A brand new invoice proposed within the California legislature threatens to undermine the rollout of ethnic research courses within the state’s excessive colleges. Assembly Bill (AB) 1468 is the most recent installment in a collection of laws backed by pro-Israel organizations searching for to intervene in ethnic research school rooms and silence Palestine-related speech in California colleges.
“This newest invoice is a part of a continued effort by the [California] Legislative Jewish Caucus to impose ideological constraints upon ethnic research as a area to disallow the crucial instructing of Palestine inside Ok-12 schooling in California,” Christine Hong, a professor of crucial race and ethnic research on the College of California (UC) Santa Cruz and co-chair of the UC Ethnic Research College Council (UCESFC) advised Truthout.
The California Legislative Jewish Caucus is a pro-Israel group of lawmakers comprising over 16 percent of the State Meeting and 12.5 % of the State Senate, sufficient to train leverage as a bloc of votes on the ground. Caucus members Sen. Josh Becker and Assemblymembers Daybreak Addis and Rick Chavez Zbur introduced AB 1468 in February 2025.
Whereas AB 1468’s authors are Democrats who’ve condemned the Trump administration’s attacks on public schooling, Lara Kiswani, government director of the Arab Useful resource and Organizing Heart (AROC), stated the proposed invoice would have comparable results as efforts in Republican-controlled states and on the federal level searching for to whitewash Ok-12 and school curricula and switch again the clock on civil rights progress.
“The Democrats and others who’re championing these payments could not explicitly say themselves and even determine as a part of the far proper MAGA agenda, nevertheless it’s indeniable that what they’re doing is in alignment with the broader assault on public schooling and the assault on anti-racist schooling, specifically,” Kiswani advised Truthout.
AB 1468’s lead sponsor is the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC), one pillar of whose policy framework is to “keep a robust California-Israel relationship,” together with via “fight[ing] campaigns to delegitimize and demonize Israel.” JPAC lists the Anti-Defamation League and different Zionist organizations among its members.
Final 12 months, members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus proposed a raft of bills meant to stifle Palestine-related speech in public colleges and on school campuses. Amongst these was AB 2918, a predecessor to AB 1468. When a various coalition of educators and advocates mounted a stress marketing campaign and succeeded in having it shelved, sponsors vowed to reintroduce it this 12 months. “AB 1468 is AB 2918, however on steroids,” Guadalupe Cardona, a highschool educator and member of the Liberated Ethnic Research Mannequin Curriculum Consortium, advised Truthout.
The brand new invoice would require all ethnic research curricula, instruction and tutorial supplies to bear public hearings, be vetted by the state, and be posted on the Division of Training’s web site. AB 1468 additionally outlines requirements in line with which ethnic research supplies needs to be reviewed, together with mandating that instruction concentrate on “home expertise and tales” and never cowl “summary ideological theories, causes, or pedagogies.”
Within the proposed laws, “there are such a lot of layers of policing and surveillance that no different educational space has,” Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, co-chair of the San Diego Unified Faculty District Ethnic Research Advisory Committee and a lecturer in crucial race and ethnic research at UC Santa Cruz, advised Truthout. “It’s completely unprecedented overreach, and it’s an arm of the state attempting to censor what our youngsters are studying [and] censor the reality of our college students’ realities.”
Beneath AB 1468, the physique chargeable for vetting ethnic research supplies can be the California State Board of Training’s Instructional Quality Commission, whose present members embody Sen. Ben Allen and Anita Friedman. Friedman is a board trustee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and government director of Jewish Household and Kids’s Providers, a company known for its efforts to silence discussions of Palestine and anti-Zionism in colleges.
“It’s completely unprecedented overreach, and it’s an arm of the state attempting to censor what our youngsters are studying [and] censor the reality of our college students’ realities.”
The proposed laws is the latest entrance in a yearslong assault on ethnic research in California, which turned the primary state to mandate an ethnic research commencement requirement for highschool college students with AB 101 in 2021. That regulation requires public highschool college students to take ethnic research to graduate, starting with the category of 2030. Beginning this 12 months, all colleges should supply the topic.
As a area, ethnic research emerged from the coed and social justice actions of the Nineteen Sixties. When college students of colour went on strike at San Francisco State Faculty in 1968, they demanded that the college strengthen its Black Research Division and set up a Faculty of Ethnic Research to show the histories and cultures of teams that had traditionally been ignored or erased from curricula. The scholars acknowledged that erasure as “an integral part of the racism and hatred this nation has perpetuated upon nonwhite peoples.”
From the beginning, the sphere linked racism within the U.S. to the nation’s acts of colonialism, imperialism and overseas militarism, making it a goal of political reactionaries. “This highly effective evaluation of racism, white supremacy, [and] the implications of U.S. overseas coverage is one thing that can result in social justice, social change, and social actions and activism — and that’s one thing that, for a lot of, actually makes them fairly uncomfortable,” Natalia Deeb-Sossa, a professor of Chicana/o/x research at UC Davis, advised Truthout.
