After years of debate, California's ethnic studies requirement is signed into law

• Author: SHIRA HANAU/JTA
• Published date: 11 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Under the law, schools will have to offer at least one class in ethnic studies by 2025, and the graduation requirement will go into effect in 2029.

Newsom's signature on Friday caps an extended debate over the legislation, which was accompanied by a recommended curriculum that faced criticism in its earlier drafts and which Newsom vetoed in an earlier form last year.

After the first draft of the curriculum, meant to teach students about the historic and current challenges faced by minority groups in the United States, was released in 2019, several Jewish groups suggested changes to the draft, as did representatives of other minority groups that believed they were unfairly excluded from the curriculum. The draft did not include a section dedicated to American Jews but did include material that some deemed antisemitic, particularly in the way it discussed Israel.

Citing the controversy surrounding the first draft, Newsom vetoed a bill in 2020 that was much like the one he signed into law Friday. Some 57,000 comments were submitted to the state's department of education between the release of the first draft and the third draft, which was released last December.

By the time the third draft was published, including two lessons focused on American Jews and without the sections deemed antisemitic, several of the groups that had campaigned for changes to the first draft celebrated the curriculum. Several Jewish groups from the Bay Area issued a joint statement Friday praising the ethnic studies requirement.

"Today Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 into law, which makes ethnic...