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I Got Access to Hundreds of Teacher Misconduct Complaints in California — and You Can Too
www.propublica.org/article/california-teacher-misconduct-public-records
I Got Access to Hundreds of Teacher Misconduct Complaints in California — and You Can Too
In her five years of investigating teacher misconduct in California schools, reporter Holly McDede learned an important lesson: What seems to be secret isn't always so — sometimes you just need to know who to ask, and for what.
by Holly McDede, KQED
Co-published with KQED
June 4, 2026, 5:00 am
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This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with KQED. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
I was a new reporter at KQED in 2021 when former elementary teacher Joseph Brian Houg was sentenced to more than three decades in prison for sexually abusing 10 students. He’d taught at the same San Francisco Bay Area school for more than two decades. Were there warning signs?
I soon discovered parents on social media saying they had complained to school administrators for years about Houg. I also knew that schools could release such complaints if they were substantiated or if teachers were disciplined. So I filed public records requests with Houg’s school — something anyone can do.
I received 43 pages of records within a few months showing that parents had reported Hougto the principal at least four times since 2009. They complained about him for asking students to strip down to their underwear in his classroom in order to try on costumes for a play he was directing, and for coming into their changing room. They also complained about his touching boys’ chests or stomachs and tapping one boy on the butt. I learned that the principal had twice warned Houg to stop touching students. But he was allowed to keep teaching. (The principal said in a deposition that while Houg’s actions crossed professional boundaries, they were not reported to her as sexual.)
Over the next two years, I reported on similar cases of teachers remaining in the classroom after complaints of unwanted touching. Another Bay Area elementary school, in Benicia, reported a teacher to the state’s licensing body after he resigned due to accusations of misconduct. He was hired by another school, and his educator license remained in good standing until he was criminally charged. (He is currently fighting those charges.)
This raised a whole different set of questions for me: Should these teachers have been allowed to keep teaching in new schools? How much about a teacher’s disciplinary history did potential employers know? And what was the state’s responsibility for acting on, and sharing, the information it had about these teachers?
After I entered journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley in 2023, I wanted to investigate how common it was for teachers to continue working with kids after schools found that they had committed misconduct. California law bars the teacher licensing agency from releasing disciplinary records to the public, so my classmate and I requested records from the 300 largest school districts in California. We asked for complaints of teacher sexual misconduct made to schools in the five previous years. We also asked for any reports sent by schools to the state’s teacher licensing agency, which are required to be filed when public school educators are fired or resign due to alleged misconduct.
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He Was Fired for Sexually Harassing Students. California Allowed Him to Keep Teaching Anyway.
Dozens of districts responded within two months. We began building a spreadsheet of teachers against whom complaints were raised. Getting the records was slow: California requires public agencies to determine whether they have records to disclose within 10 days, and to release them promptly, but most dragged their feet. Whenever schools stopped responding, I copied school board members and attorneys on my emails, citing the law. By the time I graduated more than a year after filing the records requests, I had received more than 350 complaints, which I used in my recent investigation with KQED and ProPublica.
To this day, Los Angeles Unified, the largest school district in California, still has not released any records pertaining to teacher misconduct cases that it reported to the state. Instead, the district said it would charge me $8,000 ($100 an hour for 80 hours of work) for it to “investigate approximately 2,500 potentially responsive personnel files.” The First Amendment Coalition, a California nonprofit that advocates for free speech and government transparency, is representing me in a lawsuit filed in May. We argue that the Los Angeles school district is violating public records laws with its failure to release documents pertaining to alleged educator misconduct. A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told me in a written statement this week that its policies balance the public’s right to access records with “responsible stewardship of public resources” and the law.
Districts slow-walking their responses isn’t the only obstacle to getting records from schools. Districts typically notify teachers before releasing complaints to give them the opportunity to block the documents’ release. The former Benicia teacher who was criminally charged with sexually abusing students in 2024 sued to block the release of complaints made against him at two school districts. The First Amendment Coalition represented me in that case, too, and we won. It took nine months to get the records. In another case in which I had requested records, the court granted an injunction preventing release of the teacher’s records, but the legal filings contained the details of the allegations against him, so the nature of the complaint became public anyway.
At least four teachers have called or emailed me directly to ask why I’m requesting their disciplinary records. They wanted to share their side of the story, which I was more than happy to hear, and some argued that their cases were not worth my time. One asked me to retract my request. (I did not.) Another sent a 1,700-word email saying that the allegations were only partially true and lamented that he did not have the money to defend himself.
While I appreciated the complexity of individual cases, I believed that those misconduct complaints might contain important truths. Undeterred by school districts’ recalcitrance, I followed the public record-seekers’ mantra: If you can’t get records from one agency, the answers you’re looking for may exist somewhere else.
Records of state disciplinary hearings are presumed public when teachers object to their dismissals by school districts or appeal the suspension or revocation of their licenses. And those records reside in the Department of General Services, a state agency that houses another agency responsible for convening administrative hearings of public employees.
This agency proved helpful with the case of Jason Agan, a San Francisco Bay Area math teacher who KQED and ProPublica reported on last month. Agan had been fired for sexually harassing high school students but went on to teach at two more schools, even after an independent panel convened by the Office of Administrative Hearings deemed him “unfit to teach.” Because he had asked for an outside hearing after the district moved to fire him, I requested those records.
I got them the next day. The documents contained summaries of testimony from students, administrators and Agan himself at his dismissal hearing. Agan, who has not been accused of a crime, admitted to touching students’ shoulders but denied any sexual motivation, stating during his dismissal hearing that he did so to offer them support and encouragement. He maintained his teaching license.
Getting a response from the Department of General Services was like discovering a secret portal to obtaining records quickly and easily.
So I requested five years’ worth of decisions about other teachers by independent panels from this agency, in search of further insights into how the state’s teacher disciplinary system works and where it falls short. I obtained a gold mine of documents in less than a week.
I had learned some important lessons: What seems to be secret isn’t always so. Sometimes you just need to know who to ask, and for what.
