April 14, 2025 • 57 mins
The Lower Frequencies, Episode 1
Policing Ethnic Studies: The Legislative Jewish Caucus and AB 1468
The inaugural episode of The Lower Frequencies features guest Marcy Winograd and members of the UC Ethnic Studies Council discussing AB 1468, a bill authored and introduced by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, without any consultation of ethnic studies experts, that would impose a massive and costly set of rules policing the ways in which ethnic studies can be taught by K-12 teachers in the state.
Relevant Links:
Nadia Rahman, “AB 1468: The California Jewish Legislative Caucus Introduces an Ethnic Studies Bill to Censor Public Education on Israel and Palestine,” February 24, 2025.
Marcy Winograd, “California Israel Lobby Aims to Police Ethnic Studies - Why?” LA Progressive, March 4, 2025.
Marianne Dhenin, “California Ethnic Studies Bill Aims to Censor Palestine-Related Education,” Truthout, April 2, 2025.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christine (00:00):
Welcome to the first episode of the Lower
Frequencies, the uc EthnicStudies Council Podcast.
On March 27th, 2025, threemonths into Trump's war on the
people, which includes thegutting of education,
dismantling of DEI, targetingand disappearance of students
(00:20):
who've spoken out against the USbacked and funded genocide in
Gaza and criminalization ofcriticism of Israel.
The council launched our podcastnot from the ivory tower or
militarized fortress wereknowledge is produced as a
conquest circle.
From the lower frequencies, theun assimilated underground of
(00:45):
the university at a time ofsustained top-down attack.
When the university needs whatwe bear but cannot bear what we
bring to borrow from Fred Motonand Stefano Harney's account of
the under commons, we understandfully that ethnic studies, which
was never meant to be confinedto the classroom gets its
(01:08):
mandate from the left and frombelow.
Sean (01:13):
Our first guest was Marcy Winograd, an organizer with
Jewish Voice for Peace and CodePink, and a retired teacher and
voting member of United Teachersof Los Angeles, the largest
local of the California TeachersAssociation or CTA.
Our topic was AB 1468.
A bill designed to police ethnicstudies and to censor the
(01:34):
question of Palestine from Kthrough 12 education.
The bill was drafted by theCalifornia Legislative Jewish
Caucus or the LJC without anyinput from ethnic studies
practitioners, experts, orscholars, how is it that a bill,
which according to its framers,is intended to counter quote
unquote antisemitism, is beingwielded to erase Palestine from
(01:57):
ethnic studies?
A field that emerged from theanti-imperialist third world
student struggle.
Why was one of the authors onpublic record stating that
Palestine never existed?
Christine (02:10):
At the time of our conversation, the Council on
American Islamic Relations was amonth into its statewide
campaign against the billdescribing it as part of a
broader right wing effort tosuppress discussions on race.
History and global justice.
Jewish Voice for Peace Bay areaalso opposed the legislation
(02:34):
which it described as using MAGAlike tactics to prevent
individual school districts fromtailoring their ethnic studies
curriculum to local needs.
Pointing out that the LJ C'Sreal goal is to prevent open and
honest discussion of Palestine.
Since our conversation withMarcy, her union, the CTA, which
(02:58):
represents over 300,000 teachersin the state of California, has
come out in formal opposition toAB 1468.
Thus far no ethnic caucus hasendorsed the LJ C's most recent
effort to censor ideologicallypolice and criminalize the
(03:22):
content of ethnic studies
Sean (03:25):
In this moment of tyranny and terror, will ethnic studies
serve the people or will it beneutralized and coerced into
drawing a conquest circle aroundthe people of Palestine?
Join us on the lower frequenciesas we explore this question with
our guest for today.
Christine (03:41):
Welcome to the first ever uc Ethnic Studies Council
podcast.
We are so pleased to have MarcyWinow grad as our guest.
And we'll begin with a round ofintroductions before we dive
into an educational discussionaround AB 1468.
(04:06):
This is the legislative Jewishcaucus's bill on ethnic studies.
So let's go ahead and begin witha round if introductions.
My name is Christine Hong.
I'm part of the uc EthnicStudies Council, and I was the
inaugural chair of theDepartment of Critical Race and
Ethnic Studies at uc Santa Cruz.
