CARMEL VALLEY — A senior quote in the Canyon Crest Academy yearbook referencing Palestinian liberation sparked immense backlash from people claiming the statement was antisemitic, and launched a broader discussion among school district leaders about regulating free speech.
The quote in question read “From the river to the sea,” a phrase that has been the subject of controversy in recent years.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been a statement of support among and for Palestinians amid decades of displacement by the Israeli military forces, as well as the more recent bombardment of Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel.
However, some Jewish people and supporters of Israel argue that the statement calls for violence against Jews and the eradication of Israel. This position has also been shared by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.
Following the publication of the yearbook, Canyon Crest Academy and San Dieguito Union High School District administrators received hundreds of emailed complaints about the student’s quote. Some demanded that the student, who is Palestinian, not be allowed to walk at graduation.
In response to the incident, the district board of trustees discussed possible updates to policies around student-generated content, including the yearbook and campus newspapers, at a meeting on Wednesday.
“As questions surrounding student expression have become increasingly complex in recent years, it’s appropriate for us to review how updates to our policies and procedures can provide clearer guidance for students and staff while continuing to protect students first amendment rights and opportunities for expression,” said board president Jane Lea Smith.
Some trustees said they would be in favor of eliminating the option of yearbook quotes altogether, but others said that could be overstepping free speech rights for student-led publications.
Superintendent Anne Staffieri said staff is looking to clarify language in the policy to make it clear that student-generated speech does not reflect the district’s views, and to clarify roles for staff who advise the yearbook and journalism classes.
“As superintendent, my fundamental responsibility is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all of our students while also upholding their speech rights and supporting school environments that protect our students from discrimination, from harassment, intimidation, bullying, or other types of expression that are prohibited by law,” Staffieri said.
Under the district’s current policy, students have the right to exercise freedom of speech in school publications unless the speech is discriminatory, harassing, intimidating or bullying, is likely to immediately incite unlawful action or violates other district policies.
If a school principal suspects that material submitted for publication may violate the policy, they must give the student due notice and provide an opportunity to revise the content. The goal is to avoid limiting free speech whenever possible, said Bryan Marcus, associate superintendent of educational services.
Staffieri said the goal is to create a school publications code that incorporates input from students, advisers, and administrators and provides clear guidelines for addressing speech concerns.
After bringing the policy updates forward for adoption later this month, the district will work with site administrators, faculty advisors, and student editors in the coming months to outline expectations and establish a collaborative structure.
“We really wanted to make sure our faculty advisor is working in collaboration with site administration to explore all instructional and collaborative options before restricting material. So, really making sure that the faculty adviser and the administration are all working in a team, and that the student editors feel like they have a very good collaborative team to kind of talk through certain situations, should they arise,” Marcus said.
Trustees Michael Allman and Phan Anderson said they would be in favor of removing senior quotes in the yearbook altogether to avoid similar situations in the future. Allman said the board could also clarify that no “political” quotes are allowed.
“If we don’t make the choice and we leave it with some vague words like, ‘let’s let the student editors decide,’ then we’ve abdicated our responsibility,” Allman said.
Trustee Phan Anderson noted that the district is home to a diverse community with different viewpoints and that it should remain neutral and focus on education.
“We have a group of people who refer to a phrase in the yearbook as unified. And we have a group of people who refer to a phrase in the yearbook as horrified,” Anderson said.
Trustees Rimga Viskanta and Smith said restricting senior quotes in the yearbook would essentially be telling students what they can and cannot publish, which could result in a lawsuit.
“As far as freedom of speech, it is so treasured, and it can be so difficult to define. Where I stand right now with allowing yearbook statements or not … these things have gone to court. It’s not a simple situation, and I certainly don’t feel qualified to be the arbiter of speech,” Viskanta said. “I don’t know that we have the authority to say what they can or cannot do.”
The superintendent echoed these concerns, advising the board that this may not fall under their authority. However, at the board’s direction, Staffieri said she would consult with the district’s legal counsel.
“To say here, quotes or no quotes, I don’t believe that’s an appropriate role of the board in a student-generated publication,” Staffieri said.
Viskanta also noted that the district has not always been consistent in its responses to certain incidents and said it needs to be less reactive. Smith agreed.
“This is important; we can be thoughtful about it,” Smith said.
Student impacts
The student’s family members, whose names are withheld to protect their privacy, said her quote was an expression of pride in her Palestinian heritage and her desire for her people to be free.