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I Got Access to Hundreds of Teacher Misconduct Complaints in California — and You Can Too
www.propublica.org
In her five years of investigating teacher misconduct in California schools, reporter Holly McDede learned an important lesson: What seems to be secret isn’t always so — sometimes you just need to k…- Likes: 0
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‘We will never use them’: the California universities stockpiling AR-15s, grenades and submachine guns
A 2021 state law allows campus police to own military equipment for civilian safety – students fear it may be used to quash dissent
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/09/california-universities-military-equipment
Phoebe Huss of CalMatters
Thu 9 Jul 2026 12.00 EDT
For many public colleges and universities in California, keeping their campuses safe includes owning military-grade weaponry: AR-15s, stun grenades designed to cause temporary blindness and sonic weapons that resonate so loudly they are known in the armed forces as the voice of God.
According to California state law, campus police can only own military equipment if the college believes there is no other way to uphold civilian safety.
That law, which passed in 2021, also requires police to make all their equipment dealings exceedingly clear to the public. However, not every college follows every part of the law, according to an investigation by CalMatters into all 148 public campuses in the California Community Colleges, University of California and California State University systems.
Each campus’s state or district governing board – which gives permission for police to procure such items – has to annually re-approve a use policy, a chronicle of when the equipment has been used and an inventory. Once the report is approved and published online, campus police have 30 days to hold a conveniently located and “well-publicized” forum for the public to learn about and give feedback on the equipment, according to state law.
CalMatters attempted to compile the 2025 annual reports and use policies from every public higher education police department in the state that owns military equipment.
A University of California campus police officer pushes a pro-Palestinian protester away from a moving San Diego sheriff’s bus carrying arrested protesters, at UC San Diego on 6 May 2024.Photograph: Adriana Heldiz/AP
Several campus police departments created reports after CalMatters’ inquiries, though the law requires the documents to be posted online as long as the equipment is usable. Not all reports or policies contained the details mandated by the 2021 law; in many cases, campuses left out information, including manufacturers’ product descriptions, up-to-date inventories and equipment quantities. The University of California board of regents approved UC Berkeley’s annual report last September, but university police only published their equipment list on 7 April, after four CalMatters inquiries.
According to their own reports, San Jose State University and San Francisco State University own AR-15s even though Cal State’s policy does not authorize this. A Cal State spokesperson, Amy Bentley-Smith, said these AR-15s are standard issue, which would exempt them from the reporting requirement, even though San Jose’s report classifies them as specialized firearms and university police departments determine which equipment is standard issue. San Francisco State’s semi-automatic rifles are standard issue and won’t be listed in the annual report going forward, university spokesperson Robert King said.
Campus police also must submit their yearly report to their district or state governing boards. Chico State and Cal State Northridge police said their reports are sent to the Cal State chancellor’s office, which the systemwide policy requires. But Klarissa Garcia, executive assistant to the chief of police at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said her department does not submit its report to any governing body.
Multiple police departments, including Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal State Sonoma, said they did not hold a campus forum in 2025, nor did they respond to inquiries about when the required public meeting was held. Many departments said they held meetings, but did not answer questions about how they publicized them, or said they posted announcements on social media without any record of it on their accounts.
The Cal State board of trustees has not reviewed the systemwide equipment policy at a public meeting since 2022, though the policy is supposed to be renewed at least annually. Under the policy the board adopted, the trustees only need to check the policy again if the university system wants to authorize new types of equipment, Bentley-Smith told CalMatters. She added that Cal State would re-examine the policy to ensure it follows the law.
Several community colleges were missing military equipment policies and reports. The college system’s chancellor’s office does not track whether colleges follow the transparency law, according to communications specialist Melissa Villarin.
police and students facing each other
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Police officers descend on pro-Palestinian students at UCLA on 2 May 2024. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
CalMatters used annual reports to create a mass inventory of the equipment found at California higher education institutions, which includes hundreds of semi-automatic rifles, thousands of munitions containing the same chemical as chili peppers, and hundreds of thousands of rifle munitions. Some reports did not list quantities despite the legal requirement; CalMatters sourced other documents posted on campus websites or directly asked for those figures.
The military equipment law, written by former the Democratic assembly member David Chiu, now the city attorney of San Francisco, only applies to campus police departments with sworn police officers. Campus safety or security departments with unsworn personnel do not have to report their equipment. More than 40 community colleges told CalMatters they did not file a report.
It’s not just police using military-grade tools. The Cal State Monterey Bay 2025 report states its emergency management team owns three camera drones, which, as remotely piloted aircrafts, are classified as military equipment under state law. The emergency management team reports to the campus chief of police but is not itself made up of sworn officers, according to the interim police chief, Yvonne Gordon.
Following CalMatters’ inquiries, several campuses – as well as the Cal State system – said they were hereafter committed to following the military equipment transparency law in its entirety. In addition, some are downsizing their inventories.
Defense-style weaponry at schools
Military equipment forums held at universities are often sparsely attended, according to several police departments. But some students are impassioned about the issue. At a rally outside a UC board of regents meeting in January, the University of California at Los Angeles’s chapter of the UC Divest Coalition, an anti-imperialism and anti-militarism student group, criticized the regents for spending tuition money on military equipment, while the board convened yards away in a school ballroom.
Law enforcement at UCLA as protesters try to build a new Palestinian solidarity encampment, on 23 May 2024. Photograph: Christina House/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
UCLA police use long-range acoustic devices – which emit focused beams of high-volume sound – as giant loudspeakers to broadcast announcements to large crowds. In the 2024-25 school year, the department deployed these “voice of God” tools 71 times, all during crowd-management situations, defined by the university as assemblies, protests and demonstrations. Police at UC Santa Cruz used a similar acoustic device to give dispersal orders during the 2024 pro-Palestine student encampments.
UCLA does not use the acoustic devices to produce high-pitched tones, which they are also capable of emitting, said Richard Mejia, the director of emergency communications and information for the university’s campus safety office. But pitch differs from loudness, which is measured in decibels: a long-range acoustic device can produce 160 decibels, and sounds over 120 can cause permanent hearing damage even during a short exposure. The university said it doesn’t prescribe a fixed decibel output, adding that it follows federal and scientific exposure regulations, including those from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which permits sudden noises up to 140 decibels. For reference, a bulldozer emits about 95.
