Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bitterly contested bill to combat antisemitism in public schools, garnering praise from Jewish groups and blowback from opponents.
The California Legislature passed AB 715 on Sept. 13, but Newsom chose Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, as the day to sign it into law.
“Antisemitism is a historic scourge and needs to be addressed aggressively,” Newsom said Tuesday in a message accompanying his signature on the legislation, which supporters call the first of its kind in the nation.
The bill requires the state to appoint an antisemitism prevention coordinator for California’s K-12 schools to monitor and address the anti-Jewish hate that has escalated after the Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war. It also strengthens tools for reporting “discriminatory content” in classrooms and establishes an Office of Civil Rights, which will hire coordinators to respond to and address antisemitism and other forms of bias. Described in a companion bill called SB 74, the Office of Civil Rights will employ the coordinators to prevent religious, race, ethnicity, gender and LGBTQ discrimination.
The Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area touted AB 715 as a “landmark bill” and a “victory against antisemitism in our schools.”
“Our community truly answered the call,” JCRC said in a statement.
AB 715 traces its roots to the statewide fight over ethnic studies, which predates the Oct. 7 massacre. An early draft of a statewide model curriculum for ethnic studies, released in 2019, treated boycotts of Israel favorably, did not meaningfully address antisemitism and included a controversial rap lyric about Israel manipulating the press.
But after antisemitic incidents, including the harassment and bullying of Jewish students, have continued to grow and intensify across the state, the bill’s authors reworked the measure to instead apply broadly to K-12 schools.
Many reported incidents have been linked to a belief that the state of Israel is illegitimate and that “Zionists” are a pernicious force for evil. Opponents of the bill have argued that such incidents are either warranted criticism of Israel or do not rise to the level of antisemitism.
In Oakland, for example, Jewish community leaders spoke out forcefully after the teachers union there released a statement after Oct. 7, 2023, that condemned the founding of the Jewish state but not of Hamas. Weeks later, Oakland teachers held an unauthorized “teach-in” using anti-Zionist materials for students as young as kindergarten.
A group of Jewish families scrambled to gain permission to leave the district during the middle of the 2023-2024 school year, including parents who said they could not let their kindergartner wear Star of David pajamas to school on pajama day out of fear.
The bill was opposed by many organizations, including the largest teachers union in the state and progressive and anti-Zionist groups.
CAIR-CA, the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Tuesday in a statement that it “condemns” Newsom for approving the measure and predicted that the bill would “chill classroom instruction” by “pressuring teachers to avoid discussion of Palestine.”
The ACLU criticized the bill for relying on the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released in May 2023 by the Biden administration. The national strategy cites the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has come under fire from left-leaning activists for painting some criticism of Israel — such as equating Israeli policy with that of Nazi Germany, depending on the context — as antisemitic.
AB 715 itself does not mention the IHRA definition.
“If our schools and state agencies begin using the IHRA definition of antisemitism to understand and prevent antisemitism, protected speech would inevitably be chilled,” ACLU California Action wrote in a Sept. 16 letter urging Newsom to veto the bill.
Anti-Zionist organizations in California similarly excoriated the legislation as a right-wing attack on speech and education.
Meanwhile, mainstream Jewish organizations celebrated Newsom’s approval of the measure.
“Today is a historic day for California’s Jewish community and for every child who has ever felt unsafe, unseen, or unwelcome at school,” said David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC).
JPAC lobbies on behalf of about 40 Jewish Federations, Jewish Community Relations Councils and other mainstream Jewish nonprofits in California. JPAC actively backed AB 715 and mobilized a statewide campaign of supporters who lobbied their representatives and spoke at legislative hearings.
Bill co-author Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), a former teacher and a member of California’s Legislative Jewish Caucus, also celebrated the bill’s passage.
“This is a historic first-in-the-nation effort that centers on the wellbeing of children across our state, many of whom bravely shared horrific stories about their experiences in our schools,” Addis said. “When we hear what these kids and families have faced, it becomes impossible not to act.”