After our victory in getting California Department of Education to affirm Arab-Americans' inclusion in the CA Ethnic Studies curriculum, now elected officials have caved to right-wing pressure—potentially rolling back all the progress we've made.
A week from today, a key group in the California Department of Education, the Instructional Quality Commission, will consider offensives changes that would downplay and potentially exclude Arab-American Studies altogether from the curriculum.
If the biggest education system in the United States decides that Arab-American Studies is a “problem”— or even worse, that any mention of Palestine in public schools is de facto anti-Semitic — we’re going to face a dire precedent nationwide.
Now is the time to protect anti-racist education, to ensure that students learn about struggles of indigenous and racialized communities at school and not on random YouTube autoplay sessions. We can't allow them to include "various perspectives" on racism —as if it's up for debate— without consulting experts on the revisions they are making.
We're not done yet, but you can get us over the finish line.