Not all inventoried equipment is approved for use by district or state governing boards. An October 2025 memo from San Jose State University states its police department owns 33 teargas grenades, which burst into clouds of choking chemicals when released and, for some brands, cause “psychological and physiological effects”. The Cal State military equipment policy does not authorize using grenades to deploy teargas or oleoresin capsicum, the chili pepper irritant.
These grenades have “always been in our armory”, Capt Jermaine Thomas said. “We will never use them.” He added that the department plans to destroy them, along with the university’s submachine gun, which is also not authorized under Cal State policy.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on 24 April 2024. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Bentley-Smith told CalMatters that the submachine gun was never added to the systemwide policy manual because the university never used or requested permission to use it.
Campus forums vary in scope
A promotional website for San Jose State’s 2025 community forum says the event covers current police initiatives without specifically mentioning military equipment, but Thomas said that subject was indeed discussed.
About 21,500 students attend El Camino College in Los Angeles county, which announced its 2025 meeting, held in a gymnasium, during four other meetings held on campus: the Campus Safety and Security Consultation Committee, the academic senate, the College Council and the president’s meeting. Police chief Matthew Vander Horck said about 30 people attended. Meanwhile, Capt Jeffrey Chobanian of the UCLA police department, which serves about 49,000 students, said the department used social media to promote its 2025 forum, held on Zoom, but nobody attended.
Some of the forums become question-and-answer sessions, like the ones held by San Bernardino Community College district police, according to their chief, Blake Bonnet. Students and faculty come prepared, read the policy – which includes when and where the equipment can be used – to the officers and press them directly on how it will be enforced, Bonnet said.
Bonnet said he publicizes the annual meeting through the police department’s online newsletter, Just the Facts, which contains crime logs and topical safety tips and is sent to students and staff every month.
“People ask questions and seek clarification,” Bonnet said. “If you don’t understand the police world – which some people do, some people don’t – if you have a question, I would rather you ask so that we can understand your concern.”
At UC Davis’s annual forum, meeting participants have asked about when and why officers can deploy weapons, which necessitates at least annual trainings, and how the equipment is shared with others – since the school has lent drones to other UC campuses for use in crowd control and can borrow equipment from other campuses in preparation for “major” protests and demonstrations. Last year, an attender asked whether other police forces can bring unauthorized military equipment to campus, according to meeting minutes. Capt Mark Brunet responded that they can.
In February 2025, a Mount San Antonio College police advisory committee composed of college and police personnel and two students met to discuss adding AR-15s to the department’s arsenal. Before long, other students caught wind of the plans. Student César Tlatoāni Alvarado said fellow students, especially veterans and students of color, were not comfortable with their campus becoming militarized.
“The entire campus was talking about it,” said Tlatoāni Alvarado, who studies political science and world languages and global studies. They also served as the campus’s student trustee for two terms, from 2023 to 2025.
By CalMatters’ count, more than 25 public colleges own semi-automatic rifles, which shoot with more precision, accuracy and distance than handguns, according to several school policies.
Tlatoāni Alvarado said they were fearful of the impact of a militarized police force on the campus protesting scene, which they said was active but peaceful.
“I knew for a fact that this was being done to silence dissent on our campus,” Tlatoāni Alvarado said.
They led a coalition of campus clubs to demonstrate against the proposed purchases and vehemently protest at multiple police town halls. That April, nearly 20 students, faculty and alumni condemned the plan to buy AR-15s at the college district’s board of trustees’ monthly meeting. The protesters included the student trustee, who said several hundred students were involved in the overall effort.
“There were so many students that were yelling,” Tlatoāni Alvarado said. “They were screaming at the administration. They were upset, they were frustrated. They felt betrayed.”
Police advance on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in an encampment on the UCLA campus, on 2 May 2024. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP
As of June 2026, the college does not own semi-automatic rifles. “The discussion is still ongoing” on whether the college will seek them in the future, according to the campus police chief, Kelli Florman.
Still, Tlatoāni Alvarado considers the students’ work a success.
“It was a lot of work,” they said. “I was one of the students that had led the way in that campaign. But I couldn’t have done it alone. There were so many of us.”
Compton College’s president, Keith Curry, said a February inquiry from CalMatters put the military equipment law on his radar for the first time. Campus police had issued semi-automatic rifles to patrol officers for more than seven years, arguing that standard-issue pistols had not effectively protected civilians and officers during the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery and shootout. The campus police department also owns incapacitating tasers and a submachine gun, the latter of which the college reports is for potentially lethal situations and to shoot through barriers. However, after some research, Curry realized his college never adopted an equipment use policy.
“Once I understood that it was not implemented correctly, I went into action mode,” Curry said. “I was calling around, I was calling a police chief that I know, I looked on different websites. I had to dissect the bill to understand it, myself, about what’s going on.”
Ultimately, Curry and Compton’s attorney wrote up a corrective action plan that his district’s board of trustees unanimously approved on 16 March. In accordance with the plan , the college approved an official policy in April, held a community engagement meeting in May, reviewed an annual use report in June and will update the police policy manual by September.
The compliance review served as a general reminder to build transparency between campus police and their constituents, Curry said. In April, he announced the establishment of three new forms of oversight for campus police: a student committee, a community advisory committee and a taskforce reviewing police procedures and policies.
“As a leader, you have to understand what mistakes are made. You have to fix the mistakes,” Curry said.
After a CalMatters inquiry, Chaffey College officials also discovered they had no policy, which chief Steven Griffin amended by writing a policy that his college board then passed in April. Cal State Monterey Bay updated its website with an equipment policy. Southwestern College modified its annual report with munition quantities. San Joaquin Delta College, Cuesta College and the Riverside Community College district all said they are unsure whether their past documentation follows the law, but were working to ensure future compliance.
Other college officials said adjusting their documentation to conform to state law made them reconsider the tools they have. After taking “immediate steps” to update MiraCosta College’s report, its public and governmental relations director, Kristen Gonzales, said the campus police chief planned to “responsibly reduce [munition] inventory to a level that aligns with our actual operational needs and best practices”.
Tlatoāni Alvarado said that while campus militarization was deeply concerning, he was witnessing a growing trend of students resisting it.
“College campuses are a focal point for where our activism can translate into real-world change,” they said. “Colleges are trying to quash that dissent. But what they need to know, and they need to be made aware of, is that there’s many more of us than there are of them.”
