We welcome two brave California educators, Dr. Theresa Montano of Cal State Northridge and Dr. Christine Hong of UC Santa Cruz, who have been at the forefront of developing and advocating for a California Ethnic Studies Curriculum grounded in liberation and social justice rather than identity politics. We discuss how Ethnic Studies went from an insurgent field of knowledge in the 1960s to one adopted in 2017 by California. We also cover why the racist Palestine exception remains alive and well in the state of California; how educators, progressive politicians, and union organizers are pressured into complicity in denying Palestinian history; and we examine, as a generational shift takes place in support of Palestinian freedom and humanity, the insidious California Assembly Bill 715, which was brought by the Jewish Legislative Caucus in the midst of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza; we discuss how the bill would censor as “antisemitic” the teaching of Palestinian history by defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism, by amending the state education code to define nationality as a social group with shared values, and by creating a statewide K-12 antisemitism “coordinator” to police teachers and prevent students from learning about Palestine.

Date of recording: July 16, 2025.

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