This week, the nation’s second-largest school district found that its teachers’ anti-Israel political advocacy in school violates federal civil-rights laws and the state education code. If the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)—with its school board dominated by union-endorsed members, in a blue city and state—can hold teachers accountable, any district in the country can.
Canoga Park Senior High School became a center of teacher activism. As Jerusalem News Syndicate (JNS) reported last month, teachers integrated anti-Israel activism into classroom instruction and school activities. They consistently presented a single political perspective—that Israel is committing “genocide”—as settled truth to a captive audience of high school students.
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Among their activist efforts, teachers displayed “Free Palestine” posters in classrooms, along with fliers that accused Israel of genocide. The school’s dance teacher taught “Palestinian resistance” through instruction and school recitals and dedicated performances to the “children of Gaza.” One library display, facilitated by teachers, showed a “mini-Gaza” made up of rubble with vehicles next to dead children.
Teachers wore keffiyehs and actively recruited students for the Students for Justice in Palestine club, including during instructional time. According to JNS reporting, one teacher improperly “took a stab” at drafting the student club constitution. She also discussed a student walkout and reached out to CodePink, an anti-Israel protest group, for support.
My organization, the North American Values Institute (NAVI), filed a complaint under California’s Uniform Complaint Procedures. We argued that the school violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the state education code by failing to hold teachers accountable for unlawful political advocacy that denied students the right to an unbiased education, free from hostility and discrimination.
LAUSD conducted an extensive investigation and found that the alleged conduct violated both Title VI, which protects students from a hostile learning environment based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry, and California’s Education Code Section 51500, an antidiscrimination provision amended by state law AB 715. This provision requires instruction to be factually accurate, aligned with the adopted curriculum and standards, and consistent with “accepted standards of professional responsibility rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship.”
The district concluded that teachers’ conduct created “a hostile environment based on actual or perceived Israeli national origin and shared Jewish ancestry.” Instructional materials “did not distinguish criticism of Israeli governmental conduct from negative associations with Israeli nationality and shared Jewish ancestry.” In one case, a dance teacher “repeatedly used instruction, assessed performances, and a school-affiliated platform to present political messages about Palestine and Gaza.” The district also determined that wearing keffiyehs amid repeated anti-Israel messaging and school-sponsored activities contributed to the hostile and discriminatory environment.
The district was clear that criticism of Israel alone does not violate civil-rights laws, but it found that teacher conduct repeatedly crossed the line into “advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship.” It directed the school to provide mandatory teacher training on avoiding political advocacy, preventing anti-Semitism, and complying with Title VI. The school was also ordered to remove political materials and provide stronger oversight of student clubs.
The district has taken an important step in protecting Canoga students. But these corrective measures apply only to Canoga, not to other schools in the district where similar conduct has been the subject of reporting and complaints.
LAUSD should now extend those protections to students district-wide by passing a board policy that ensures all of its K-12 classrooms are free from political advocacy, establishes standards for the responsible teaching of controversial issues, and includes mandatory training.
The teachers at Canoga Park are not unique. The problem of activist teachers is entrenched in Los Angeles and beyond. Across the country, schools of education have institutionalized social-justice pedagogy, which positions activism as the purpose of education. At the same time, national teachers’ unions fund and partner with activist organizations that promote politicized curricula and professional development, encouraging teachers to misuse their roles to advance social and political change.
Teachers have every right to hold and express political opinions in their personal lives, but they abuse their positions of trust when they turn public school classrooms into political platforms.
While most teachers are not hardcore activists, many believe it is both righteous and compassionate to promote anti-Israel perspectives. Others take the path of least resistance, yielding to social and political pressure to join the “right side.”
As LAUSD recognized when it ordered mandatory training, teachers need help teaching controversial issues responsibly to support student learning, not activism. They need instruction on identifying these issues—including the Middle East conflict—as well as distinguishing facts from political opinions and presenting competing perspectives so that students can reach their own conclusions.
A board policy with mandatory training would establish clear, enforceable standards and a basis for holding teachers accountable. This structural reform would restore integrity to a politicized environment and build trust among students, teachers, and families by reaffirming that schools are for educating students, not for recruiting them into their teachers’ political causes.
LAUSD’s decision should travel far beyond Los Angeles. By finding the same conduct unlawful under both state and federal law, the district has provided a blueprint for school districts and state education departments across the country and proven that, even in politically difficult environments, school districts can use existing laws to protect all students—Jewish and non-Jewish alike—from their teachers’ political bias.