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LAUSD faces ‘severe’ signs of insolvency; county warns it could take control of budget
www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-09/la-unified-budget-finances
The LAUSD headquarters on June 12, 2026. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
By Jaweed Kaleem, Howard Blume and Kori McNair
July 9, 2026 2:06 PM PT
Los Angeles Unified is facing “severe” signs of insolvency, with county officials projecting a $231-million cash shortfall by late 2027.
County education authorities have appointed a fiscal expert and have given the school board 45 days to fix its budget or risk outside control.
Costly union contracts, stalled cuts and steep enrollment declines helped drive the troubles.
The Los Angeles Unified School District faces “severe” indications that it will be insolvent by November 2027 — falling $231 million into the red and unable to make payroll — county analysts have concluded, setting up a 45-day deadline for the school board to amend their budget or face losing significant future authority over spending decisions.
The county has appointed a “fiscal expert” to work with the district to eliminate the projected deficit. If that effort falls short, county authorities will appoint an official empowered to overturn school board spending decisions, according to the letter sent to L.A. Unified.
The July 2 notice, from county education office Supt. Debra Duardo to L.A. school board President Scott Schmerelson, said the district’s recent budget adoption “erodes confidence” in its decision making. The county attributes the crisis largely to union contracts it repeatedly warned L.A. Unified officials the district could not afford. The projected annual cost of the union settlements and employee raises is well over $1 billion a year.
“They have some serious financial concerns that they need to address,” Duardo said in an interview Thursday. “It’s very serious.”
The letter formally issues LAUSD a “Lack of Going Concern” determination, meaning that the district may not be able to meet its obligations in the 2027-28 and 2028-29 school years. It is a step the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) takes only when a district faces serious deficit spending, Duardo said.
The price of LAUSD union peace will be $1.2 billion a year. Next up is paying for it
“This determination does not change our commitment to students, families or employees,” Chait said in a statement. “Our schools will continue to operate as normal while we work closely with LACOE to strengthen our long-term financial outlook. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate and remain focused on making thoughtful, responsible decisions that protect classroom instruction and student success.”
Employee unions have repeatedly downplayed financial warnings, saying that the projections don’t fully account for increases in state funding that are almost certain to become available. Education advocates have asserted that California schools are legally entitled to billions more under state law.
State tax revenues have been at record levels, but are heavily dependent on the current stock performance of artificial intelligence companies.
Duardo said the goal is to keep the district from sinking so far that it would need a state bailout.
“What we’re talking about is just making sure that they don’t get into a situation where they have to take out a loan from the state and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
Were L.A. Unified to need a state bailout, its school board would lose authority over the school system, with authority transferring to an administrator appointed by Duardo.
A financial expert now, possible oversight later
At this juncture, the county is not taking over the district. Instead, it is moving in two stages, as mandated by state law to ensure school districts remain fiscally sound.
On July 1, the county assigned a fiscal expert — Octavio Castelo, an official from the county education office — to work alongside district staff. That role is “advisory and diagnostic,” the letter said. Castelo cannot unilaterally make district budget decisions.
The second stage involves major restrictions. If the district does not address the budget issue to satisfy legal requirements, the county may assign a “fiscal adviser” with “stay and rescind authority over board actions,” such as the power to block the board’s spending. The adviser would not run the district but could reject board spending decisions.
The step beyond that would be a full takeover. That happened in 2012 in Inglewood, which received an emergency state loan, Duardo said she is optimistic the LAUSD can avoid that fate.
Why the district is in trouble
The county’s chief complaint is the high cost of district employee-union contracts. On June 16, the school board approved new contracts covering multiple employee unions. County officials warned the board at the time that deals were too expensive. The board approved them anyway.
The contracts add about $1.13 billion this school year, rising to $1.44 billion in 2027-28, the letter said. The deals, reached to avert a strike in April, promised double-digit raises to teachers, aides, custodians and other workers.
The letter also faults the district’s planning. About $231 million in previously planned cuts were never carried out. On the same night it approved the contracts, the board overrode its own chief financial officer to pull $175 million from a fund set aside for retiree health benefits. The county said it all “further erodes confidence” in the district’s budgeting abilities.
Enrollment is another issue. L.A. Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, educates about 390,000 students. That is roughly half its size in the early 2000s. As enrollment falls, so does state funding. But the district has not adjusted its staffing to match, the letter says.
The district also has undergone leadership change at the top. Chait has been superintendent since Alberto Carvalho resigned last month amid a federal investigation.
The district’s month-end cash balance is projected to go negative by $231 million in November 2027, and negative again from February through May 2028. A district that cannot maintain a positive cash balance cannot make payroll or pay its bills. The letter says that is “the most immediate and severe indicator of insolvency.”
Fixing the problem will be painful. The district’s plan already calls for unpaid furlough days beginning as early as fall break this year; if they are not in place, the county has said it will consider escalating to a fiscal adviser. Layoffs are also coming. The budget the board approved in June already included more than 1,000 job cuts, with thousands more projected over the next three years.
What happens next
The 45-day clock puts the next decision point in mid-to-late August. The board resumes meeting in August, giving it time to adopt a revised budget before an adviser would be named. District officials also have the option to appeal the county’s findings to the state superintendent of public instruction within five days.
Duardo said she has spoken with Chait since the letter went out and said that the superintendent “understands the need for them to balance their budget and to make some hard decisions about how they’re going to cut, and he’s very collaborative and very willing to work together.”
“They’ve gotten into a situation where they’re very close to possibly running out of money if they don’t put the measures in place that they need to,” Duardo said. “And I’m confident that they will.”
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LAUSD faces 'severe' signs of insolvency; county warns it could take control of budget
www.latimes.com
L.A. County education officials say union contracts Los Angeles Unified couldn’t afford have pushed the district toward insolvency. They threaten to appoint an overseer who can block the school board’…www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/attorney-general-orders-changes-sacramento-city-unifi…. … See MoreSee Less
UAW4811 Leadership Still Pushing For $12 Billion CA Reseach Bond For UC and Private Bio-Tech Companies
$12B UC-sponsored research bond misses deadline for November ballot
www.dailycal.org/news/uc/12b-uc-sponsored-research-bond-misses-deadline-for-november-ballot/artic…
Padma Balaji | Staff Jul 7, 2026 Comments
Senate Bill 895 would have established the California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would award grants to universities and research companies.
