Black Lives Matter-California Statement on Governor Gavin Newsom Signing Anti-Labor, Islamophobic, Fake Civil Rights Act AB 715

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 10, 2025

Contact: [email protected]

BLM Grassroots – California Calls Out the Censoring of Teachers and Students Under the Guise of Stopping Anti-Semitism

Black Lives Matter – California and each of the state’s eight chapters condemn the passage by the state legislature and signing into law by Governor Gavin Newsom of the unconstitutional and undemocratic bill AB 715 and its weak companion legislation, SB 48.

Dubbed by the Santa Barbara Independent as “California’s MAGA in disguise,” AB 715 creates a so-called civil rights office, appoints an “Anti-Semitism Coordinator,” and allows anonymous complaints against students and teachers who speak out in opposition to the genocide in Gaza or the brutal Israeli regime.

AB 715 is unconstitutional, muzzles California teachers, jeopardizes student activists, stands to disproportionately target Muslim and Black educators, and sets up Jewish students for resentment on campuses as it gives them a level of protection no other group enjoys. It will cost cash-strapped California millions in legal fees, as it will certainly be challenged in court.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s shameless hypocrisy is front and center as he has called for defunding universities that give in to Trump’s pledge of fealty to conservatism, while imposing his own authoritarian muzzle on the state’s educators and young scholars. While the Governor cosplays progressive values with his Twitter fingers, he is forcing California schools to fall in line with a Zionist agenda by pushing a fake civil rights law that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, thereby silencing academic discourse and protected free speech.