Lawsuit Claims California Law Silences Students and Teachers on Palestine

Overview of the New Law and Its Implications

Beginning January 1, 2026, teachers in California classrooms will face new challenges as a controversial law titled AB 715 comes into effect. This legislation, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 7, has sparked significant concern among civil rights groups, teachers’ unions, and education advocates. The law amends the California Education Code to regulate what educators can teach and what students can learn about Israel and Palestine.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has criticized the bill, stating that it silences marginalized voices in public schools by shielding a foreign government from legitimate criticism and criminalizing honest discussions on Palestine and other global human rights issues.

Under this law, educators could be charged with unlawful discrimination and disciplined if they expose their students to ideas, information, and instructional materials that may be considered critical of the State of Israel and the philosophy of Zionism. A lawsuit filed on November 2 by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) argues that this law violates the First Amendment and Due Process rights.

Legal Challenges and Constitutional Concerns

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is on behalf of California public school teachers and parents of students who teach and seek to learn about Palestine, Israel, and the Middle East. The defendants named in Prichett et al. v. Newsom et al. are Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

AB 715 Violates the First Amendment and Due Process

Since California’s Education Code already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, and national origin, the only plausible inference is that the new law seeks to alter or expand the definition. Although ostensibly aimed at preventing antisemitism in the classroom, AB 715 nowhere defines “antisemitism.” It instructs school districts to follow Joe Biden’s U.S. National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, which adopts the definition of antisemitism in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

The IHRA lists several examples of attitudes and speech that it identifies as antisemitic, including:

• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.
• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Both Biden’s National Strategy and the IHRA conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. For example, they call it “antisemitic” to challenge Jewish people’s right to a majority state in an area inhabited by an equal number of Palestinians. They require “factually accurate” instruction but punish teachers professionally for making accurate statements – such as the fact that 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled in 1948 during the creation of Israel.

Impact on Educators and Students

ADC alleges that AB 715 violates the First Amendment rights of teachers by being overbroad and viewpoint-discriminatory because it suggests that criticism of Israel and Zionism constitutes antisemitic discrimination. In addition, ADC asserts that the new law violates the First Amendment right of students to receive information in the classroom. They will be prevented from learning about different perspectives on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East.

“Our children’s rights are not negotiable. Compromised politicians in California do not have the right or authority to muzzle our children and strip away their First Amendment rights. AB 715 does exactly that, it rips up the First Amendment and hands classrooms to a foreign agenda,” said Abed Ayoub, ADC National Executive Director.

Plaintiffs and Their Experiences

Andrea Prichett, a middle-school history teacher at a public school in Berkeley, has many Palestinian students. As part of a class project, they research and interview their parents about events that led to their migration from Palestine. This often entails discussion about settlement, colonization, and genocide. There have been two complaints against Prichett, including when a student mentioned Israel and Palestine as examples of modern-day colonialism.

Jonah Olson, a Jewish non-Zionist middle-school science teacher at a public school in Adelanto, distinguishes between Zionism and Judaism. He believes that Zionism is a political ideology premised on the notion that Jews are superior to non-Jews, and that they have a right to be a majority in land that was inhabited primarily by Palestinians for hundreds of years, and to occupy Palestine in order to maintain that majority.

Dunia Hassan, a high-school Spanish teacher at a public school in Santa Clara, was born to a Spanish mother and a Palestinian father. Her father came to Spain after being driven out of Haifa, Palestine, in 1948, when Israeli forces occupied his village and destroyed its homes and agriculture.

Kauser Adenwala, a high-school civics and economics public school teacher in Santa Clara, is a Muslim woman who wears a hijab. In December 2023, after her students asked about Palestine, she assigned a project to raise awareness of modern human rights violations.

J.J., a 16-year-old high school student in Granite Bay, and both of her parents are Palestinian, which is central to her identity. She is aware that her mere existence is considered antisemitic or offensive to some, because it requires an acknowledgment that Palestinians lived in what is now Israel before creation of the modern state, and recognition that her ancestors were expelled against their will to create a Jewish majority state.

Linda Khoury-Umili, a plaintiff on behalf of her children Y.U. and L.U., who are attending and will attend a public elementary school, respectively, in San Mateo County, is a Palestinian-American woman. For Arab heritage month, she did a presentation in her daughter’s class where she wore traditional Palestinian attire, served traditional Palestinian food, and taught a traditional folk dance.

Alice Finen is a plaintiff on behalf of G.F., a tenth grader at a public school in Arcata. At her other daughter’s high school graduation, Finen and her daughter were part of a group that wore keffiyehs, a symbol of support for Palestinians.

Request for Injunction and Declaratory Relief

ADC’s lawsuit asks the federal court to declare that the AB 715 amendments to the California Education Code violate the Teacher Plaintiffs’ rights to Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they are unconstitutionally vague.

It also seeks a declaration that the amendments violate the Teacher Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment as they are overbroad and viewpoint discriminatory.

Moreover, the lawsuit requests a declaration that the amendments violate the Student Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment because they are overbroad and viewpoint discriminatory.

Finally, it seeks an injunction preventing the defendants from enforcing the AB 715 amendments.

“AB 715’s intent and effect is classroom censorship. It — probably intentionally — does not define the conduct it targets, then points schools to federal guidance that blurs legitimate criticism of a foreign state with bigotry,” said Jenin Younes, ADC National Legal Director. “That combination guarantees arbitrary punishment of educators, chills valuable classroom instruction and discussion, and deprives students of the vigorous debate the Constitution protects. We brought this case to keep classrooms free to teach the truth.”