Emerson Kibby | Staff
A $12 billion UC-sponsored bond that would fill funding gaps for university researchers will not appear on the November ballot after failing to meet the qualifying deadline.
Senate Bill 895, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, was cosponsored by UC and the UAW 4811, which represents 60,000 academic student employees, amid rollbacks in federal funding for UC researchers.
Since early 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration has suspended more than $3 billion in research grants from leading science agencies that did not align with its political priorities. In April, the administration cut an additional $21 million in National Science Foundation grants to UC Berkeley.
After passing through the Senate, the bill failed to pass through the assembly before the June 25 deadline to appear on the ballot.
“Placing a bond on the ballot is always an ambitious undertaking — particularly so in California’s current fiscal environment. State budget challenges, competing priorities, and a limited ability by the state to borrow money shaped the outcome of the bill,” said UC President James Milliken in a press release.
The bond would have established the California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would award grants to universities and research companies. In addition to supporting universities, Weiner also intended for SB 895 to make healthcare more affordable by permitting the state to publicly produce pharmaceuticals invented by bond-funded research.
Milliken, alongside a coalition of scientists and leaders, rallied around the bill, dubbing it the “Save Science, Save Lives” ballot measure. Last November — after the Trump administration froze almost $600 million in grants to UCLA and demanded an additional $1 billion in fines — Milliken wrote to Wiener, asking state legislators for $4-5 billion annually to mitigate lost federal funding.
“In the face of MAGA’s senseless destruction of our federal science agencies and cuts to scientific research, California must stand up and defend the research that powers our state,” Wiener said in a press release. “Science is how we heal the sick, feed the hungry, and build the future — and nowhere does it better than California.”
Wiener also touted the bill as an economic investment, as every dollar invested in National Institute of Health research generates $2.50 in economic activity.
The bond could still qualify for the November ballot measure if granted an extension by the state.
“We hope that our representatives will find a way to expedite the bond’s progress out of suspense,” said Julia Falo Sanjuan, a UC Berkeley postdoc and recording secretary for UAW 4811, in a statement to The Daily Californian. “Tens of thousands of people, both members of our union and members of the broader UC community, have come together to save science in this state—no matter what happens to SB 895 this summer, that coalition will continue fighting to protect research in the public interest.”
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$12B UC-sponsored research bond misses deadline for November ballot
www.dailycal.org
A $12 billion UC-sponsored bond that would fill funding gaps for university researchers will not appear on the November ballot after failing to meet the qualifying deadline.
SJSU Professor Dr Sang Kil Press Conference After CFA Arbitration Victory Returning Her To Her Job
youtu.be/Ki0mouTnXY8
In an important victory against the government CSU Zionist witchhunt on campuses around the country, San
Jose State University professor Dr. Sang Kil who is also a CFA member won a union arbitration that she had
been illegally fired from her job. The California Faculty Association CFA supported her in
the arbitration which was part of their union contract. She has opposed the genocide in Gaza and had
supported an encampment in support of Palestine.
Here lawyers also announced at the press conference that she has filed a lawsuit against administrators and
others who illegally targeted her for her support for the Palestinian people.
This press conference was held on June 30, 2026.
Additional Media:
Victory Press Conference For SJSU Dr. Sang Kil Fired Over Palestine Solidarity & Opposing Genocide
youtu.be/R0kV2Zo0uE0
CAIR-CA & San Jose Silicon Valley NAACP Community Leaders Out In Support Of SJSU Professor Dr. Sang Kil
youtu.be/o9TiZ1QSiO0
www.kqed.org/news/12088425/san-jose-state-professor-fired-over-campus-gaza-protests-to-win-back-j…
SJSU Admin Zionist Attack On Professor Sang Hea Kil, CFA/SEIU & The Defense Of Public Education
youtu.be/KwdR9EXoWRw
The Attacks On UCSF Dr. Marya Rupa & SJSU CFA Member Sang Hea Kil & The Unions & Working Class
youtu.be/m-Krt42WIck
Professor Sang Hea Kil Website
linktr.ee/sangheakil?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAad7VVpjuxkjpu09RxKWyDp5B4fPMzP9VTz8CCQXcHnEMP2ZM3G…
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Teachers in this N.J. school district walked out of a controversial training. Here’s why.
archive.ph/2026.06.30-142730/https://www.nj.com/education/2026/06/teachers-in-this-nj-school-dist…
Published: Jun. 30, 2026, 6:31 a.m.
Montclair in the red
Ruth Turner, Superintendent of Montclair Schools, speaks during a Montclair School Board meeting in 2025.Ed Murray| For NJ Advance Media
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By Liz Rosenberg | NJ.com
The local chapter of an American-Islamic advocacy group is calling on a New Jersey school board to reject a controversial definition of antisemitism given during a staff training session earlier this month.
The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR-NJ, sent a letter to Montclair school officials that outlined several critiques of the training. The presentation allegedly suggested the district follow a 2019 Trump administration executive order that said government agencies should use the definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
According to CAIR-NJ, the definition classifies criticism of Israel or its policies as anti-Jewish discrimination.
“Muslim students, as well as students of Palestinian and Arab descent, will receive the unmistakable message that their lived experiences, family histories, and personal perspectives are not welcome in their own school district, and that speaking openly may come at a cost,” said CAIR-NJ spokesperson Naureen Akhter during a June 17 school board meeting.
Montclair officials were given the training June 2 as part of a settlement between the school district and the U.S. Department of Education over complaints filed with the federal government about alleged antisemitism. The complaint was filed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the federal law that prohibits discrimination.
Training slides from the presentation shared with NJ.com by CAIR-NJ included statements that said criticism of Israel’s policies as racist is antisemitic.
One Montclair educator who attended the training said it was unlike anything she had experienced in her several years with the district. She asked to remain anonymous because she did not have permission to speak with the press.
The trainers were from the Foundation for Educational Administration, the professional development arm of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, the educator said. The mandatory in-person presentation was given in three Montclair schools simultaneously.
