CA Anti-Semitism Law May Fill Gap After Federal Cuts

from Carolyn JonesCalMatters

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At a time when the federal government is rolling back civil rights protections in K-12 schools, California is expanding them — even as some wonder how far the state will go in fighting discrimination in schools.

A new lawsigned by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, creates an Office for Civil Rights within the California Department of Education. The office will have at least six employees, including an anti-Semitism coordinator who will educate school districts about the harms of bias and investigate complaints of discrimination.

“I think it’s a good idea and the state of California is going to implement it. The risks are small and the potential for good is large,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. “But to be successful, it has to have real responsibility and real power.”

The new law stems from a increase in anti-Semitic incidents in California last year following the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza. Created by Rep. Rick Zber and Rep. Dawn Addis, the law aims to eliminate anti-Jewish and other bias in the classroom and ensure that students of all ethnicities and religions feel protected.

But the road to Newsom’s desk was not smooth. Account standing staunch opposition from the California Association of Teachers, the state’s largest teachers union, which argued the law would limit teachers’ right to free speech by limiting their ability to discuss the conflict in Gaza or other current issues. The union declined to comment for this article.

Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat who co-sponsored the law, said the new Office for Civil Rights and anti-Semitism coordinator are not meant to punish teachers. The idea, he said, is to help schools root out bullying, discrimination and other actions that target specific groups of students.

“The idea that this law is for the police is nonsense,” Zbur said. “It’s meant to be productive, to give districts resources so they can prevent students from getting hurt at school.”

Federal Cuts and Closures

Discrimination has long been illegal in California schools. People who believe they have been discriminated against can file complaints with the state Division of Civil Rights or with theirs local school district. But much of the enforcement of K-12 anti-discrimination rules has fallen to the federal government’s Office for Civil Rights. Established in the mid-1960s, the office investigates complaints about a range of issues, such as school segregation, unfair disciplinary practices and whether students with disabilities or English learners are receiving the services they are entitled to.

In March, the Trump administration announced it was cutting nearly half of the U.S. Department of Education’s workforce and closing multiple offices of the Office for Civil Rights, including the one in California. That means a sharp drop in the number of cases and long delays for those the office investigates. In the three months following the Ministry of Education cuts, for example, the office received nearly 5,000 complaints, but only 309 examined.

On Tuesday, the Department of Education went even further, transferring some of the agency’s biggest responsibilities to other federal departments — including much of the administration of primary and secondary school funding. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative vision for the country that has so far followed Trump, calls for the Office for Civil Rights to become part of the Justice Department and “reject gender ideology and critical race theory.”

The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

“Cut funding, it works”

The new California Office for Civil Rights will have a director and several coordinators who will oversee cases of discrimination based on race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religion. The director and anti-discrimination coordinators will be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, possibly after Jan. 1.

The office will provide schools with materials to prevent discrimination and work with districts that have been the subject of complaints from students, families or the public. In serious cases, the office will recommend more intensive assistance to the state department of education to remedy the problems. For districts that persistently ignore anti-discrimination laws, “the department may use any means necessary to achieve compliance,” according to the laws already in place. This may include reducing funding for textbooks or other materials deemed discriminatory.

The office will also submit an annual report to the Legislature on the overall picture of discrimination in schools, including the number of complaints, how they were resolved and their outcomes.

But to be successful, the office will need to be nonpartisan, transparent and fair, Orfield said. Cases against a school must involve compelling evidence, and schools must be able to defend themselves and appeal a conviction if they believe it was wrongly handed down.

And the office shouldn’t shy away from cutting funds to schools that don’t comply, he said. In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal Office for Civil Rights cut funding to more than 100 schools in the South that refused to desegregate — a move that may have been the only way to force compliance, Orfield said.

“Cutting off funding is what works,” he said. “Although if you’re going to have sanctions, there has to be due process.”

Pictures and reports?

Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation for the public interest law firm Public Counsel, agreed that execution will be the key to whether the new office is effective.

“If the office just issues reports and does photo ops, we don’t need another one,” Rosenbaum said. “The question is whether or not they can enforce those rights everywhere.”

He would also like the office to take a more proactive approach rather than just responding to complaints from individuals. Education itself, he said, is a civil right, and too many students are not getting the high-quality lessons in safe, well-equipped schools to which they are entitled. Rosenbaum’s firm recently sued the state over substandard school facilities.

Still, he’s glad to see the office get off the ground, especially in light of federal cutbacks in civil rights enforcement.

“There is an urgent need for California to fill a gap,” Rosenbaum said. “It should have happened decades ago, but it’s a good start.”

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