The Campbell Union High School District, which operates six Bay Area schools with 8,600 students in California, found that a sociology assignment at Leigh High School in San Jose didn’t discriminate against Jewish and Israeli students when it asked if Hamas is made up of “freedom fighters” or terrorists.
The United States has designated Hamas a foreign terror organization since 1997, and the terror group led the Oct. 7 attacks—the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition shared a screenshot of the assignment with JNS. “In your opinion, is Hamas a group of freedom fighters or a group of terrorists?” the assignment asks. “Explain.”
It wasn’t clear when the assignment was given. A May 12 complaint to the district alleged that the Leigh High School “created a discriminatory and hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli-American students.”
On July 2, the district issued a finding, in which it said that the complainant does not have a child in the class but filed the complaint on behalf of Jewish and Israeli-American students. JNS viewed the district finding.
The district stated that the class “examines controversial social and political topics” and that students completed the assignment independently. The Hamas question was one of two open-ended questions in the assignment, the district said.
JNS sought comments from the district and the school about the complaint and about whether the district would have the same finding, for example, about a classroom assignment that asked if the Ku Klux Klan was a racist organization or one that acted based on its social and religious beliefs.
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition told JNS that “this question appears to permit or justify violence and terrorism, romanticizing terrorists as freedom fighters whose resistance is admirable.”
“We are deeply troubled that administrators do not understand this underlying messaging or have chosen to conveniently ignore it,” the coalition said. “When schools neglect to teach that violence—especially the type of torture, rape and murders Hamas carried out—is never allowed, the message to teachers and students is that further normalization of hatred and violence towards all groups is acceptable.”
‘A stupid question’
The teacher, whose name is redacted, told the district that the question was used before and that he was considering removing it but decided to keep it. He also told the district that the question was not discussed in class and that there was no pressure on students to answer it in a particular way.
When he heard that there were concerns about the assignments, he checked with a student to make sure the student wasn’t impacted negatively, he said.
The district said that it interviewed four students, three of whom didn’t observe any of their peers being offended and two of whom said they weren’t offended.
One, who speaks Hebrew, told the district that the teacher checked in with her after hearing concerns about the assignment to see if she was upset. While she believes it was a “stupid question,” she was not personally offended nor did she think the teacher intended to offend anyone, per the district finding.
“The evidence obtained during the investigation did not establish that the assignment was presented in a manner that constituted discrimination, harassment or unlawful bias against students based upon religion, shared ancestry, ethnicity or national origin,” the district stated.
“Furthermore, the investigation did not find evidence of any students who identified as Jewish or Israeli-American being impacted by the assignment,” it said.
It added that “two students in the class speak Hebrew, which could indicate a Jewish and/or Israeli-American identity” and neither “reported concerns regarding this assignment.”
“While the district recognizes that individuals may disagree with the wording of the question and may find the topic inappropriate or insufficiently contextualized, disagreement with instructional judgment alone does not establish discrimination or harassment,” the district said.
“The investigation did identify a professional practice concern regarding the framing of the question,” it added. “Given the sensitive nature of the subject matter, additional context or instructional framing could have promoted greater clarity and reduced the likelihood of misunderstanding or concern among students and families.”