As the training progressed and its focus on the antisemitism definition and related examples became clear, some Montclair staff members walked out of the room in protest, the educator said.
At a June 17 board meeting, Montclair Superintendent Ruth Turner read a statement about the use of the controversial antisemitism definition in the districtwide presentation.
“Since that training occurred on June 2nd, the district has received correspondence and feedback from members of our community, expressing a range of perspectives regarding the content presented,” Turner said.
She said complying with the district’s settlement with the federal Office of Civil Rights “does not diminish our commitments to any of our community members.”
“We are equally committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin background, feels safe, respected, valued and supported in our schools,” Turner added.
The New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association said it provided the training as part of the federal Title VI settlement with the U.S. Department of Education.
“Given that the January 16, 2025 mediation agreement included a specific requirement for the district to train its staff on Title VI using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism from a 2019 Executive Order, the training referenced that same definition,” the organization said.
Presenters at the training “never stated that New Jersey public schools must use this definition,” the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association’s statement said.
Instead, the presenters offered the definition of antisemitism among several resources, “which included a definition of Islamophobia provided by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and incorporated specific information from other resources such as the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, with the ultimate goal of helping Montclair create safe and respectful learning environments for all students.”
Five slides were devoted to the definition of antisemitism and only one slide was devoted to the definition of Islamophobia, according to the slides provided to NJ.com by CAIR-NJ.
The definition of antisemitism given in the presentation left some Montclair educators wondering how to manage classroom discussions of Israeli policy history or the war in Gaza.
“The people were basically asking, ‘Can we teach about what’s going on in Gaza? Can we talk about it,’” the Montclair educator said of questions that came up at the session she attended.
The same definition of antisemitism was debated in Trenton last year when legislators proposed a law that would rewrite the state’s legal standard for antisemitism.
The bill passed the Assembly’s State and Local Government Committee with bipartisan support but stalled before reaching a floor vote when the legislative session ended in January.
Opponents said the definition would chill free speech and criminalize the criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Maria Eva Dorigo, a parent of a graduating senior in Montclair, said she attended one of the hearings in Trenton on the bill.
“I lived under dictatorship for the first 10 years of my life,” said Dorigo, who grew up in Argentina. “I have a sense of urgency that most people here don’t have because they haven’t experienced what I did.”
Dorigo said she fears the antisemitism definition used in the Montclair training will chill teachers’ enthusiasm for discussing current events and result in unwarranted student discipline.
“In an academic setting, there is nothing out of borders. You need to discuss things that are uncomfortable,” she said.
CAIR-NJ’s letter asked the school district to immediately “refrain from adopting or applying the IHRA definition of antisemitism in any training, policy, or disciplinary framework, and to correct the misstatements made at the June 2nd event.”
CAIR-NJ suggested the district rely on “New Jersey’s existing, viewpoint-neutral framework under the Law Against Discrimination, which protects all students equally.”
A district parent of Lebanese descent who spoke at the June 17 Montclair Board of Education meeting said her family’s farm and village had been bombed by Israel several times in recent years.
“Our family farm of 10,000 trees, planted by my father, was burnt with white phosphorus multiple times in the last two and a half years, partially bulldozed in 2024 and then detonated along with the village last month by Israel,” she said.
She said her children have been traumatized and fear for the safety of their loved ones in Lebanon.
“They have every right to criticize Israel, and its genocidal policies, if they so wished, and no one should take that away from them,” she said. “My question to everyone here on this board and in this room, if Israel commits war crimes and people here in this room point that out, is that antisemitism?”
Longtime resident, Stephen Shalom, who is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, also spoke at the June 17 school board meeting. He disagreed with the district’s position that it was just complying with the terms of the settlement.
“The settlement doesn’t say that Montclair has to accept the IHRA definition. What it says is that the training must reference the IHRA definition,” Shalom said.
“A trainer could have said, ‘Here is one definition of antisemitism that is very controversial. It is actually a definition that many civil rights organizations like the ACLU, Fire, Human Rights Watch and dozens more consider to be an infringement on the First Amendment.’”
Liz Rosenberg
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$12B science bond to offset Trump research cuts misses California ballot deadline
University of California leaders, UAW 4811, UAW Region6 and scientists had supported the bill, which they called critical to securing the future of science in the state.
www.berkeleyside.org/2026/06/29/12b-science-bond-to-offset-trump-research-cuts-misses-california-…
By Felicia Mello
June 29, 2026, 2:19 p.m.
California Assembly Member Pilar Schiavo listens to Caltech Ph.D. student Isaac Aguilar explain his research on metals found in the ash following the Los Angeles fires during a science fair for threatened and cancelled research held in Sacramento on Jan. 26. Credit: Fred Greaves for Berkeleyside
A proposed $12 billion bond measure to fund scientific research missed a deadline last week to qualify for the November ballot, dimming the hopes of scholars and University of California leaders who had aimed to use the funds to backfill losses in federal grants.
Are you a UC researcher whose work has been affected by federal grant cancellations?
Send me an email to reporter Felicia Mello at felicia@berkeleyside.org, or message her on Signal at Felicia.97.
State Sen. Scott Wiener urged state legislative leaders on Friday to extend the deadline and place the measure on the ballot in a joint statement with two other authors of the bill and a union leader, saying the Trump administration’s slashing of federal science funding “calls for real urgency.” (Any deal would likely need to happen before July 2, when the Legislature is set to adjourn for the summer.)
The bond proposal came as the administration has canceled thousands of grants to scientists nationwide that it said didn’t align with its priorities and is proposing rules that would further politicize federal grantmaking. UC Berkeley alone has lost tens of millions in funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies.
“The University of California is facing the most significant disruption to our research enterprise in our history,” UC President James Milliken said at a May rally in support of the bond.
The bill would have given Californians the opportunity to vote in November on whether to set up a state fund to support research in curing deadly diseases, preventing wildfires, tackling climate change and other scientific quests. In addition to raising $12 billion through a bond measure, the state would also have collected private donations, and would have received a portion of the revenue from inventions developed with money from the fund.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, who has proposed the multi-billion-dollar scientific research fund, talks at the science fair in January. Credit: Fred Greaves for Berkeleyside
Originally designed to raise $23 billion, the proposal was scaled down during the legislative process and passed the state Senate with bipartisan support. But it failed to make it to the Assembly floor before Thursday’s deadline for measures to qualify for the November ballot.