(04:28):
I organized alongside ParoValley for Ethnic Studies and
Justice.
I was one of 20 people appointedby the uc to create course
criteria for ethnic studies andI served as part of a six person
writing team that drafted thosecriteria.
I also then served as theco-chair of the implementation
(04:52):
work group for those criteria.
I will pass things over to Sean.
Sean (04:58):
I'm Sean Malloy.
I'm faculty at the University ofCalifornia Merced in the
Department of History andCritical Race and Ethnic
Studies, and a member of the ucEthnic Studies Council.
Dylan (05:11):
Hey there.
My name's Dylan Rodriguez.
I'm distinguished professor atUniversity of California
Riverside, where I'm in theDepartment of Black Study in the
Department of Media CulturalStudies.
I also hold a PhD in ethnicstudies from uc, Berkeley and I
was in the Department of EthnicStudies at Riverside for 17
years and chaired for sevenyears.
I worked with y'all, the ethnicas council in all kind of
(05:33):
different other places, but I'mpleased to be here to talk about
this.
Jmo (05:37):
My name is Jennifer Mo.
I am an assistant professor atthe University of California
Santa Cruz in the Department ofCritical Race and Ethnic
Studies.
And I too have my PhD in ethnicstudies from uc, San Diego.
I am also a member of the ucEthnic Studies Council.
Trish (05:58):
Hi, everyone.
I am Dr.
Trish Gallagher Geren.
I teach in critical race andethnic studies at uc, Santa
Cruz, and also ethnic studiesand in the education studies
department at uc, San Diego.
I started out as a public schoolteacher in bilingual education
and, I'm pleased to be a part ofthis group as well working for
(06:19):
ethnic studies and in K 12 aswell as sustaining that work in
the university.
Darlene (06:25):
Hi Darlene Lee.
I've been a teacher educator for17 years and I currently am the
faculty advisor in the UCLATeacher Education Program for
the ethnic studies pathway.
And I'm the director of our ucLA ethnic studies certificate
program for in-service teachers.
Christine (06:41):
Thank you so much.
And Marcy, we would love for youto introduce yourself.
Marcy (06:47):
Sure.
I'm Marcy Win grad, and I firstwanna say how proud and honored
I am to be with you all.
I am an organizer with CodePink.
I co-produced Code Pink Radio, apodcast nationally broadcast on
most Pacific stations.
I'm also a retired English andgovernment teacher from the Los
Angeles Unified School District,where I did spend approximately
(07:08):
25 years, and three or four ofthose years were working as a
standards and literacy coach,visiting schools all across the
LA Unified School District.
In addition to that, I'm on thestate organizing committee for
Jewish Voice for Peace.
Christine (07:24):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Let's just dive right in.
There is legislation that hasbeen introduced by the
legislative Jewish caucus, andwe're here to have an
educational conversation aroundthis bill.
I just wanted to begin by askingthe question what is AB 1468?
Trish (07:47):
This is Trish.
So AB 1468 says that it intendsto create content standards for
ethnic studies and on its face,that sounds like a good idea.
It also, in addition to that,wants to create a curriculum
framework.
And it also creates severallayers of policing including
(08:10):
teachers having to post theirmaterials 60 days before they
teach those and community groupsthat will be able to vet that
curriculum and decide what theythink about that.
Non-experts, non-educators andmultiple layers of what they
call compliance monitoring.
So it pretends to create somesort of guideline for ethnic
studies but then also policesit.
(08:32):
It's easy to become skeptical asa long, longtime public school
teacher of what is the realintent of this legislation.
In response to this bill, beingsomehow helping to balance the
curriculum, ethnic studies ismeant to balance an already
unbalanced curriculum.
(08:52):
And I can tell you this frombeing a classroom teacher, that
our curriculum is already overlyfocused on white supremacist
concerns.
It always has been.
It's how all of us were educatedin California, those of us who
were educated in public schools.
So ethnic studies is the balancethat we're missing.
Christine (09:10):
From a teacher educator perspective, is this
bill sound policy?
Marcy, I wonder if you couldspeak to that.
Marcy (09:20):
Sure.
I can take parts of the bill oneby one and refute the contention
that this is a bill that isdesperately needed in
California.
This bill would.
Really dumbed down thecurriculum of ethnic studies.
