CA Rank & File Teachers Oppose AB 715: Tell Lawmakers Not to Follow in Trump’s Footsteps

Marcy Winograd

In a desperate maneuver to censor classrooms, the California Legislative Jewish Caucus (LJC) aims to amend an old bill that, once rewritten, is sure to instill fear in the hearts of school board members and teachers when their students dare to whisper the words “Free Palestine.”

Taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, CA Senator Wiener (D-SF), CA Assembly members Jesse Gabriel (D-SFV), Rick Chavez-Zbur (D-Santa Monica), Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) and the chairs of the state’s diversity (Black, Latino, AAPI) caucuses are introducing AB 715 to ramp up the Uniform Complaint Procedures in the state education code to punish teachers, school board members and teacher trainers accused of antisemitism for teaching about Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The proposed legislation, according to press reports, would also establish a state antisemitism czar to police school discussion of Israel and Palestine. News of the bill comes on Mother’s Day, a few days after California’s Jewish anti-Zionist educators submitted a letter to the Assembly Education Committee in opposition to any anti-Palestine bill that would vilify teachers for discussing the horror students are witnessing on their cell phones.

Jewish Educators Addressing Actual Antisemitism (JEAAAN) wrote:

“...we are concerned about our ability, and especially our BIPOC colleagues’ ability to teach without falsely being labeled “antisemites”, getting unjustly censored, attacked, doxxed, and potentially even losing careers and livelihoods under these false claims of antisemitism, which are instead designed to protect Israel’s human rights crimes and violations.”

With a last-minute submission of a newly amended AB 715, the lawmakers may hope to skip public scrutiny and wipe the slate clean of letters in opposition to Palestinian censorship. Chairs of three CA diversity caucuses—Senator Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), Black Caucus; Senator Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), Latino Caucus; and Assembly Member Mike Fong (D-Alhambra), AAPI Caucus—have, according to the LJC, all signed on to AB 715 as "principal co-authors," which begs the question why these caucus chairs would do the bidding of the CA Legislative Jewish Caucus. This is the same caucus that once posted an Israeli flag on its state web portal, spent months lobbying unsuccessfully to establish an Attorney General’s list of Israel boycotters and now promotes the Anti-Defamation League’s contemporary antisemitism curriculum that conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

RootsAction, a social justice organization, was first out of the gate with a one-click message to state legislators. The message implied the diversity caucus chairs might want to please Wiener and Gabriel, the LJC co-chairs who also chair the budget committees in the assembly and state senate and can influence whether Ethnic Studies receives funding.

The RootsAction alert reads, “Fully funding ethnic studies is essential, but this rumored backroom deal is terrible for teachers, students, and all Californians.”

Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), chair of the Assembly Education Committee and a candidate for State Superintendent of Instruction, is expected to curry favor with the LJC by waiving notice requirements to conduct a hearing on the newly amended bill on Wednesday, May 14th.

Muratsuchi constituents Melanie Cohen and Reggie Wong are urging the Chair of the Assembly Education Committee to vote no in committee and on the floor on AB 715. Cohen, however, is not hopeful: “Muratsuchi always tows the middle of the road line from the state Democratic Party.” Said Wong, “Muratsuchi should be focusing on the white supremacists in his district, not false definitions of antisemitism to target teachers and public education.”

A newly amended AB 715 comes in the face of widespread opposition from teacher unions—CTA, UTLA, CFT—to Zbur’s previous bill, AB 1468, that would have limited classroom Ethnic Studies lessons to “domestic” issues and discouraged conversation about the causes of ethnic marginalization. Ethnic Studies scholars called out the bill’s racist attempt to dumb down curriculum. Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), one of AB 1468’s coauthors, was recorded on a Jewish Public Affairs Committee (JPAC) webinar on AB 1468 asserting “There was no Palestine” before the UN created Israel.

Facing mounting opposition, Zbur and the Legislative Jewish Caucus decided, without admitting defeat, to assign AB 1468 to the waste bin and instead amend Zbur’s fossilized attorney bill first introduced in February, 2024.

If the amended AB 715 passes out of committee with at least five of eight votes, the bill could hit the floor of the assembly as soon as Thursday, May15th, before assembly members and staff have time to read and evaluate the proposed legislation. Critics of the LJC suspect the lawmakers will continue to amend AB 715 to rely on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition and examples of antisemitism in leveling accusations against teachers. Seven of the eleven IHRA examples center Israel, with one example of so-called antisemitism reading, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

The California Palestine Solidarity Coalition includes Jewish Voice for Peace-Action, Arab Resource Organizing Committee, Council on American Islamic Relations and Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. In opposition to AB 715, the Coalition acknowledges that antisemitism—bigotry and persecution of Jews—is indeed a problem, but notes that antisemitism largely stems from white supremacy, similar to other forms of racism and discrimination.

Their statement reads: “At a time when MAGA white supremacists and nationalists are sowing confusion and promoting antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism, misstating what antisemitism is harms all of our work for justice and endangers our communities. Opposition to the political movement of Zionism and/or the policies of the state of Israel is no different from criticism of any other political ideology or policies of any other nation-state.”

In an action alert from CAIR, the organization urges Californians to tell their assembly members to “Stand up for Ethnic Studies, academic freedom and Palestinian voices.”

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Marcy Winograd co-produces the CODEPINK Radio podcast.