Nick Miller, a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, said legislative leaders — who typically come to an agreement with the governor before placing bonds on the ballot — faced painful choices as they tried to plan for Medicaid cuts and other federal policy changes that were likely to impact the state in the near future.
“Trump’s full-scale assault on California touches nearly every public service and program,” Miller wrote in an email. “California simply cannot backfill all these draconian cuts — and the economic chaos Trump has unleashed forces the state to prepare for even more uncertainty ahead, severely constraining bonding capacity.”
A spokesperson for the governor’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment.
As California’s leading public research university, UC Berkeley would have likely benefited significantly from the state fund, along with other UC campuses, private universities and labs.
“Scientific discoveries are absolutely critical to working families across California,” Mike Miller, president of United Auto Workers Region 6, a union that represents UC scientists, said in a joint statement Friday with Wiener and Assembly coauthor José Luis Solache. They urged the Assembly, Senate and Governor Gavin Newsom to place the bond on the ballot, saying it would “secure the future of science in California.”
Researchers say their jobs have become more unstable as Trump administration has pulled back on funding
The campaign for SB 895 marked a rare moment of collaboration between the leadership of the UC and unions representing the university’s scientists, both of which sponsored the bill. Early-career scientists in particular emerged from their labs to hold a mock science fair, gather signatures from the public, and otherwise try to convince legislators that their work is critical to the state’s future.
large-science-saves-lives_2026_01_26_FG23488.jpeg
Christopher Rae, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher who is investigating potential new treatments for tuberculosis, at the January science fair. Credit: Fred Greaves for Berkeleyside
Lara Schwarz, a UC Berkeley postdoc who studies how heat waves and wildfire affect human health, said job opportunities in her field were far more scarce than they had been just two years ago, as the National Institutes of Health pulled back on funding.
“California is experiencing more and more heat waves and wildfire smoke events and that’s not going away anytime soon,” she said. “The fact that we won’t have the funding to research this and understand how to respond is going to lead to drastic consequences on the health of Californians.”
The science bond, she hoped, could prevent researchers like her from needing to go abroad to pursue their work — or leaving the field altogether.
Housing bond may have crowded science bond off the ballot
Science bond supporters also faced competition from another pressing California challenge: the state’s housing crisis. Last week, Newsom struck an agreement with legislative leaders to place an $11 billion bond measure on the ballot that would fund the building and preservation of affordable housing.
Because bonds are essentially large loans the state takes out, with taxpayers paying the interest, their supporters often worry that having more than one such big-ticket measure on the ballot can weaken voter buy-in. State leaders, too, fear taking on too much debt. Voters are also set to decide in November on a more narrowly focused $8 billion bond measure, backed by billionaire philanthropist Gary Michelson and some patient advocacy groups, that would fund research into immunotherapy for serious diseases.
While court rulings have restored many of the grants to UC researchers that the Trump administration had sought to cancel, deep uncertainty remains about the future of federal science funding. Rules proposed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget last month would require political appointees to review all new grants to ensure they serve the president’s priorities.
And in April, the National Science Foundation suspended another $21 million in research grants to UC Berkeley, saying the university failed to report foreign funding received by the projects’ principal investigators, a charge some of those researchers denied.
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$12B science bond to offset Trump research cuts misses California ballot deadline
www.berkeleyside.org
University of California leaders and scientists had supported the bill, which they called critical to securing the future of science in the state.
SJSU professor fired for pro-Palestinian activism sues university
Sang Hea Kil, who was fired in 2025, has sued San Jose State University for discrimination
www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/06/30/sjsu-professor-fired-for-pro-palestinian-activism-sues-university/
Sang Hea Kil, the San Jose State University justice studies professor who was terminated for her pro-Palestinian activism and then later reinstated, speaks during a press conference outside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. Kil announced Monday that she has sued the California State University Board of Trustees and SJSU for violating her rights under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the First Amendment.
Sang Hea Kil, the San Jose State University justice studies professor who was terminated for her pro-Palestinian activism and then later reinstated, speaks during a press conference outside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. Kil announced Monday that she has sued the California State University Board of Trustees and SJSU for violating her rights under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the First Amendment. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
Molly Gibbs is a Bay Area News Group reporter.webp
By MOLLY GIBBS | mgibbs@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: June 30, 2026 at 3:45 PM PDT | UPDATED: July 1, 2026 at 4:37 AM PDT
Sang Hea Kil, the San José State University professor who was fired for her pro-Palestinian activism in 2025, is suing the college, alleging the school discriminated and retaliated against her, subjected her to a “hostile work environment,” and violated her First Amendment rights.
The civil rights lawsuit, which was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court in late May, but not announced until Monday, follows an arbitrator’s ruling last week that overturned Kil’s termination, deeming it an “excessive” punishment for a professor of more than 17 years with no prior disciplinary action. The arbitrator said it should be reduced to a one-month unpaid suspension and awarded her back pay.
The lawsuit seeks $10 million in damages and names as defendants the California State University board of trustees, SJSU president Cynthia Teniente-Matson, SJSU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vincent Del Casino and former SJSU Interim Senior Associate Vice President for University Personnel, Jeanne Durr.
“This is an incredible victory for free speech, academic freedom, student protest, freedom of assembly and pro-Palestine speech on campus and beyond,” Kil said at a press conference Tuesday outside SJSU’s Martin Luther King Jr. Library to announce her lawsuit and celebrate her reinstatement. “This is our victory. Let’s use this as a watershed moment to turn the tide against targeted repression on our campus and in this nation.”
In a statement Tuesday, San José State University said the campus is aware of Kil’s lawsuit and “strongly disputes the allegations and will respond and defend itself through the judicial process.”
On the arbitrator’s findings, the university said SJSU has consistently maintained that no employee “has been or would be subject to disciplinary action for lawfully exercising their First Amendment Rights, including protected speech or expression.”
The school said the arbitrator “made no finding that Dr. Kil was disciplined because of their viewpoints or protected speech,” but rather, “found that discipline was warranted based on their actions, which were substantiated as unprofessional conduct, and reduced only the level of discipline imposed.”
