As a senior congregational rabbi and a law professor of nearly 20 years in California, I was disappointed when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson proved unable to define the word "woman" when asked during her confirmation hearings for a seat on the Supreme Court. That extraordinary difficulty to distinguish genders perfectly mirrored the crisis now prevalent in California public education.
The state’s school system, established to provide a safe learning climate for all students regardless of their ethnicity, race, language or religious affiliation, is now a social laboratory where students and families from devout faiths feel ostracized and isolated.
Consider: A Catholic mom in Northern California enrolled her daughter in a public charter school. During her initial Zoom classes, the girl, an incoming freshman who had not yet set foot in the school due to Covid-19, was asked her name and "preferred pronouns." She chose a male name and male pronouns. The school then used this information without informing her parents.
