School board that called Harvey Milk a ‘pedophile’ faces civil rights lawsuit for banning critical race theory and LGBTQ+ curriculum

Great Oak High School students leave campus on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, in protest of the district’s ban of critical race theory curriculum at Patricia H. Birdsall Sports Park in Temecula, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. (Watchara Phomicinda/The Orange County Register via AP)

Controversy over a measure passed by a conservative school board in California escalated into litigation Wednesday when a group of concerned teachers, parents and students sued the district for violating their civil rights by prohibiting the teaching of LGBTQ+ and race-related curriculum.

The complaint is a first-of-its kind lawsuit against the Temecula Valley Unified School District for prohibiting the teaching of “critical race theory or other similar frameworks” and, according to the plaintiffs, illegally restricting students’ access to education about American history, race, and gender identity. The Temecula students, parents, and educators are represented by Public Counsel and Ballard Spahr LLP, with the support of the California Teachers Association.

The lawsuit takes aim at the controversial Resolution 21, which passed 3-2 on Dec. 13, 2022 — the day three new conservative members were elected to the Temecula Valley Unified School Board. The resolution calls critical race theory “a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race” and says it “assigns generational guilt and racial guilt for conduct and policies that are long in the past.”

Critical race theory is a decades-old interdisciplinary academic theory that focuses on the impact of social conceptions of race on the development of law and politics. Typically, critical race theory is only taught in the context of higher education and not at the K-12 level.

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