They told the San Dieguito Union High School District board on Wednesday that her name and photo have been shared online, and that a group of parents also created a WhatsApp chat to doxx the student and share hateful comments.
She was also called into a meeting with Canyon Crest principal Rob Coppo, who sent out a schoolwide email calling the quote “deeply hurtful and offensive.”
Eddie Adams, the student’s stepfather, said she is a “peaceful young woman and has no hate in her heart.”
“As [the student’s] stepfather, I can attest and stress that her use of the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ was meant in a small but nonetheless meaningful manner to both celebrate her Palestinian identity, of which she is very proud, and to bear witness to the struggles of Palestinians in their historical homeland and throughout their forced diaspora,” he said.
Carmen Nichols, who is Palestinian, said “from the river to the sea” reflects years of oppression faced by Palestinians and their aspiration for freedom. She recounted how her mother’s family was displaced from their home in Haifa by Israeli settlers and experienced violence.
“What happened to the Palestinian people, my people, is real. And it reflects displacement,” said Nichols. “When we say ‘from the river to the sea,’ we are expressing a hope for the end of an apartheid in Israel and liberation for all Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And if there is confusion about what those words mean, the answer should be dialogue, not censorship.”
Other community members insisted the phrase represents something hateful, and said yearbook supervisors and other school leaders should not have allowed it to be included in the yearbook.
“Much as in the same way it would be if someone in the yearbook wrote ‘Blood and soil’ or ‘We will not be replaced,’ or made reference to a lynching rope. That’s how it’s perceived,” said resident Dan Brown. “With that 80 years of history, there’s really no debate on the intention of that phrase.”
Resident Alicia Schumer noted that there have been several antisemitic incidents in the district, including swastikas being painted in bathrooms and the formation of a human swastika at San Dieguito Academy.
“How many more incidents of antisemitism must occur before this district takes meaningful action? Why do there appear to be so few consequences when antisemitic incidences are reported?” asked Schumer. “I do not place the blame on the students. I place the responsibility on the adults that are entrusted with leading, supervising, and managing this district.”
The exact origins of the phrase have been disputed, but experts studying the region’s history note that over the decades, variants of the phrase referencing the area from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River have been used by both Israelis and Palestinians.
Michael Provence, a professor of Middle Eastern history at UC San Diego who has studied the region for decades, said the phrase dates back to Zionist groups in the 1940s and was later adopted by the Palestine Liberation Front in the 1960s to carry an inverse meaning, expressing a desire for Palestinian freedom.
Provence noted that Israel’s right-wing party Likud has also used the phrase in the past, in the form of “between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
“In the last few years, the ADL and other pro-Israel lobbying groups have made an ideological claim that the phrase, the expression, is somehow not aspirational, but antisemitic or even genocidal, which I think is not a credible claim,” he said. “When people say this is an antisemitic claim, what they’re really saying is ‘Palestinian voices should be silenced.’”
There have been other instances nationwide in the past few years in which students have faced criticism for using the phrase as their yearbook quote, resulting in their photos and names being widely shared online.
Video outcry
This is not the first time that a student or teacher mentioning or acknowledging Palestine has received backlash in the San Dieguito Union High School District.
Last month, a social studies teacher at Torrey Pines High School participated in a student-made video speaking about men’s mental health. In the video, he is seated at a desk with various flags hanging in the classroom, including the Palestinian flag, which is present in the background.
Screenshots from the video were widely shared online, with comments criticizing the teacher and the district. PeerK12, an advocacy group for Jewish civil rights in education run by the Israeli-American Civic Education Institute, called the flag a “highly controversial political symbol” and said they were contacted by Jewish families who were offended by the video.
Staffieri addressed the situation at the board’s April 23 meeting, stating that the video had been reviewed and approved by the district and administrators, and that a screenshot of the video had been shared online without context.
However, she clarified that the video was taken down to avoid further misunderstanding.
“What you don’t see is the full perimeter of the AP Social Science classroom, which is adorned with dozens of flags from around the world including three US flags and an Israeli flag. The image in the video was interpreted by some as a political statement. It was not,” Staffieri said.
She also noted that making accusations online without context can be dangerous. She said that in April, law enforcement responded to one of the district schools after threats were made against a staff member.
“The point is, statements taken out of context with the intent to provoke the community against a school, or against a staff member, can have very real and potentially dangerous consequences,” Staffieri said.