“Specifically, the arbitrator found that Dr. Kil engaged in unprofessional misconduct for, among other things, participating in efforts to intentionally disrupt a colleague’s classroom lecture and taking actions that clearly violated the University’s time, place, and manner policy. The report noted the “unprofessionalism of such conduct cannot reasonably be disputed,” the university said.
A tenured professor of justice studies and former faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine, Kil was placed on administrative leave in May 2024 and subsequently fired for “repeated violations of university policies” including directing and encouraging students to violate university policies, engaging in harassing and offensive conduct and comments directed toward colleagues, and targeting at least one colleague for engaging in their work duties by publicly identifying them and posting inflammatory comments and creating a risk of harm to them, according to the university.
She is widely considered one of the first full-time, tenured professors to be fired from a public U.S. university in connection with the student protests over the war in Gaza that have spread across college campuses nationwide.
In her lawsuit, Kil said she first came under fire from the university in April 2024. The school informed her she was being investigated for allegedly “disrupting the university’s business operations and encouraging students to do the same” during a February 19, 2024 campus protest she attended that opposed the appearance of Jewish studies professor, Jeffrey Blutinger, who was speaking about the Israel-Hamas war. An altercation broke out and a another San Jose State professor, Johnathan Roth, was put on administrative leave for allegedly placing a hand on a student protestor during the confrontation.
“Undeterred” by the school’s “discriminatory attempt to intimidate her,” Kil said in her suit, she later attended a May 8, 2024 sit-in protest held at the university where she criticized the school’s “Time, Place and Manner Policy” — which sets rules on free speech activities on campus to “ensure the safety and wellbeing” of the school community — for infringing on free speech.
The lawsuit said Kil also told students “it’s not too late” to do “an encampment” and later served as the spokesperson for the student’s encampment that began on May 13, 2024. Kil spent three nights at the ten-day student encampment, according to the suit.
Kil was placed on administrative leave on May 24, 2024 for disrupting the school’s business operations and inciting students to violate university policies, the lawsuit said. She was terminated on June 30, 2025 for her alleged “disregard for university policies” including the school’s time, place and manner policy, according to the suit.
The arbitrator’s June 2026 report said her grounds for termination were “unprofessional conduct” and “failure or refusal to perform the normal and reasonable duties of (her) position.’”
Kil appealed the decision to a faculty hearing committee, which ultimately determined that the school’s decision to fire Kil was not justified but the university upheld her termination anyway, according to Kil’s lawsuit and the California Faculty Association.
She subsequently sought arbitration, which was held in March, with the arbitrator overturning the university’s decision last week.
Kil’s lawsuit also alleges that during the hearing, “SJSU personnel made Islamophobic comments” which she filed a federal Title VI Civil Rights complaint over in November 2025. She said she also found “racist graffiti threatening a mass shooting and referencing Asian, Jewish and Muslim people” on her office building that same month, which she reported to the school and perceived as a threat directed at her, according to the lawsuit.
In her suit, Kil alleges the university discriminated against her and subjected her to “adverse employment actions” by suspending her, “conducting a sham investigation,” making false statements about her, failing to meaningfully address the racist graffiti directed at her, disregarding the faculty hearing’s findings and terminating her due to her “association with Palestinian, Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim individuals and her own gender, race and sexual orientation.”
Kil also alleges that the university “knew and should have known” of the discrimination, harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation she suffered, but says the school failed to take action.
Kil’s discrimination allegations center around the university’s treatment of SJSU professor Roth, who was placed on administrative leave and whom Kil alleges was not fired and instead was allowed to return to his teaching position before quietly retiring.
“SJSU’s extreme treatment of Dr. Kil stands in sharp and alarming contrast to its treatment of other faculty who do not share her political views, identity, or association with Arab, Muslim and Palestinian individuals,” Kil’s lawsuit alleges. “For example, Dr. Johnathan Roth — a white, heterosexual, male professor at SJSU who publicly supports Israel and expresses anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment.”
Several local community organizations spoke in support of Kil’s reinstatement and expressed concern over her “excessive” termination and its implications for freedom of speech.
“When people who support Palestinian rights or who are Muslim or of the Islamic faith speak out, they face extreme punishments,” said Sean Allen, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP. “And when those same individuals are victims of harm, the response from our institutions is too often slow, dismissive, or absent altogether. We saw that double standard play out on this very campus.”
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SJSU professor fired for pro-Palestinian activism sues university
www.eastbaytimes.com
The lawsuit follows an arbitrator’s ruling last week that overturned Kil’s termination, deeming it an “excessive” punishment for a professor of more than 17 years with no prior disciplinary ac…
Time, Place & Manner: Scott Wiener, Gavin Newsom & The Attack On Democratic Rights In Education
youtu.be/6wuFS4FfeAI
SJSU Professor Dr. Sang Kil at a victory press conference returning her to her job at San Jose Sate University reported that California Governor Gavin Newsom and Congressional candidate Scott Wiener were involved in targeting Palestinian student, faculty and union supporters at CSU, UC and K-12 with rules such as Time, Place and Manner as well as SB 715 which says criticism of Israel's genocide is anti-Semitism and coerces teachers not to have any discussion of Palestine and the genocide.
The attack on democratic rights by Democratic Party politicians according to Professor Kil is helping to set up a repressive state.
The leadership of UAW 4811 and UAW Region 6 are supporting the candidacy of Scott Wiener for Congress to replace former House leader Nancy Pelosi.
This press conference was in front of the MLK Library at San Jose State University on June 30, 2026.
Additional Media:
UAW Members Demand that UAW Rescind Endorsement of Zionist & Billionaire Shill Scott Wiener
youtu.be/JPfO9KV31Vk
Zionist CA State Senator Scott Wiener Protested At KQED Congressional Debate
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No Genocide By Israel In Gaza According to SF Demo Party Politician Scott Weiner
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UCSF Dr. Rupa Marya Targeted By Zionist Scott Weiner & Fired For Opposing Genocide In Palestine
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Weiner Supporters Go Crazy At Jane Kim Rally In SF-There Is No Working Class Housing Crisis In SF?
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