When California enacted Assembly Bill 101 (AB 101) in 2021—requiring every high school student to complete a course in ethnic studies—it did so without defining the subject, establishing content standards, or creating meaningful oversight. The result was inevitable. Across the state, school districts have adopted “ethnic studies” curricula shaped by strong ideological agendas—many of which advance antisemitic tropes, erase Jewish identity, and promote activism over education.
This wasn’t a well-intentioned policy gone awry. AB 101 was fatally flawed from the outset. Without definition or standards—and in a state with more than a thousand locally governed school districts and no centralized enforcement mechanism—the law effectively delegated the creation of required instructional content to outside consultants and activist networks, many of whom see ethnic studies as a vehicle for advancing their ideological projects.
Chief among these is “liberated ethnic studies,” which understands the field as a tool of political resistance. University departments that train ethnic studies teachers and produce curriculum materials openly describe their mission as advancing “the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” The result has been a proliferation of classroom materials that abandon educational neutrality, replacing inquiry with advocacy and turning the curriculum into a vehicle for historical distortion and anti-Jewish bigotry.
In San Francisco Unified, a lesson describes Israel’s founding as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe,” assigns one-sided pro-Hamas narratives, and omits any mention of the October 7 attacks, Hamas terrorism, or Israeli hostages. In Santa Clara Unified, a classroom slide depicts the October 7 massacre with Hamas paragliders as heroes flying over “Israel’s Apartheid Wall in Palestine.” At Los Gatos-Saratoga Union, students are taught Hamas is “extending a hand of peace.” In Sequoia Union, students are falsely told Israel is an “illegal” country. What we know as education – facts, truth, a balanced curriculum that represents both sides of a highly complicated and nuanced situation – is abandoned at the classroom door. These are not isolated incidents—they reflect how ethnic studies promotes one-sided, deliberate anti-Israel extremism that distorts history.
No district has more starkly exposed the dangers than Santa Ana Unified, whose ethnic studies program became the subject of a lawsuit by the Brandeis Center, ADL, and AJC.
The suit revealed a deeply embedded pattern of antisemitism: lessons portrayed Israel as an illegal settler-colonial state, erased Jewish indigeneity, and excluded Jewish perspectives. Consultants trained teachers to depict Zionism as a violent colonial ideology.
Internal documents dismissed community concerns as the “Jewish question,” and one curriculum writer declared, “we don’t need to give both sides… Jews are the oppressors.” As part of a 2025 legal settlement, the district agreed to suspend the courses, disband its curriculum committee, and sever ties with the consultants. This wasn’t a failure of oversight—it was the inevitable result of a law that empowers ideologues to dictate what students learn.
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AB 101 is beyond repair. The state cannot enforce what it cannot define, nor oversee what it does not control. Repeal is the only responsible course.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the executive director of AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization that combats antisemitism on college campuses across North America. She served as faculty at the University of California for nearly two decades.
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