July 14, 2023 • Sarah Hofmann, The Press-Enterprise
(TNS) — Temecula Valley Unified School District officials have joined a lawsuit alleging that social media companies including Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube have caused harm to children.
Frantz Law Group filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California on April 13, a news release from the same day states. At the time, the firm represented 16 school districts across the country, according to the release, including Burbank Unified and La Cañada Unified school districts in Los Angeles County.
Two months later, the number of plaintiff school districts has reached 500, per a Frantz Law Group news release from June 14. Temecula Unified’s June 27 vote adds it to that list.
The vote passed 4-1, with Board Member Steven Schwartz dissenting.
“I did not feel I had enough information about the suit to vote for it,” Schwartz wrote in an email Monday.
Complaints for different school districts have been filed separately. The complaint for Burbank Unified School District — one of the 16 plaintiffs named in the April news release — names a host of defendants that include Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, ByteDance, Google, WhatsApp and YouTube.
“American youth are facing possibly the most severe mental health crisis in history,” the complaint’s introduction reads. “Along with the benefits of the rise of technology, also comes serious consequences. The major social media platforms including Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have spent millions to develop and market their products to minors, keeping them coming back for more, and significantly contributing to this mental health crisis.”
The Frantz Law Group’s website states that the lawsuit alleges “these companies have caused a mental health crisis among children and teenagers that is marked by higher proportions of anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self-harm, all of which severely affect their ability to succeed in school.”
Other decisions made by Temecula Valley Unified board members have garnered attention in recent months. Through majority vote, they banned critical race theory; banned a social studies book because its supplemental materials mention slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk, who Board Member Joseph Komrosky alleged was a pedophile; and fired then-superintendent Jodi McClay. In each case, the items passed with three affirmative votes from board members Komrosky, Danny Gonzalez and Jen Wiersma, who were all elected last year after being backed by a conservative Christian PAC.
No Frantz Law Group representatives responded to multiple requests for comment by late Thursday.
©2023 MediaNews Group, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
This article appeared on Emergency Management News and is shared with consent: https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/temecula-valley-schools-join-lawsuit-against-social-media
