The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed a federal lawsuit against California’s recent law addressing Jew-hatred in K-12 schools on Sunday, alleging that it violates the First Amendment.
The 54-page lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California; Rob Bonta, the state attorney general; and Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent. The committee filed the suit on behalf of parents and teachers in the state and Los Angeles Educators for Palestine. (JNS sought comment from the state’s Department of Justice.)
AB 715, which Newsom signed into law last month and will go into effect Jan. 1, will establish a state civil-rights office with a coordinator focused on Jew-hatred and bar discriminatory teaching material.
The suit states that the law doesn’t define antisemitism and defers to the Biden administration’s plan to fight Jew-hatred, which uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition.
“Because AB 715 empowers anyone to file a complaint claiming classroom content and instructional materials criticize Israel and Zionism, and are therefore antisemitic, student plaintiffs believe their teachers will be deterred from freely discussing these critical issues,” the lawsuit states.
Gerard Filitti, senior counsel of The Lawfare Project, told JNS that “it is beyond absurd that legislation designed to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination is being challenged under the guise of free speech.”
“We don’t see lawsuits attacking anti-racism or anti-bullying programs that protect other minority groups—and it’s unfathomable that anyone would dare to challenge a law addressing anti-black racism this way,” he said. “The fact that measures to combat antisemitism are singled out for attack speaks volumes about the double standards Jewish communities face in America today.”
Filitti stated that “this lawsuit isn’t about defending free expression. It’s another example of the lawfare being waged against American Jews at a time of record Jew-hatred.”
He added that “it shows just how far some will go to preserve their ability to demean, isolate and endanger Jews under the pretense of ‘academic freedom.’”