However it has additionally been a boon to college students. Research shows that college students who take an ethnic research class interact extra in class and usually tend to graduate and attend school. The courses have additionally been proven to boost the attendance and educational efficiency of scholars vulnerable to dropping out.
Ashlyn Bautista, a fourth-year undergraduate pupil at UC San Diego, skilled what she described because the life-changing results of ethnic research coursework when she first encountered the topic in school. “By no means earlier than did I believe that my school rooms might be areas of liberation and discovering myself and reclaiming my very own id,” Bautista advised Truthout.
There are 4 core disciplines inside ethnic research, every akin to a racialized group within the U.S.: Black People, Indigenous People, Chicanx or Latinx People, and Asian People and Pacific Islanders, which is supposed to incorporate Arab People. Nonetheless, the inclusion of Arab American and Palestinian American histories and experiences in California’s ethnic research curricula has been challenged since earlier than AB 101 was even signed into regulation. A 2019 draft of the state mannequin curriculum garnered pushback from pro-Israel teams, which claimed its inclusion of Israeli persecution of Palestinians was one-sided and that the point out of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions motion was antisemitic. A ultimate revised mannequin curriculum was revealed in 2021 — scrubbed of any mention of Palestine.
This erasure is problematic not solely as a result of Arab American histories and communities are linked to Palestine, however Hong defined, “Settler colonialism is a completely key analytic of ethnic research.” The framework may help college students perceive the facility buildings that perpetuate the repression of Indigenous peoples and cultures, together with Native People.
Whereas the inclusion of Palestine in ethnic research has garnered pushback from the beginning, assaults on the sphere and its educators have ramped up since Israel invaded Gaza in 2023. “As a result of we now have parts within the legislature who need to defend Israel, they’re keen to go as far as to censor curriculum for California college students and academics in protection of a overseas nation that’s at the moment committing a genocide,” Sean Malloy, a professor of historical past and important race and ethnic research at UC Merced, advised Truthout.
In keeping with Gallagher-Geurtsen, the assaults are already chilling speech. “I’ve spoken with highschool and center college academics who’re instructing ethnic research in San Diego Unified [School District], and so they say they’re afraid to show the reality of their school rooms due to all this stress from Zionist teams [and] racist, white-supremacist teams,” she advised Truthout.
Hong and different UCESFC members have additionally “been on the receiving finish of a just about countless barrage of hate mail,” Hong advised Truthout. Jennifer Mogannam, a professor of crucial race and ethnic research at UC Santa Cruz, and Dylan Rodríguez, a distinguished professor within the Division of Black Examine and the Division of Media and Cultural Research at UC Riverside, shared nameless emails that they had acquired, which threatened them or members of their households with hurt and included racist slurs and disturbing photos. “My expertise with the response in opposition to advocacy for Arab American research to be included within the ethnic research curriculum has been nothing wanting violent,” Rodríguez stated. Mogannam advised Truthout she is focused each as a practitioner of ethnic research and as a Palestinian American.
Different educators have been topic to doxxing campaigns and even lawsuits, together with Cardona, who was a named defendant in a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the Deborah Venture on behalf of academics and fogeys who accused Cardona and different defendants of utilizing antisemitic content material of their school rooms. The case was dismissed in November 2024 in a ruling that criticized the plaintiff’s lack of evidence and unpersuasive arguments.
Whether or not or not AB 1468 turns into regulation, Cardona advised Truthout that the ambiance of surveillance and harassment to which it’s contributing is already hurting college students and the sphere. “To be consistently bombarded with these detrimental messages and assaults, it takes an enormous toll,” she stated, noting that she is aware of educators who’ve chosen to cease instructing ethnic research to guard themselves. She stated she has additionally heard from mother and father whose kids at the moment are afraid to main in ethnic research in school. “That is having a chilling impact, even on the following era of classroom educators.”
Whether or not or not AB 1468 turns into regulation, the ambiance of surveillance and harassment to which it’s contributing is already hurting college students and the sphere.
Teams together with AROC Action, UCESFC, the California Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies and Jewish Voice for Peace California are anchoring the opposition to AB 1468, constructing on years of organizing that succeeded in having AB 2918 shelved final 12 months. Nonetheless, the group faces an uphill battle. Kiswani, Hong and Cardona every advised Truthout that legislators appear unwilling to hearken to their views and experience. “The Zionist perspective on what ethnic research needs to be is what retains getting centered over and again and again,” Cardona stated. “They’re simply not listening, and so they received’t transfer even an inch.” Neither Assemblymember Addis nor Assemblymember Zbur responded earlier than deadline to Truthout’s requests for remark.
Nonetheless, Kiswani advised Truthout that the coalition stays dedicated to quashing AB 1468 and seeing ethnic research applied with out draconian restrictions so it may well proceed to profit California college students. “Many younger folks inform us day by day, ‘Ethnic research saved my life. I started to see myself otherwise, perceive my historical past and my potential as a part of my group and social actions,’” Kiswani stated. “That’s what ethnic research provides us, [and] we want that now greater than ever.”
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