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California is facing a serious fight over how schools respond to antisemitism, and Jewish students could be the ones who pay the price.
A new bill in California is threatening to weaken protections that were specifically put in place to help schools confront antisemitism.
AB 2159, introduced by Assemblymember Robert Garcia, would gut key parts of AB 715, California’s landmark antisemitism law. This is not a technical update or a routine policy change. It is a dangerous rollback of protections that Jewish students and families fought hard to secure.
AB 715 was the result of years of work by Jewish community leaders, educators, lawmakers, and students. It made clear that antisemitism must be taken seriously in California’s K-12 schools and gave schools stronger tools to respond when it happens. It was a carefully built law, created to protect students and strengthen accountability.
Now AB 2159 threatens to undo that progress. It would weaken the expectation that classroom instruction be grounded in facts and professional standards, opening the door for biased or hateful anti-Jewish ideas to be treated as acceptable. It would remove clear guidance for identifying antisemitism. It would also lower accountability by weakening the role responsible for addressing antisemitism, while keeping stronger protections in place for other forms of discrimination.
That is not equality. That is not fairness. It sends a devastating message that Jewish students can be treated as less deserving of protection.
It is also deeply troubling that this bill was introduced without consulting AB 715’s authors, the Legislative Jewish Caucus, or Jewish California. No community should be forced to watch its civil rights protections be rewritten without even being asked. We cannot let this slide.
At a moment when antisemitism is rising, this is not abstract policy. It affects what is taught in classrooms and what students are expected to tolerate. Enough is enough.
CLICK HERE to email elected officials
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