Court order sought to bar Temecula schools from enforcing LGBTQ policy, critical race theory ban

The law firm suing Temecula’s school district over its critical race theory ban announced Thursday, Nov. 30, it is seeking a court order to stop the district from enforcing that ban as well as a policy requiring parents be told if their child identifies as transgender.

Its motion asks a judge to bar the Temecula Valley Unified School District from enforcing school board policies “that censor state-mandated curriculum,” a news release from Public Counsel states.

“Across the district, teachers are avoiding discussions of racial and other forms of inequality for fear of violating the ban, making it impossible to teach subjects like American history and government with even a semblance of accuracy,” lawyers argue in their motion.

“Denied access to concepts being learned by their peers elsewhere in the state, Temecula students are at a marked disadvantage as they prepare for college, careers, and participation in a diverse democracy.”

Public Counsel’s release includes a quote from Amy Eytchison, a Temecula elementary school teacher who is one of the lawsuit plaintiffs.

“Temecula’s students have no time to lose,” Eytchison said in the release. “The board’s policies are denying them an accurate education and a safe school environment. They’re suffering personally, academically, and socially.”

District staff and members of the board’s conservative majority did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday morning.

A self-described nonprofit public interest law firm, Public Counsel, representing the teacher’s union and as well as teachers and students in Temecula schools, sued the district in August to stop enforcement of the critical race theory ban passed by the board’s conservative bloc in December .

At the time, board members Danny Gonzalez, Joseph Komrosky and Jen Wiersma contended that critical race theory was too divisive for the classroom. Critics argue that the conservative trio wants to censor any truthful discussion about racism and U.S. history.

After filing suit, the firm amended its complaint to also challenge a board policy passed in August that requires the district to notify parents if their child is transgender .

The board majority said parents have a right to know everything about their child. Opponents said the policy could harm students whose parents aren’t accepting of their sexual identity.

The district’s transgender policy mirrors that of Chino Valley Unified School District ’s. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Chino Valley , and a judge in September granted Bonta’s request for a temporary restraining order to block that district from enforcing its policy.

Under Temecula’s transgender policy, “students must choose between being their true selves at school and risking the mental and physical harms that accompany forced disclosure,” Public Counsel argued in its request for a court order.

Public Counsel also criticized what it called the board’s “censorship of curricular material about the LGBTQ rights movement.”

Earlier this year, Gonzalez, Komrosky and Wiersma rejected an elementary social studies curriculum with supplemental material that mentioned slain LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk. The board eventually adopted the curriculum following a standoff with Gov. Gavin Newsom , who threatened to fine the district and send textbooks to Temecula.

The “chilling effects” of the critical race theory ban “have been worsened by the board’s subsequent actions,” Public Counsel said in its release.

As examples, Public Counsel alleges that Komrosky encouraged parents “to investigate and seek removal of 16 books from district libraries” while Wiersma asked district librarians to take down a Banned Books Week display.

According to the law firm, “12 preeminent experts in the fields of education and health” filed declarations supporting Public Counsel’s injunction request, including literary critic and Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Temecula’s school board is “deliberately deploy(ing) the apparatus of the state in service of their ideology, limiting what teachers may teach; what students may read; and what textbooks, library books, and coursework may be offered,” Gates, who is head of Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, said in the release.

A hearing on Public Counsel’s request is scheduled for Jan. 24 in Riverside Superior Court.