Edhat Staff
Photo: Santa Barbara Unified School District
By edhat staff
A federal judge has sided with the Santa Barbara Unified School District and local non-profit Just Communities Central Coast in a ten-page court opinion which moves toward dismissing all claims brought against them in a lawsuit.
On Wednesday, United States District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson determined the lawsuit filed by a local group called Fair Education Santa Barbara, Inc., did not have legal standing to assert its alleged claims of intentional discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, and sex. In addition, the Court denied Fair Education’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would have invalidated SB Unified’s contract with Just Communities.
“Our district is committed to a belief that all students have the capacity and desire to learn, which is made better in an environment where students feel safe, welcome and included,” said Cary Matsuoka, Superintendent of Santa Barbara Unified School District. “The federal court’s decisive decision affirms our ability to provide opportunities for staff and students to learn about ways to minimize discrimination and prejudice in all its forms.”
Based upon lack of federal jurisdiction, the ruling also completely dismissed the claim against SB Unified that challenged the legality of its contract with Just Communities.
Fair Education Santa Barbara has publicly alleged the school district and non-profit’s program promote racism against white people. Their website states the organization’s intentions are to “ensure that public funds are not used for improper purposes, such as programs which discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or any other constitutionally prohibited status. It is also our intention to ensure that state and federal laws are followed in awarding contracts for goods and services so that cronyism, favoritism, waste and mismanagement may be spotlighted and eliminated.”
Fair Education’s attorney Eric Early released a statement to KEYT stating the ruling is just a temporary setback due to the following reasons:
“1. The Court did not address Just Communities’ unlawful discrimination and its indoctrination of Santa Barbara’s teachers and students, because those issues were not before the Court on the motions ruled on yesterday.
2. The Court instead ruled on the technical issue of “standing” and is requiring Fair Education Santa Barbara to provide more identifying information about the people being harmed by Just Communities’ discriminatory indoctrination programming.
3. The Court also determined that the state law claim requiring Santa Barbara Unified School District to submit the Just Communities contract for public bidding to other providers – which the District has failed to do — is a state court matter. Thus, Fair Education Santa Barbara expects its injunction request based on the bidding requirement to be ruled on by the state court in a future proceeding.”
The court gave Fair Education until April 8, 2019, to file an amended complaint seeking to correct the deficiencies, or else the case is to be dismissed. The official court ruling is available below.
Congrats to SBUSD and JCC (who does great work!). Fair Education had some egregious claims that they couldn’t even back up.
Good. “Fair” Education, I hope you don’t waste more of the students’ money (cost for lawyers has to go somewhere!) by going forward with an appeal.
Appeal this 9th Circuit Ruling immediately .
“Racism against white people” Fair Education Santa Barbara sounds like a racist hate group.
The Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee supports the Mission and Goals of Fair Education Santa Barbara – ok that explains it!!!
Yeah, in this case, to be frank, pretty much everyone involved is exhibiting and has exhibited a more than healthy serving of idiocy.
Just Cause, though I support their intent, simply hasn’t created a very good curriculum, their thinking on social justice issues can be really reductive and lazy.
The FAIR Education people are victim claiming whiners. I’m a white guy and my white kids are in SBUSD schools and we don’t really need religious extremists trying to dictate curriculum in our schools, just like we don’t need social justice warriors going overboard.
Matsuoka, IMO, has consistently underperformed. He totally mishandled the issues at SMHS and, sadly, clearly doesn’t give a flying fig about what parents have to say–I’ve seen it first hand.
So, everyone needs to try and calm down a little bit, listen a little more, and when it comes to the overpaid and under thinking SBUSD administrators–you guys need to remember who you are here to serve; the kids.
Doesn’t explain anything Mr. Tree.
LOL
I think you mean DNC Mr. Tree.
Just Communities curriculum does not help students “feel safe, welcome and included,” but rather put them on edge against their neighbors. This is how Marxism takes root.
Wealthy whites playing the victim card is a well documented trait of the GOP.
The court turned it down for standing. “Fair” will be back if they can convince some rube to join the case because they feel they’ve been harmed.
BOBOLAW, you clearly have minimal understanding of what Marxism is. Marxism has little to do with contemporary notions of social justice. Stop using terms you don’t understand because some propaganda pipeline sticks them in your head every day. There are real problems with the current approach to social justice–do the intellectual work to understand them. Or maybe just be quiet.
The Fair folks didn’t understand that their state level claims needed to be in a state court? And they didn’t have anybody who could claim damage in their filing? These are the competent folks?
Just Communities is under contract by the school board. It seems logical to then develop the curriculum. Parents are busy and the community probably isnt Intetested. To be selected you need to know someone and agree with them or goals and outcomes.
Really? Administrators think about kids? Where have you been for the last several decades. It’s salaries, pensions, power that most administrators think about. The good ones die young or get fired like Ed Behrens.
Meanwhile the Chinese are making their kids engineers, scientists, mathematicians, all the STEM curriculum, and sending them all over the world to get solid educations to bring back knowledge to build the infrastructure of their nation. They are on a thousand-year plan while we worry about the emotions of our students.
The schools need more money, and our teachers are totally underpaid. Unfortunately, test scores do not tell the whole story://////McKinley: Math/10% – English/24% = “Very Concerning”….Test scores at this school fall far below the state average. ////////////Cleveland: Math/16% – English/24% = “Very Concerning”….Test scores at this school fall far below the state average.//////McKinley: Math/10% – English/24% = “Very Concerning”….Test scores at this school fall far below the state average.//////////Adelante: Math/21% – English/26% = “Very Concerning”….Test scores at this school fall far below the state average. ///////Monroe: Math/21% – English/26% = “Worrisome”……Test scores at this school fall below the state average./////……and the winner of the Chicken Dinner ======= La Cuesta Continuation High School: Math/