibiting ideological indoctrination is unlawful in California.
I wonder if this will be appealed? And it will be especially interesting if courts elsewhere e.g. Texas or Florida, issue rulings saying that schools are prohibited from implementing CRT thereby setting up a circuit split. I know there are rules already in place, but I can’t remember what the court rulings on the subject are.