As a standards coach.
One of my main focus areas wason Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a
hierarchy of critical thinking.
(09:42):
And at the bottom of thathierarchy, that ladder you have
recall and comprehension, andtowards the top are on the
higher rungs are analysis andevaluation.
So this bill in saying thatteachers should focus only on
domestic issues and not explorethe causes of ethnic
marginalization it stands in theway of promoting critical
(10:02):
thinking amongst students.
This is at the lower rungs ofBloom's Taxonomy.
How do you teach about.
Proposed reparations forslavery.
Without talking about thebrutality of the trans
transatlantic slave trade, howdo you talk about the challenges
facing immigrants, thedeportations the arduous road
(10:24):
that they take to come herewithout talking about the trade
policies that might havemotivated that, that might have
pushed them out of their homecountries.
So in many ways, this bill withits focus on domestic and
saying, don't talk about thecauses of ethnic
marginalization, is dumbing downa curriculum.
It's demeaning, some have calledit racist.
(10:45):
Why should we relegate ourstudents of color to factual
information without challengingthe causes of their
marginalization?
We should not.
Christine (10:57):
Trish.
Trish (10:58):
Yeah.
And I, they even say it theyreally do wanna dumb it down.
I agree with you, Marcy.
The bill says the goal shouldnot be to understand abstract
ideological theories, causes, orpedagogies.
Since when have we askedstudents not to understand
abstract ideological theories?
That is absolutely those highertiers of looms that you're
(11:20):
talking about, abstractthinking.
It's astounding to see that theyput this in writing, that they
want to have some level ofthought control over our
students.
And it's disturbing that they'rewilling to put that down in
writing.
Christine (11:32):
I wonder if we could stick to the issue of standards
and the fact that thisparticular bill actually
attempts to make impossiblecritical analysis and we need to
just be point blank about this,that ethnic studies exception
(11:54):
that we are seeing is based onthe Palestine exception.
Many of the bills co-authorstate every single field and
subject area has standards.
What we're trying to do isregularize ethnic studies so
that it too is subjected tostandards.
What do you have to say to that,Marcy?
Marcy (12:17):
As a former standards coach, I can attest to the fact
that we have existing standardsthat could well be applied along
with the guiding principles thestate adopted in the ethnic
studies model, curriculum, andstudent led research into their
own communities, the issues thatthey are facing in their local
areas.
So in many ways, this isduplicative in an effort to
(12:38):
censor public debate aboutwhat's happening in Palestine,
the genocide that's funded byIsrael.
And when we talk aboutstandards, first lemme just back
up and explain that ethnicstudies the way it is, codified
in AB 1 0 1, the bill thatlaunched ethnic studies is that
it can be taught as a onesemester standalone course on
ethnic studies involving AfricanAmericans, Latinx, Asian
(13:00):
Americans, and Native Americans.
It could be broken out intoseparate courses on those ethnic
groups.
It could also be taught in anEnglish course, a science
course, a history or math, anyof these, A three A through G
courses for the University ofCalifornia.
Now, these content areas, theyhave their own content
standards.
History at every level has itsown content standards, science,
(13:22):
math as well, and English isframed by the English Language
Arts standards.
It suggests to me that theseeducators have never read the
California Frameworks forEducation because if they had,
they would see standards thatalready address.
Ethnic studies in part alongwith the guiding principles.
So for example, English languageArts, 11th grade, one of the
(13:44):
standards says, recognizestrategies used by the media to
inform, persuade, entertain, andtransmit culture.
Looking at bias, this issomething that could easily be a
focus standard.
In ethnic studies, you havehistory.
Students analyze the developmentof federal civil rights and
voting rights.
Why are we investing all of thisstate money?
(14:07):
Establishing a bureaucraticprocess to come up with new
standards when we already havethem, along with the guiding
principles.
These are the guiding principlesthe state adopted when the state
adopted the ethnic studies modelcurriculum.
So for example, number fourhere's the one that I think is
really a problem for those whowanna censor, debate, critique,
(14:29):
empire building in history andits relationship to white
supremacy, racism, and otherforms of power and oppression.
Number five, challenge racist,bigoted, discriminatory, and
imperialist colonial beliefs andpractices on multiple levels.
