One of Marin’s small mysteries has been solved: What’s included in the contents of the proposed ethnic studies curriculum that, starting this year, will be a graduation requirement for Tamalpais Union High School District students.

For no apparent valid reason, Tam Union’s administrators made that curriculum a virtual secret. Parents and the public demanded the right to view the teaching guide before its adoption. Their fear was that ethnic studies would, as has been the practice in some rogue California high schools, be used as a vehicle to advance a political agenda advocated by political progressives.

The flash point is that in some school districts the curriculum dealt with the war involving Israel, Palestinians and Hamas terrorists. One, the Santa Ana Unified School District, took the position that Israel is the oppressor and Hamas is the oppressed.

Unsurprisingly, that stand generated negative pushback from the Jewish community and the public at large.

Why any public school district’s senior administrators or its elected board of trustees would wade into the murky waters of 2025 politics is another mystery.

The teaching of the ambiguously defined term of “ethnic studies” mandated as a high school graduation requirement was the action of California’s state Legislature. Assembly Bill 101 was passed in 2021 during the tumultuous years immediately after George Floyd murder by Minneapolis police officers. That was the brief period when “defund the police” was the progressives’ cry.

Last month, I made a California Public Records Act request to view Tam Union’s ethnic studies curriculum. My initial request that copies be made available at my cost to share them with IJ readers was denied. I was permitted to view the paperwork if I personally came to district Superintendent Tara Taupier’s Larkspur office.

When there, I was taken to a conference room and allowed to read the material and take notes. For 90 minutes a “minder” sat with me to guarantee that I didn’t make copies on my iPhone.

My first conclusion is that, upon a thorough review of the units devoted to “Jewish Americans” and “Arab Americans,” there was no mention of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah conflict. There was nothing in the curriculum that either the Jews or Palestinians would find offensive or biased, in my opinion.

My second finding is that the entire curriculum is immersed in a political philosophy beloved by academics and the political left: “intersectionality.” This may be what Tam Union’s secrecy was about.

Essentially, intersectionality is identity politics based on who is the “oppressor” and which are the “oppressed” based on race, sexual preference, social class, religion, age or ethnic heritage. Intersectionality forms a hierarchy grounded on the idea that some designated groups are more oppressed than others.

Tam Union’s teaching guild defines “marginalized group” as one that’s “disenfranchised and exploited.” Students are asked to identify the social class with which they identify. The choices are “poor, working class, lower middle class, upper middle class, owning class and ruling class.”

Students are asked to provide, “Examples of Christian privilege in the U.S., examples of cisgender privilege, examples of male privilege, examples of U.S. citizenship privilege,” and engage in an exercise entitled, “Understanding the five faces of oppression.”

This is identity politics on steroids.

There are also good parts to the proposed curriculum. There’s an excellent history of racism, which in my view, was unbiased. For California students, the discussion of the Chinese Exclusion Act is particularly pertinent.

The ethnic studies mandate is flawed. Since the Legislature never funded the individual high school programs, Tam High trustees should note that it’s not truly mandatory.

The best route forward is for the Legislature to repeal AB 101. Then, individual school districts should expand their social studies curriculum to detail for high school students both what divides us, including racism, antisemitism and disdain of “the other,” along with the positive experience of America’s multiracial and multiethnic “melting pot.”

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.