Horvitz & Levy’s clients, parents and teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, brought this suit to stop the district from teaching a discriminatory antisemitic curriculum. At least two LAUSD teachers were informally using an ethnic studies curriculum that promotes anti-Zionist and antisemitic ideas, and the curriculum consortium and union affiliates were effectively conspiring to introduce “liberated” ethnic studies into LA public schools. Plaintiffs sued the consortium, the teachers’ union, affiliated individuals, and the district.
In its first ruling on the merits—without ever holding a hearing—the trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice for lack of standing, unripe claims, and failure to state a claim. The court also granted the Consortium defendants’ and union defendants’ anti-SLAPP motions to strike and awarded fees.
On appeal, Horvitz & Levy argued the merits and took the opportunity to argue that state anti-SLAPP claims have no place in federal court, especially (1) in the Ninth Circuit, where the statute is applied piecemeal rather than as the California Legislature intended, and (2) after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Berk v. Choy, 607 U.S. 187 (2026).
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s finding that plaintiffs lacked standing but reversed the dismissal with prejudice, giving plaintiffs a chance to amend their complaint to cure any deficiencies. Because the court held leave to amend should have been granted, it vacated the anti-SLAPP fee award, and thus did not reach the question of the statute’s applicability in federal court.
Concerned Jewish Parents & Teachers of Los Angeles v. Liberated Ethnic Studies 