They don't like these guidingprinciples because they're
afraid that there might be somediscussion about an ongoing
(14:50):
genocide as a product of settlercolonialism in Palestine.
So they want to relegate thiscurriculum to the bottom level
of Bloom's taxonomy andshortchange our students, many
of them students of color.
For example, in the Los AngelesUnified School District, I think
it's al almost 77%.
So I understand why people arecalling this a racist bill.
Christine (15:11):
To that latter point, the state of California has been
majority minority for a fullquarter century, since the year
2000.
And in the state of California,in terms of the K through 12
population, 80% come fromcommunities of color.
Yet the legislative.
(15:32):
Jewish caucus proposes tointroduce this bill that would
set standards and ideologicalpolicing of ethnic studies that
no other subject area issubjected to.
Darlene, we would love for youto weigh in
Darlene (15:48):
I 100% agree with Marcy about the the complicated nature
of standards in this particularbill where it asks for a single
set of standards for ethnicstudies course, but ethnic
studies is.
An interdisciplinary field.
And so we can think about ethnicstudies being taught in a
variety of differentdisciplines.
(16:09):
So for example, I work with ateacher who teaches Chicano art,
and he's an art teacher.
He has an art credential, andhis expertise in training is in
art.
But he also has a background inChicano studies.
And so he teaches Chicano art.
And I have other teachers whoteach, for example, African
American literature, who have ateaching credential in English
and a background in AfricanAmerican studies.
(16:30):
And those two classes, just asan example, could never have the
same set of content standards asif it was a single course,
because those are two incrediblydifferent courses with different
content as well as differentmethodologies and pedagogies.
And so the concept of a singleset of standards has been used
(16:50):
and weaponized against ethnicstudies, but it is not even
aligned with what ethnic studiesactually is.
And it really is a sign that thepeople who created this bill
don't know what ethnic studiesis.
Sean (17:04):
Yeah, that's a great segue.
This is Sean and I wanna maybemove this conversation a little
from the text of this bill tohow it was that such a flawed,
and I will say it frankly,racist bill.
Has gotten to the point that ithas.
This is a bill that wasintroduced, co-authored and
sponsored by members of theLegislative Jewish Caucus.
(17:26):
And while you will not find itin the text of the bill, in
their copious public statementsmembers of this caucus have
stated that their principleconcern with the introduction of
AB 1468 is to oppose what theydescribe as anti-Semitic
material in ethnic studies.
That it is worth noting that noother ethnic or affinity caucus
(17:47):
has endorsed this legislation.
Christine, I know you've beenfollowing this pretty closely.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how we got here?
Why is this going on?
Christine (17:56):
If you just look at who introduced this bill, if you
look at its principleco-authors, you realize that
this is completely.
A creation of the legislativeJewish caucus.
And it's part and parcel of aseries of extraordinarily
(18:21):
repressive bills that thelegislative Jewish caucus has
introduced.
So it was introduced by RickZeer, Don Addis its principal
co-authors include JesseGabriel, Scott Wiener, and Josh
Becker.
(18:42):
You'll note that there is no onefrom any other ethnic caucus
that was involved in thecreation of this.
And it's not just that theseauthors were also central to a
very flawed prior legislation.
(19:04):
AB 2 9 1 8.
A bill that died in committee.
It was opposed by a number ofdifferent organizations,
including the CaliforniaTeachers Association.
It came out swinging against theprior legislation that prior
bill and this bill.
(19:26):
Both of them were createdwithout any kind of input or
collaboration with ethnicstudies, educators,
practitioners, and experts.
So you do not bake in theexpertise after the fact.
This is a fatally flawed pieceof legislation by a caucus that
(19:49):
has shown itself to be singleissue in terms of its interests
Marcy.
Her research has pointed outthat up until several years ago,
the banner image for thelegislative Jewish caucus was
the Israeli national flat.
Marcy (20:12):
As a footnote to that I wanna point out that from now
on, I vow to call this theLegislative Israel caucus.
They can brand themselves as theJewish caucus, but I don't agree
with that.
I'm Jewish.
They don't represent me in anyway, shape or form.
In fact, calling themselves thelegislative Jewish caucus is a
betrayal of the Jews in thiscountry who have marched by the
(20:35):
thousands to protest US backedIsrael genocide and Gaza.
