JTA — A large school district serving Oakland, California, is effectively defying state efforts to make it address antisemitism on its campuses, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the California Department of Education.

In January, the department ordered the Oakland Unified School District to send letters to families and staff condemning antisemitism and take several other steps. The lawsuit says the district failed to carry out any of them by the March 1 deadline.

The state filed suit on Monday in Alameda County Superior Court seeking a court order requiring the district to comply.

“OUSD has … unlawfully refused and failed to carry out the corrective actions,” the lawsuit says.

An OUSD spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle the district has a policy against commenting on pending litigation.

The dispute places Oakland schools in the middle of a broader national debate over how educators should address antisemitism amid the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Many advocates say Jewish students need greater protection amid rising antisemitic incidents. Critics, however, argue that efforts to combat antisemitism are increasingly blurring the line between antisemitism and criticism of Israel or Zionism, raising free speech concerns.

In addition to requiring school officials to send districtwide letters condemning antisemitism, the state ordered staff training on nondiscrimination and political activity in schools, as well as a public presentation on the issue at a school board meeting.

The state also required the district to hold student assemblies at four schools — American Indian Model Schools, Thornhill Elementary, Montera Middle School and Oakland Technical High School — addressing the Holocaust, the meaning of the swastika and the harm caused by antisemitic imagery.

The dispute traces back to a series of complaints filed by Oakland attorney Marleen Sacks on behalf of the Oakland Jewish Alliance, a community group formed after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, alleging antisemitic incidents across the district’s schools.

After investigating, Oakland Unified issued a report in December addressing 17 complaints. The district concluded that discrimination against Jewish or Israeli individuals had occurred and that some practices in the district had contributed to what it described as a discriminatory environment.

Among the issues cited were pro-Palestinian posters displayed on campuses, teachers using instructional materials that presented the Gaza war from only one perspective, and staff using school resources to promote political advocacy related to the war.

The district also found that antisemitic graffiti had appeared on school property and acknowledged that some complaints about antisemitism were not addressed promptly.

State education officials intervened after reviewing the district’s findings and concluded that the remedies the district proposed were insufficient.

In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Sacks said she hopes the state’s intervention will force the district to address what she described as persistent discrimination affecting Jewish students.

“The District has been deliberately discriminating against and violating the rights of Jewish and Israeli students for years,” she said.

The case arrives amid broader legal disputes over antisemitism in California schools since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed.

Last month, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the advocacy group StandWithUs filed a separate lawsuit accusing the state of California, its Department of Education and several school districts of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination.

That lawsuit argues that antisemitism has become widespread in California’s public schools and seeks federal intervention.

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