Mae M. v. Komrosky

Ending Censorship of Public School Curriculum by Temecula School Board

In December 2022, the Temecula Valley Unified School District school board passed a resolution that bans the teaching of a sweeping and ill-defined range of content referred to as “Critical Race Theory and other similar frameworks,” censoring what students learn about American history and their own identities. While the Board claims that its ban targets critical race theory, Board members have used the resolution’s vague provisions to eliminate from Temecula’s classrooms any concepts that conflict with their ideological viewpoints, including the history of the LGBTQ rights movement and the existence of racism in today’s society. The resolution’s lack of clarity has chilled many teachers into silence and led to large-scale protests by students who say that their constitutional rights to learn and to be free from discrimination are threatened by the ban. 

To fight back against this censorship, students, parents, and individual teachers filed a lawsuit on August 2, 2023, against the Board of Trustees of the Temecula Valley Unified School District (Board) over the enactment of its resolution banning the teaching of concepts with which Board members disagree. The suit is a first-of-its-kind case in California and seeks to invalidate the unconstitutional resolution in Temecula, creating a legal precedent that affirms students’ right to comprehensive, fact-based education in California’s K–12 public schools. 

The plaintiffs came together to defend the right to learn for all students; however, their lawsuit highlights that the ban is particularly harmful to students of color and LGBTQ students, whose identities, histories, and cultures it stigmatizes and sidelines. And the ban jeopardizes the jobs and well-being of teachers across the District, who have to square the resolution’s restrictions with the content they are mandated to teach under the State’s academic standards. 

The Temecula students, parents, and educators are represented by Public Counsel and Ballard Spahr LLP, with the support of the California Teachers Association (CTA). Ballard Spahr is working on the case as part of the firm’s Racial Justice and Equality Initiative, a pro bono plan of action dedicated to combating racial injustice and inequity through litigation.

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