Controversial California Bill to Combat Antisemitism in Schools Races Against Legislative Clock

Amid growing action nationwide to combat antisemitism in places of education, a bill that seeks to address the issue in California’s TK–12 schools is swiftly working through the state Legislature.

AB 715 would establish an Office of Civil Rights, which would become home to a new antisemitism prevention coordinator position. The governor would appoint the coordinator and have a broad remit to both administer antisemitism education to teachers and school administrators, as well as track and report on incidents.

“We’ve heard from hundreds and hundreds of families across California who have tried to speak up when there were antisemitic materials or instruction in the school campus or in the classroom, and that their concerns went unheard,” said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, who co-introduced the bill with Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles.

After passing the state Senate Committee on Education with a near-unanimous vote on Wednesday, lawmakers are racing to clear the Senate’s Appropriations Committee and a floor vote before they can return the bill to the Assembly for final votes — all before a Saturday deadline.

While proponents of the law see this as a necessary step to combat a rise in antisemitism in California schools, opponents say the bill would have a chilling effect on free speech and learning in schools, especially when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“We, too, want to challenge antisemitism. This is not the way to do it,” said Theresa Montaño, a member of the California Faculty Association and a professor at California State University, Northridge. “This bill does nothing to challenge antisemitism. It does everything to create an environment that is divisive and that creates fear where teachers have to look around to see who in their classroom is likely to report them when they teach issues.”

The law would require teacher instruction to be “factually accurate and align with the adopted curriculum and standards in existing law, and be consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility, rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias or partisanship.”

Opponents of the bill, like the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said “factual accuracy” is a vague standard and could be used to “prohibit statements that could be construed as ‘advocacy’ and ‘personal opinion,’ inviting politically motivated complaints,” according to a press release.

Oussama Mokeddem, legislative and government affairs director for the CAIR’s California chapter, said the bill doesn’t speak to the specific needs of other communities that are also experiencing hate.

“To create an antisemitism prevention coordinator — which represents about 5% of the student population in California — with a substantive charge to address hate against the Jewish community, while relegating all other minority groups to coordinators based on general categories is a lopsided approach,” Mokeddem said.

The law has been heavily modified as it works its way through the halls of Sacramento. Earlier versions mandated instructional materials on Jews, Israel and the Israel-Palestine conflict, which have since been removed from the bill’s language. The bill also does not define antisemitism. Instead, the law looks to a strategy from the Biden administration as a means to identify, respond to, prevent and counter antisemitism.

Under the law, if a school is found to be in violation of existing anti-discrimination laws involving antisemitism, it would be required to implement an improvement plan developed in consultation with the antisemitism prevention coordinator and use alternative instructional materials.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the state Senate Committee on Education, some lawmakers voiced concern that the bill was being rushed through the legislative process.

“We only received the new language for this bill last night at about 6 o’clock,” state Sen. Steven Choi, R-Los Angeles, said. “Ultimately, I wonder if we should be supporting such big changes to this bill when the public has had less than 24 hours to read the new language.”

Choi said he struggled with whether to support the measure, but ultimately decided to vote yes.

“At a time when antisemitism and other forms of hate are rising across our nation, it is vital that our schools are equipped to respond with both clarity and compassion,” Choi said.

From 2015 to 2024, reported hate crime events increased 141.7% in California, according to the state’s Department of Justice. Out of all religious-based hate crimes in the state, Jewish people reported experiencing the vast majority during that time.

Despite this surge, California was recently named the top state for fighting antisemitism in a report by the Anti-Defamation League, receiving a score of 94. 

California Jewish groups welcomed the bill’s passage in the state’s education committee. “This is a pivotal step forward toward safer, more inclusive classrooms for all students,” the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California wrote in a press release.

KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.