A federal judge’s decision to let California’s new antisemitism law take effect has quietly redrawn the boundaries of classroom speech, with consequences that extend far beyond the specific lawsuit before the court. In denying a preliminary injunction against Assembly Bill 715, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise concluded that public school teachers do not have First Amendment free speech rights while teaching, a finding that gives the state wide latitude to regulate what happens in the classroom at a moment when educators across the country are increasingly being punished for naming and teaching about genocide.
The case, brought by a coalition of California teachers, students, and civil rights advocates, sought to block AB 715 before its January 1, 2026 effective date. Plaintiffs argued the law is vague, overbroad, and likely to chill classroom discussion of sensitive but academically legitimate topics, particularly around Israel and Palestine. They warned that teachers who address mass civilian death, ethnic cleansing, or genocide, whether in Gaza or in historical contexts that draw parallels to contemporary events, could face complaints simply for using language that has become politically contested rather than academically unsound.
Judge Wise rejected that request, finding the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits. Central to her ruling was a blunt legal conclusion. When teachers are instructing students as part of their official duties, she wrote, they are government actors carrying out the state’s educational mission. As such, their classroom speech is not protected by the First Amendment in the same way as private speech outside of work. That framework treats classroom discussion of historical and current events not as protected inquiry but as state regulated messaging, placing extraordinary power in the hands of lawmakers and administrators to determine which historical descriptions are permissible and which are deemed discriminatory.
The decision leaves intact one of the most sweeping education statutes California has adopted in years. AB 715 amends the Education Code to expand what counts as unlawful discrimination in instructional materials, curriculum, and professional development. It bars the use of any content that results in discriminatory bias, even if no member of a protected group is present and even without proof of direct harm. In practice, critics say this opens the door for complaints against teachers who accurately describe mass violence or genocide when those descriptions provoke political backlash rather than actual discrimination. It also adds professional development materials and services to the list of regulated content, significantly broadening the scope of what can trigger complaints.
The law creates a new Office of Civil Rights within the state government and establishes an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. That office is tasked with issuing guidance, training educators, overseeing enforcement, and producing annual reports on discrimination in schools. It also expands the Uniform Complaint Process, allowing complaints to be filed more easily and empowering the state to require corrective action, reimbursement of funds, and ongoing reporting by school districts. Educators have warned that this enforcement structure effectively incentivizes preemptive self censorship, particularly around genocide, war crimes, and settler colonialism, topics that are increasingly politicized but central to modern history education.
Supporters of AB 715 argue the changes are overdue. They point to a documented rise in antisemitic incidents in schools and say the law gives California the tools it needs to ensure that Jewish students are not subjected to harassment or bias. Backers, including the bill’s authors and the governor, have framed it as a civil rights measure that reinforces factual accuracy and nondiscrimination without preventing legitimate instruction. They argue that naming genocide is not prohibited so long as it is done carefully, even as critics counter that the law provides no clear guardrails to protect teachers when that naming provokes political outrage.
Critics see something very different. From the moment the bill moved through the Legislature, educators’ unions, civil liberties groups, ethnic studies teachers, and organizations representing Arab and Muslim communities warned that the statute’s language was dangerously imprecise. AB 715 does not define antisemitism in the text of the law, but it explicitly incorporates the federal National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism as a guiding framework. This effectively imports contested definitions that conflate anti-Zionist and anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitism. These definitions have been used elsewhere to suppress the use of the word genocide in reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza, even as international legal scholars, human rights organizations, and genocide studies experts increasingly use that term.
Those concerns are not hypothetical. During the legislative debate, dozens of organizations cautioned that classroom discussions of Palestinian history, Israeli state policy, settler colonialism, human rights, or genocide could become grounds for complaints, even when taught accurately and in line with academic standards. Because the law allows for complaints regardless of whether a protected group member was present, critics argue it creates a powerful incentive for ideological policing of curriculum through administrative processes rather than open debate. Teachers say the risk is not abstract: as more educators find the courage to name genocide and help students grapple with its meaning, the backlash has intensified, with laws like AB 715 giving that backlash institutional force.
Judge Wise acknowledged that many aspects of the law’s implementation remain unsettled, but she declined to treat that uncertainty as a reason to halt enforcement. On the vagueness claims, she found that a reasonable educator could understand the Legislature’s intent to prohibit discriminatory bias, even if the contours of enforcement are still emerging. That leaves teachers to learn the boundaries of permissible speech only after complaints are filed, investigations begin, and professional damage may already be done.
The lawsuit itself is not over. The plaintiffs have appealed to the Ninth Circuit and intend to continue challenging AB 715 on constitutional grounds. But the denial of a preliminary injunction means the law is now in effect, and its enforcement mechanisms are live. Teachers across California are being asked to navigate a new regulatory landscape in which classroom speech is explicitly framed as state speech, subject to oversight and discipline. For educators who believe teaching about genocide in Palestine is a moral and pedagogical obligation, the ruling sends a clear warning about the risks of doing so openly.
The ruling arrives amid a broader national push to regulate what educators can say about race, gender, history, and politics. From bans on so called divisive concepts to restrictions on ethnic studies and LGBTQ inclusive curricula, lawmakers across the country have increasingly turned to education as a site of cultural control. California has often positioned itself as a counterweight to those trends, but AB 715 reflects a different kind of intervention, one that uses civil rights enforcement to shape classroom discourse.
What makes this moment especially fraught is that the law touches one of the most polarizing global issues of the last year. Since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates over antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the boundaries of political speech have intensified across campuses and communities. At the same time, more educators, scholars, and students have insisted on naming genocide where they believe it is occurring, arguing that refusing to do so is itself a political act. By grounding enforcement in a framework that critics say lacks clear limits, California has effectively moved those debates into K 12 classrooms, backed by the authority of the state.