AB 715 would empower the ADL — encouraging an organization that backed Trump’s abduction of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil — to file even more complaints.
Taking a Page Out of Trump’s Playbook:
California Legislation Designed to
Protect Israeli Apartheid and Genocide
Rick Sterling and Marcy Winograd / LAProgressive
(July 2, 2025) — Pro-Israel California legislators are taking a page out of Trump’s playbook to prevent K-12 educators from presenting a realistic history and accurate portrayal of contemporary Israel/Palestine. Their proposed legislation, AB 715, a would-be model for other states, censors educational materials and instruction, punishes educators who deviate from the Israel lobby’s version of events, and invites Israel flag wavers to file complaints that burden school superintendents with needless investigations of teachers.
It’s All About “Discrimination”
Despite the author’s claims that AB 715 will strengthen protections against discrimination, including antisemitism, in K12 education, protections are already embedded in the California Education Code to prohibit discrimination on the basis of nationality, religion, ethnicity, race, gender and more.
What then is the point?
The answer lies in the language of the heavily amended bill, which …
- Defines antisemitism as criticism of Israel and Zionism; e.g. “equating Jews or Israelis with Nazis”–”denying the right of Israel to exist”- failing to “respect the historical, cultural, or religious significance of Israel to the Jewish people.
- Requires school districts to advise those who file complaints of available remedies, including seeking restraining orders, presumably against teachers.
- Establishes an antisemitism coordinator to oversee antisemitism teacher training and student learning, beginning in pre-kindergarten, to submit reports on antisemitism training to the legislature and California Department of Education, and direct complaints against school districts to the State Superintendent of Instruction.
- Allows the State Superintendent to impose fines on county offices of education that fail to remedy violations described in the legislation.
- Prohibits adoption of instructional materials that “introduce or promote … historical narratives such as labeling Israel a settler colonial state.”
Dropping the Hammer on School Administrators
Current law prohibits the California Department of Education (CDE) from adopting textbooks and supplemental materials deemed unlawfully discriminatory. AB 715 goes one giant step further to prohibit school districts, school board members and teacher trainers from allowing any educational materials that would subject a pupil to unlawful discrimination.
“If AB 715 becomes law, fearful school administrators will micromanage the classroom,” said Seth Morrison, board member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Action. “Principals will crack down on teachers who introduce materials on the decolonization of Palestine.” Morrison added, “AB 715 echoes the agenda of MAGA extremists who share the goal of suppressing discussion on race history and global justice.”
The “Antisemitism Coordinator” mandated in the bill would oversee compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forcing school districts to exhaust resources defending themselves before the California Department of Education and the federal Department of Education. Pro-Israel lobby groups such as the Anti-Defamation League have already filed Civil Rights Act antisemitism complaints against Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), School District of Philadelphia, California State Polytechnic and Etiwanda School District and Santa Ana Public Schools, among others.
AB 715 would add fuel to ADL fire, encouraging a nationally-boycotted organization that backed Trump’s abduction of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, to file even more complaints. AB 715 would also exceptionalize Jewish safety over the safety of Muslims, Blacks, Latinos, Indigenous and others. “It does not make Jews safer to have a special process; it separates and divides us from other vulnerable communities, further endangering us,” said Liz Jackson, a Jewish parent involved in Berkeley Parents for Collective Liberation.
Opponents of the bill in the state senate include CODEPINK-Central Coast, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) and the California Palestine Solidarity Coalition, an umbrella for Jewish Voice for Peace-Action, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Arab Resource Organizing Committee (AROC) and LIberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.
AB 715 backers, from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to the Jewish Federation, argue the legislation will curb the rising tide of antisemitic incidents in schools, though the ADL plays fast and loose with the term antisemitic, conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism to smear peace activists as enemies of the state. Chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are categorized as antisemitic rather than liberatory.
Senator Scott Wiener (D-SF) and Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), co-chairs of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and chairs of the legislature’s budget committees, joined Rick Chavez-Zbur (D-Santa Monica) and Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) to co-author AB 715 after abandoning the unpopular AB 1468, a bill to dumb down ethnic studies. Wiener, Gabriel, and Zbur are cheerleaders for the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC-CA), a lobby organization outnumbered almost two to one this spring when AB 715 opponents (140) and supporters (74) testified before the assembly education committee prior to the bill’s passage on the assembly floor.
Chairs of the legislature’s Black, AAPI and Latino caucuses have also lent their names as AB 715 co-authors, perhaps in hopes of securing funding for the still-unfunded ethnic studies discipline that, contingent on funding, was to become a high school graduation requirement by 2030.
If the legislature passes AB715, fearful school board members and administrators may choose to prohibit lessons on the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine, even though international human rights organizations and judicial bodies have documented Israel’s crimes of apartheid, occupation and genocide.
Here are examples of such documentation:
These independent reports all document a reality that would make a pro-Israel student uncomfortable, though discomfort is not a justification for censorship.
“Repackaging censorship under the guise of combating antisemitism does a disservice to the very real fight against hate,” said Hussam Ayloush, CEO of the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
If AB715 passes, discussion of Israel’s 76-year-old occupation and current genocide in Gaza will be off-limits for educators concerned about becoming the target of a complaint that could cost them their job.
It will not matter that Israeli leaders have been explicit about their intentions to kill, starve and eliminate Palestinian civilians. On October 9, 2023, the Israeli Minister of Defense stated, “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
For over 18 months Israel has relentlessly bombed the tiny Gaza Strip, preventing food, drinking water, medicines and other essentials from entering the occupied territory or, more recently, killing unarmed Gaza civilians in line to receive flour for their family. “It’s a killing field,” Israeli soldiers told Haaretz in June, adding the killings were part of “Operation Salted Fish–the Israeli version of Red Light, Green Light. “We shoot, they run, we shoot again.”
As of June 26, 2025, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has led to at least 56,259 deaths and 132,458 injuries, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
In the past two years Israel has also seized land in Lebanon and Syria and launched a war with Iran. To deny California students an opportunity to hear, discuss, and debate Israel’s militarism, which the US subsidizes with billions of dollars, would rob students of the education they deserve and are entitled to under State of California social science standards that set goals for teaching and learning.
JPAC-CA, the chief lobbyist for AB 715, prides itself on previously tapping the state budget to secure $465 million for an agenda that includes countering antisemitism and expanding Holocaust education. What good is Holocaust education, however, if state lawmakers suppress lessons on the current genocide to stifle dissent and normalize the horror? How useful are lessons on antisemitism as a form of racism if discussion of US-Israel racism against Palestinians is taboo?
California lawmakers promoting AB 715 could use a few lessons themselves.
Hearings on AB 715 are scheduled for Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in the Senate Education Committee and Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
To send a letter to the CA Senate Education Committee in opposition to AB 715, click on the CODEPINK action.
