A new educational antisemitism prevention bill is on its way to the second chamber in the California State Legislature. This new bill could affect every public school, requiring there to be a statewide antisemitism prevention coordinator, new training and educational resources and to notify local educational agencies within 30 days if an incident occurred on campus.
The bill, which is called AB 715: Educational equity: discrimination: antisemitism prevention, was created in partnership with the California Legislative Jewish, Asian American, Black, Latino, LGBT and Pacific Islander Caucuses. Rick Chavez Zbur, a California State Assemblymember and a co-author of the bill, said on May 29 when the bill was introduced that antisemitism has increased by 893% over the last 10 years and that there have been many reports in various California school districts where students feel “vilification, ostracism and hate of Jewish kids and families.”
Julia Mates, the director of policy and government affairs of Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), said this bill is aimed at protecting students against antisemitism in K-12 education. She said the bill was originally part of an ethnic studies bill, but was voted to be separate in May. The bill will be the first of its kind in the state, she said, that will provide state resources for increasing accountability in the local school sites and providing teachers training on how to talk about controversial subjects such as hate crimes and bullying.
“Antisemitism has been on the rise for several years now and then especially escalated after October 7, but it is one of those bills that is needed,” she said. “It’s something that we needed to have and there’s been a lot of compromise and people trying to work hard to get through this.”
She said the JCRC worked closely with the Jewish Caucus to ensure a strong bill was passed and to be their source of outreach to find out what is going on in local communities. She said it is important to communicate the stories of human beings and not for them to get lost in the policies. She said there are many other bills, such as the anti-Asian and LGBT hate bills, to support their learning and this bill is the first of its kind for Jewish people.
“This bill is specific to antisemitic hate speech that we can see what’s happening right now,” she said. “The other hate bills are important, but this bill specifically talks about school districts and enforcement.
Maya Bronicki, a Los Altos resident and the education director of the Bay Area Jewish Coalition Education and Advocacy, said that there have been many incidences of antisemitic activity within the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District such as swastikas being drawn on Mountain View High School, a Nazi party club Instagram post being sent between people in the Los Altos High School community and teachers at Mountain View Los Altos wearing a “Free Palestine” shirt throughout the school year.
She said having this bill could be beneficial in guiding administrators in having a proper definition of what antisemitism is and encouraging students to embrace their identity.
“We have kids that just don’t want to wear their Star of David necklaces anymore, don’t want to share with their classes when there’s a Jewish holiday and they are telling their parents, ‘I don’t want to do it this year,’” she said. “We had a young girl saying, ‘I am so glad I don’t have a Jewish name, so the teacher doesn’t know that I’m Jewish because she is wearing a keffiyeh in the class.’ Kids feel that they need to hide who they are and they need to blend and their parents accept this because at the end of the day, what they want is for their children to feel comfortable.”
Eric Volta, MVLA’s superintendent, said that he spoke with lobbyist who is involved with the bill and said the bill won’t be considered until next year and be voted upon with a rules exemption in the Senate. He said the district is doing everything they can to address all forms of hate on campus with the best of their resources.
He said with the help of professional development, that was attended by district management this summer, that any antisemitic incident will be reported to the JCRC.
Bronicki said it is not just MVLA experiencing these issues. She said there have been more than 400 incidents reported in Santa Clara County since November.
“We want to raise awareness and facilitate interventions early on,” she said. “We always believe that prevention is better than ‘Let’s deal with it when it gets to a very unpleasant place.’ We have seen schools where it escalated to physical violence.”
