The AMCHA initiative is spearheading an effort whereby 99 organizations are demanding a University of California Ethnic Studies Council proposal to require high school students to take a course in ethnic studies designed by “experts” who advance “antisemitic portrayals of Jews and anti-Zionism,” be rejected. The news came last week in a press release from the AMCHA Initiative.
The demands from the organizations come in the wake of the revelation of a letter penned to California Governor Gavin Newsom from the Council demanding the “racist” guardrails against antisemitism be removed from ethnic studies curricula.
AMCHA has described the contents of the letter as containing an antisemitic dog whistle.
'Antisemitic dog whistle'
Merriam-Webster defines a dog whistle as “a coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people, but not by others.” Dog whistles often use labels understood as having negative connotations as stand-ins for groups of people.
In the case of the letter from the Ethnic Studies Council, the letter makes often use of the term “lobbyist,” making statements such as that decisions about what should be in course curricula should not be decided “by lobbyist groups.”
Other statements include things such as that ethnic studies are supported by grassroots communities rather “than highly funded lobbying groups,” that “gains won by students, educators, and community members” are under threat by “well-resourced lobbyists,” and that “lobbyists,” among others “are attempting to distort and destroy ethnic studies by mandating eurocentric studies of (white, European) ethnic groups.”
The letter also highlighted the charge that “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories has been deemed an apartheid regime by a growing global consensus, including major human rights organizations,” making references to the idea that the guardrails designed to prevent antisemitism in the ethnic studies curricula serve to ideologically protest apartheid, racism, and settler-colonialism.
The AMCHA Initiative-led effort by the 99 organizations presented the Council’s letter to the University of California Board of Regents during a meeting in order to demonstrate that the Ethnic Studies Council is unfit to oversee the development of an ethnic studies curriculum for high school students.
The presentation of the Ethnic Studies Council letter was preceded by a letter from the 99 organizations. In the latter letter, the organizations accuse the Council letter of antisemitic dog whistles and urges the Board of Regents to “help stop the proliferation of antisemitism in CA high school classrooms.”
The 99 organizations’ letter also highlights the significance of Israel to the vast majority of Jews and the associations of Council members with various efforts to boycott Israel or oppose the normalization of Israel.