California high schools are supposed to teach ethnic studies, but they don’t

By Julia Barzizza, especially for CalMatters

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California was the first state created ethnic studies high school diploma requirement. Assembly Bill 101passed in 2021, mandates public schools to include critical race education.

The Class of 2030 was to be the first to experience this change. These students are already freshmen, but the policy does not yet have the necessary support.

In 2021 letter to legislatorsGovernor Gavin Newsom wrote, “Ethnic studies courses allow students to learn their own histories.”

He went on to say, “America is shaped by our shared history, much of it painful and carved with terrible injustice. Students deserve to see themselves in their studies and must understand our nation’s entire history if we hope to one day build a more just society.”

Despite such statements, Newsom’s 2025 state budget allocated zero funding to the introduction of ethnic studies.

Implementation of AB 101 depends on the actions of individual school districts. Those who choose not to participate may do so with seemingly no formal consequences.

Avoiding racial divisions?

However, the informal implications can be significant.

In December 2022, Temecula Valley Unified in Southern California passed a resolution banning “critical race theory,” insisting that it would prove divisive for the students.

In fact, prohibition contributed to the division. In a conversation with NPRTemecula students talked about peers who claimed to “own” black children as slaves, called students the N-word and gave Nazi salutes in class.

I grew up in this area and played midfield in the Temecula soccer tournaments. I am the daughter of Italian and Filipino immigrants and a product of Orange County Public Schools. In my experience, even though districts claimed to teach from a color-blind perspective, divisive opinions about race were nonetheless expressed.

Division goes beyond hate speech.

Black students are disciplined with unparalleled levels by white peers. Black boys are most likely to be suspended or excluded. In 2024, Sacramento schools topped the state removal of black students.

Suspension rates are related to the school-to-prison pipeline. Black Californians are nine times more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers. Black and Latino men make up 74% of men in prisons in California, although black men are only 6% and Hispanic men are 38% of all non-incarcerated men.

How would teaching ethnic studies help alleviate these disparities?

Sociologists say that knowledge is first socially shaped before it is individually internalized. School communities set the example for how students will behave as adults.

If students are labeled troublemakers, they internalize and accept the label as truth. Those who succeed in making a new impression carry their troubled past with them.

The consequences of inaction

There is a range between what the student learns on his own and what he will learn with the support of the teacher. Without support, students risk perpetuating systemic racial abuse—regardless of their own racial identity.

Students learn to make racial distinctions without necessarily saying the words out loud. They are not equipped to clarify their own patterns of perception and reasoning. And they learn to desensitize themselves to violence, both subtly and overtly.

Given these consequences of inaction, we should not wait for the perfect ethnic studies curriculum.

After all, race is a component of every subject, from history to economics. To deny the influence of racial constructions is to maintain a false sense of neutrality. For example, explain the coincidence of 44 white male presidents.

Civics teaches students to be engaged citizens, to know the US Constitution, the California Constitution, and the democratic separation of powers. Teach students that Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale is a Berkeley High graduate.

Some districts host social-emotional literacy specialists and classes. Teach students to recognize their harmful and inaccurate thoughts about the perceived identity of their peers.

It is not enough to rely on one ethnic studies class. I didn’t learn that the US occupied the Philippines in history class. I learned it from my family.

If we want to reduce racial inequality in California, we must collectively share the responsibility of facilitating conversations about race. Making ethnic studies a high school requirement would be a great place to start.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.