For updates, see: Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies.
Protests
A small group of people in AD49 protested against Mike Fong, for authoring AB 715, a bill that’s intended to silence teachers who discuss controversial topics, particularly the Israel and Palestine conflict.
Activists went to Sacramento to speak against AB715.
LA County activists when to the CADEMs meeting to confront AB715 supporters.
Letters to approps.committee@assembly.ca.gov
5/22 letter by doublebasslines on bsky:
Dear Members of the Assembly Committee on Appropriations,
AB 715 is a bill which weaponizes the state’s Uniform Complaint Procedures to censor any educator in CA who teaches the truth of history. AB 715 also weaponizes sentiment against discrimination towards Jewish people, by continuing to conflate criticism of the state of Israel and its war crimes policies with anti-semitism. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism has no place in CA Law and human rights groups have rejected it as antagonistic towards those who speak out against state violence and injustice.
AB 715, like it’s predecessor AB 1468, is a discriminatory bill to favor a narrow set of political interests that seek to suppress the sharing of facts about colonization, war crimes and genocide, specifically, in Palestine. In its essence, this bill seeks to deny freedom of speech to those who choose to share Palestinian and Arab points of view.
Creation of an office of “Antisemitism Coordinator” is not only a horrible idea for exacerbating the current state budget crisis, but it is an Orwellian “thought policing” proposal that seeks to override the wisdom of parents, communities and local democratically-elected school boards who should be allowed what to teach and how to teach our children various points of view, ideas and the truth of history. AB 715 is fundamentally undemocratic.
Yes, anti-semitism is real, but so are violent hate crimes against Asian Americans, so is racial profiling and police violence towards Black and Brown civilians, so is the continued violation of Native people’s treaty rights and so is Islamophobic rhetoric that justifies war crimes by implying that all people of Gaza are Muslim terrorists. Fighting actual anti-semitism should not be done by silencing the voices of others and instituting a climate of fear among CA educators.
Please stand up for inclusion and democratic values, not repression of views critical of war crimes and genocide and stop the advancement of this undemocratic, discriminatory censorship bill.
Sincerely,
Letter from johnisveryboring on tiktok:
Mike Fong:
Please rescind your authorship of AB715. It’s a poorly conceived bill that would censor teachers in the name of inclusivity, but there’s already sufficient language in the laws to protect students from harmful speech.
I feel this would set a precedent that will harm the Ethnic Studies courses, because they discuss the formation of race and racism. It’s not possible to talk about these topics without some discomfort. This is part of the point of the subject.
The Israel lobby fears that any discussion of Israel or Palestine could open the door to antisemitism, but they don’t define what antisemitism is. It’s more about “vibes”, or about any narrative that conflicts with the official state versions of history and politics.
Unfortunately, as we know, the truth is often sacrificed to carry out war, and there has been ongoing war in Israel, and the concomitant bending of truth about it. That bending of truth goes all the way back to the origin myth about Israel: “a people without a land, for a land without people.”
Imagine what is likely to happen
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that myth was not the truth. People were expelled from Palestine to form Israel.
Will that fact be considered “antisemitic” because it calls into question the validity of the state of Israel? According to the ADL, it is.
Imagine another scenario: The Church vs. California
The Ethnic Studies model curriculum has a section on Native Americans, and another on Mexican Americans. The California Missions are mentioned only in the latter section.
Suppose that a teacher decides to combine the two, because they are related.
Suppose they describe the condition of the indigenous people at the missions as “enslaved”. The indigenous converts were not free to live away from the mission. They were made to work. This is, at the college level, not controversial.
In the K-12 classroom, however, it may be. Moreover, it’s likely to upset the Catholic church.
What if a church official says, “we need a Catholic censor?”
What if they request to silence the teacher, and seize all materials that call the conditions at the missions “slavery” or “indenture”?
Imagine another scenario: MAGAs Demand Sugarcoating the Reconstruction Period
The Reconstruction period was marked by the rise of KKK terrorism against liberated Black people, and their allies.
Imagine that a teacher uses an article with the following information:
The KKK were a racist white power movement, and many of the participants were politically active leaders in the communities. That’s why they wore hoods, and had a stupid name, and ridiculous rituals. They were encasing their terrorism and murder in a cloak of absurdity, so it wouldn’t seem to threatening to whites.
Murder preceded by mockery is a way to ease regular people toward violence and subjecting people to racist terror.
Now, imagine that one of the comical far-right, The Proud Boys, worries that people will see the parallels, and convince a white ally to submit a complaint that this analysis is upsetting them.
We study history to understand the present. By suppressing this analysis, we are more likely to repeat history.
Now more than ever, we need to be free to interrogate history to find our way forward.
AB715 must be held in suspension, and killed
Reference:
Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum – History
