(The Center Square) – An education watchdog has compiled new research that it says shows University of California, Berkeley guiding K-12 teachers to promote radicals such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Black Panthers at taxpayer expense.
Released on Monday, Defending Education’s report is at this link.
The guidance was through a high school ethnic studies training program that focuses on highlighting various aspects of teaching.
Rhyen Staley, director of research for Defending Education, pointed to one 2024 event called “Teaching Histories of Anti-Imperialistic Solidarity.”
“It’s not just talking about individuals like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, groups like Black Panther Party, but it is promoting them as heroes of a far-left socialist movement,” Staley told The Center Square in an exclusive interview. “That’s really the issue with ethnic studies on the whole, is that it is sold to the public as culture and history of minority groups. But really, it is a far-left political programming meant to train young children to become street activists for socialist and far-left causes.”
Defending Education did not have a cost estimate for taxpayers for UC Berkeley’s ethnic studies training program, but Staley noted, “I would love to see some sort of investigation from the U.S. Department of Education.”
Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof of UC Berkeley declined to comment for this story. Instead, Mogulof told The Center Square in an email that the university adheres to the highest standards of academia, resulting in success with graduates, college rankings and its affiliations with 63 Nobel Prize winners.
Programs by universities such as UC Berkeley have been documented regularly by Staley, a father with 15 years of experience as a public and private school teacher at various levels. Staley has also written op-eds for websites produced by media such as Fox News.
Previous Defending Education reports show UC Berkeley programming in both K-12 schools and higher education institutions.
“This is just another in-our-face example of how they’re talking to teachers and how they’re training teachers,” said Staley. “Then they’re pushing it into the schools.”
Staley also found materials promoting the Venceremos Brigade, a group that goes down to Cuba every year to be trained in far-left communist tactics.
“This group is a fiscal project of The People’s Forum (TPF). And if that strikes a chord, that’s because TPF is funded by Neville Singham, and TPF is one of the central groups behind all these radical protests across the country” for a number of years, said Staley.
In September 2025, House Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Missouri, said TPF is “closely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
Smith also noted that Singham, who lives in Shanghai, is married to Jodie Evans, cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace.
“So this report shows not only what they’re teaching teachers, but this connection of networks interacting to push this far-left radical agenda into the K-12 classroom,” said Staley.
Lance Izumi, senior director of Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Education, said ethnic studies is an important issue for California because of a “big fight” over K-12 curriculum.
“There was a more radical version called liberated ethnic studies that the state eventually pulled back from and supposedly issued a so-called moderate model ethnic studies curriculum guideline,” Izumi told The Center Square. “The people pushing liberated ethnic studies were outraged and have been successfully pushing local districts to adopt the more radical curriculum instead.”
According to Izumi, one of the drivers of that has been the University of California, Berkeley.
Izumi said he wonders where ethnic studies lessons are taught about individuals such as economist and columnist Thomas Sowell, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or Glenn Loury, a Brown University professor, economist and author. All three are Black conservatives.
That, said Izumi, would help provide some balance.
“It’s fine to read the viewpoints of the liberated ethnic studies. But if you don’t provide balance across the spectrum in terms of viewpoints on these issues, then this is no longer education,” said Izumi. “It’s simply indoctrination.”
Staley agreed.
As a former teacher, Staley said he is all for teaching students about historical figures.
However, Staley said UC Berkeley is promoting them as heroes to advance a particular ideology – and at taxpayer expense.
“These radicals [UC Berkeley faculty] have figured that they can nest themselves inside of public universities, collect nice salaries and continue to drive their agenda,” said Staley.
UC Berkeley, home to the Free Speech movement in 1964-65, has a longtime liberal reputation. But Izumi said the public should be concerned today when the university and other taxpayer‑funded institutions are pushing a highly ideological curriculum that will end up propagandizing students.
