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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 715 in a blow to the California Coalition to Defend Public Education (CCDPE), which has been organizing against the legislation since it was first introduced last year. AB 715 was one in a years-long series of bills introduced under the guise of curbing antisemitism in public schools, but whose critics argued amounted to censorship bills that aimed to police Palestine-related speech on campuses across the state.
CCDPE includes California’s largest and most powerful unions of teachers and faculty, the Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, California (CAIR-California), and several local branches of Jewish Voice for Peace. The group warned AB 715 would be used to attack teachers, undermine the rollout of ethnic studies classes, and censor Palestine speech on campuses statewide. The lawsuit was one way it continued its fight after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last October.
“We are committed to continuing to fight AB 715 in its implementation and do whatever we can to roll back the harms that we believe were intended by this bill from the beginning,” Lara Kiswani, executive director of AROC Action and an organizer with CCDPE, told me in an earlier interview after the bill had been signed into law last year.
Some lawmakers also raised concerns about the legislation. Notably, Assemblymember Robert Garcia warned before the bill was passed that it “reinforces broader national trends of silencing constitutionally protected speech, erasing historically relevant curriculum, and persecuting anyone who expresses even the slightest opposition to the federal administration.”
Specifically, AB 715 expanded the state’s authority to ban instructional material in K-12 schools based on ill-defined standards. It also established that acts of antisemitic discrimination can be deemed to have occurred even if no Jewish member of campus was present during the act or experienced harm because of it. That has created new opportunities for pro-Israel groups to take action against educators, schools, or the state.
For example, the Louis D. Brandeis Center cited AB 715 in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the state of California filed in February alleging the state’s “public schools are awash with anti-Semitic slurs, harassment and assaults but state authorities refuse to intervene.” succeeded in stopping ethnic studies classes in Santa Ana Unified School District over claims that the curriculum was biased against Jews and settled a suit against the University of California, Berkeley, with an agreement that requires the school to crack down on campus protests and strengthen relationships with Israeli institutions.
AB 715 was also cited in a complaint filed against a health and social studies teacher at a high school in Los Angeles Unified School District in March. That complaint led to a crackdown on campus, with teachers required to remove Palestinian, Black Lives Matter, and Land Back flags from their classrooms.
Hoping to prevent cases like the one in Los Angeles, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging AB 715 last November. The case argues that the new law violates students’ First Amendment right to receive information in the classroom, as well as educators’ First Amendment rights to free speech and to be protected from viewpoint discrimination. The suit argues that because the law does not provide a definition of antisemitism and references guidance that conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel, teachers critical of Israel or Zionism could be singled out for punishment and will be forced to self-censor.
But in December, Judge Noël Wise of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied a request for a preliminary injunction to stop AB 715 from taking effect. Then, on July 28, 2026, she dismissed the case, writing, in part, that the plaintiffs failed to sufficiently show that the use of the term “antisemitism” in AB 715 is vague.
“Judge Noël’s decision insisted upon a fictionalized version of the world we live in: that the term ‘antisemitism’ has no disputed meaning,” said Jenin Younes, ADC’s national legal director. “We pointed out repeatedly that unlike anti-Black racism, for example, what it means to be antisemitic is hotly disputed around the country, including in our courts.”
Younes said her organization is likely to appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but she expects that a decision from that court could take up to two years.
CCDPE is also pursuing changes to AB 715 on other fronts. This year, working with coalition members, Assemblymember Robert Garcia introduced a cleanup bill to amend AB 715 to address some of the largest concerns about the new law. But that bill was effectively quashed by pro-Israel groups before it could be heard.
“For Californians, and particularly for Palestinian students, parents, and teachers—as well as those who empathize with the human rights violations their people are facing—this denial exacerbates an existing fear of being targeted and silenced,” said Oussama Mokeddem, legislative and government affairs director at CAIR-California.
Still, Mokeddem said, the coalition is “up to the task of keeping this conversation alive and will continue organizing until the state fully understands what is truly at stake for our civil rights and our students.”
This is a developing story with more reporting to come as the struggle over Palestine speech in California schools continues to unfold. Subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to know when an update is published.
