NOLSW has signed onto this letter opposing California bill AB 715.

The CA Coalition to Defend Public Education with 70 undersigned education, student and youth, interfaith, racial justice, and community advocacy organizations, coalitions, and statewide associations are in strong opposition to AB 715, and we respectfully urge you to oppose this bill, both in its original form and as amended. If passed, this legislation will have a severe chilling effect on what California public school teachers are allowed to teach, and what our students are allowed to learn in K-12 classrooms. AB 715 threatens to suppress educational materials about global issues of critical importance generally, and about Palestine and the state of Israel specifically.

AB 715 as amended is a precedent setting bill that will create further divisiveness in our classrooms. It does nothing to create or support a safe climate for fair and balanced discussion of current issues. This is especially inappropriate when our federal government is actively working to suppress open discussion of controversial issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This bill could have come from MAGA groups that share the intent to suppress discussion on race history and global justice in our schools. 

AB 715 comes directly from the playbooks of the far-right Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther (companion to Project 2025) and Trump’s National Taskforce to Combat Anti-Semitism, which are designed to dismantle pro-Palestinian advocacy within the United States by weaponizing false charges of antisemitism, attributing anti-Jewish discrimination and hate to actions and rhetoric that are not actually antisemitic.

This bill is clearly seeking to repress and censor educational content and protect the state of Israel from criticism, rather than address the real problem of antisemitism. AB 715’s language on what constitutes antisemitism adopts a reworded version of the widely discredited International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been commonly considered problematic and has been rejected by over 100 international bodies, civil society organizations, academic institutions, and newspaper editorial boards, including Jewish and Israeli groups, the UC Regents, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. This is directly targeted at preventing open and balanced discussion of the Palestinian perspective with no opportunity for students to examine issues related to colonization, militarism and nuclear proliferation that they need to understand. Instead of proposing legislation that will bring us together to better defend against Trump's attacks on immigrants, people of color, trans people, and people on Medicaid, why are Democrats proposing something that would heighten the divisions among our ranks? AB 715 singles out one group, Jewish constituents, for special protection while ignoring the concerns of Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students. In short, these amendments are carefully designed to ensure that only the Zionist perspective on Israel and Palestine can be presented to our students by enshrining it directly into California law.

Under this legislation, statements and analysis made by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and major international human rights organizations would be banned as educational content and considered antisemitic simply because they are critical of the state of Israel. For instance, Section 60049 (a) (3) of this bill threatens first amendment speech, falsely claiming that “inaccurate historical narratives such as labeling Israel a settler colonial state” is an example of antisemitism. In 2022, the UN published an expert report that found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory was tantamount to settler colonialism. If AB 715 were to pass, teachers would be prohibited from including rigorous and thoroughly investigated educational materials and analysis from international bodies like the UN that are critical of the state of Israel.

The amended definition of nationality that now includes “country of ancestral ties, and to include a social organization where a collective identity has emerged” is totally unrealistic. The impact of this language could be far reaching. Topics that might be considered controversial by some groups could lead to inaccurate complaints. For example the eighth grade approved curriculum has a unit on Japanese-American internment, a terribly shameful moment in our history. Under this bill, teachers could be prevented from teaching about Manzanar because the actions of white Americans during World War II might be interpreted as "subjecting a white pupil to unlawful discrimination based on their country of origin," the USA. A student of Japanese descent could also claim to be discriminated against by this lesson. Defining a social organization as a nationality is equally unrealistic. Should a membership in a French food related club enable members to file complaints based on critiques of French cuisine?

Statistics about what constitutes antisemitism are inflated by varying definitions used by groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which incorrectly count critiques of Israel as antisemitic. On June 17, 2024, Jewish Currents published a detailed analysis of an ADL report on antisemitism and found that “it inflates both the total number of antisemitic incidents and the share of them attributed to the Palestine movement.” In a recent speech, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt of ADL, one of the most prominent member organizations of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, which has been advocating for AB 715, repeatedly compared pro-Palestinian student protesters to Islamist terrorists and smeared Black Lives Matter in comments to Republican attorneys general and said the left harbored the “real deal threat” to Jews. How can accusing students of terrorism for their First Amendment expression achieve fair and open debate and education in our schools?

In addition to censoring Palestinian narratives, even Jewish Israeli perspectives that are critical of the Israeli government would constitute antisemitism under AB 715. In Section 3, proposed code Section 239 (a) (3) equates Israel - a sovereign nation - with Judaism - a religion. Every American has a constitutional right to their opinion about the actions of a sovereign nation regardless of the majority religion in that nation. This section states that “Equating…Israelis with Nazis or Nazi Germany” is antisemitic. In December 2024, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article in which an Israeli soldier was quoted as saying “I felt like a Nazi…it looked like we were actually the Nazis and they [Palestinians] were the Jews” when reflecting about being deployed to Gaza. Under AB 715, the quoted Israeli soldier as well as Haaretz, which is Israel’s national newspaper of record, would be deemed antisemitic, and this viewpoint would be censored from California schools.

Section 239 (a) (5) “Denial, erasure, or distortion of Jewish history, ancestry, identity and culture” is equally subjective. If this language were to be adopted, a student who is an atheist or a follower of any non-Abrahamic religion would be by definition antisemitic because they do not accept the Hebrew bible as history.

Section 239 (a) (8) falsely claims that Zionism, a political and nationalist movement, is inherent to Judaism, a religion. By this definition a Jewish student who politically opposes Zionism and critiques the notion that Jewish people are inherently Zionist would be considered antisemitic.

Section 239 (a) (9) falsely conflates the Jewish religion with the state of Israel, totally ignoring and negating many Jews who do not support the state of Israel. This language is a clear attempt to shield Israel from scrutiny and brand its critics as committing discrimination.

The proposed amendments provide additional details on the role of an “Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator,” documenting that this position is designed to elevate antisemitism above any other form of racism and discrimination in our schools. How can the state legitimately establish this position while providing no equivalent mechanism for addressing racism or bias against Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Muslim, Arab, or Native American students?

Adding Section 33060 (a) (2), declaring the intent of the legislature to establish an Office of Civil Rights, does not address the immediate exceptionalization of antisemitism. Can a bill bind a future legislature to take a specific action?

The authors propose to amend code Section 44225, requiring the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to “adopt training for educators to address hate or unlawful discrimination against the six most targeted groups in the state. To determine the six most targeted groups in the state the commission shall refer to the subcategory bias motivations with the highest number of events, as provided in Table 1 of the annual ‘Hate Crime in California’ publication by the Attorney General, which reports hate crime data required to be submitted to the Attorney General by law enforcement agencies pursuant to Section 13023 of the Penal Code.” This amendment as written focuses on all forms of bias rather than on religious bias. The authors also fail to address the significant underreporting of anti-Muslim hate crimes as documented by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The impact of AB 715 if passed will be to weaken the curriculum that all our students need to be successful in lifelong learning pursuits, as participants in a democracy and as students in post-secondary educational institutions.The proposed amendments to AB 715 do nothing to address the serious concerns we raised in our letter of opposition dated June 30, 2025 and in fact they heighten the state’s risk to multiple lawsuits on the constitutionality of AB 715.

AB 715 is a dangerous and unnecessary bill. It will not make classrooms safer. Instead, it erases academic freedom, enshrines censorship, strips power from local communities, and uses the language of equity to advance a fundamentally political agenda designed to stifle honest, critical dialogue. 

We urge you to vote NO and reject AB 715’s attempt to legislate fear, repression, and silence in our classrooms.