So let's call it what it is.
It is the Legislative Israelcaucus.
Their website, their 18 members,and their website has.
Pictures of them visiting Israeland congratulating themselves
and jumping up in the air andexcitement.
Their past bills have includedan effort to silence the voices
(20:57):
of protest of Israel.
They introduced a bill, anextreme bill, which was to
prohibit boycott, divestment andsanctions in California by
taxing or imposing a huge fineon anyone, on any corporation
that boycotted Israel.
They even wanted to create anenemies list.
(21:18):
They wanted the attorney generalto create an enemies list of
companies and it could be asingle person that's
incorporated who refused to workor contract with Israel on
anything.
This, we were able to defeatthrough a year long lobbying
effort.
We weren't able to defeat thebill, but it's largely
duplicative now of existinglegislation barring
(21:38):
discrimination based on.
Nationality, origin, and soforth.
In addition, we saw that lastyear, one of the bills that they
pushed through the LegislativeIsrael caucus was a bill to
establish holocaust and genocideeducation.
Why are we even talking aboutholocaust and genocide
education?
It's all genocide education,right?
So the attempt here is to putthe holocaust at the top of the
(22:03):
hierarchy of genocides Somehow.
It is exceptional.
It was horrific.
We can agree on that, right?
11 million people murdered.
Is it different than the murderof 56 million Native Americans
throughout a hundred years of USHistory of Turtle Island
history.
So this bill that they also pushthrough would establish.
(22:27):
Professional development onHolocaust and Genocide
education.
Yes, it includes other genocidesin it, but primarily it is an
attempt to push on the studentsof California through their
teachers.
The curriculum developed by theAnti-Defamation League, the Shoa
Foundation and Yad, which hasadopted the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliancedefinition of antisemitism,
(22:50):
which says, if you criticizeIsrael as a state that
privileges one ethnicity overanother as a racist state, you
are antisemitic and we knowwhere this leads, right?
This leads to censorship andeducation, to teacher firings,
to harassment, to students beingvilified.
(23:10):
So we have to be reallyskeptical of this legislative
Israel caucus.
Christine (23:17):
I so appreciate that point.
this was part of a quartet ofrepressive bills that the
legislative Israel caucusproposed last year.
And this was signed into law byNewsom and locally in Santa
Cruz.
One of the bill's co-authors isGail Rin, and some of us
(23:37):
actually had a chance to meetwith her to speak to her about
her support for 1277.
This Holocaust and Genocideeducation Bill, which Marcy, you
rightly stated, represents acollaboration with the
Anti-Defamation League.
I.
It patrols what can be taught asgenocide in California
(24:00):
classrooms.
And like AB 1468, the bill thatwe're discussing today, it also
proposes top down ideologicalcontrol over the substance of
California's education withregard to the topic of genocide.
And when we spoke with Gail Rin,I asked her outright, I said, do
(24:25):
you believe that there's agenocide happening in Palestine?
And her response was, I do notbelieve that a genocide is
happening in Palestine.
I believe that there's ahorrendous war, but there are
atrocities on both sides.
That is what she stated, Dylan.
Dylan (24:47):
Yeah, I think it's important to not make any
mistake as to what's happening.
Around beneath and after thisparticular attempt at imposing
legislation to control ethnicstudies, which is that what
we're seeing is immobilizationby the forces of pro-Israel and
Zionist colonialism and onedirectional war, genocidal war,
(25:13):
to essentially define campusesas a particular theater of
conquest.
These forces, pro Israel Zionistforces intend to dominate those
of us that would pose informed,rigorously studied and research
critiques and analysis.
Of Israeli occupation andgenocide against Palestinian
(25:34):
peoples, across the diaspora,across historical periods.
They want to crowd us out.
They not only wanna crowd usout, they want to actively
criminalize our capacity toutter those statements, those
words, those analyses, whetherin the classroom or outside the
classroom.
So we need to take thatseriously.
It's warfare as both actualmaterial, ideological war
(25:56):
legislation and otherwise, andas a significant metaphor that
extracts casualties.
Marcy (26:03):
I'd just like to piggyback on what Dylan said.
Right now many of us have heardof project 2025, right?
That's from the HeritageFoundation.
It's to basically defund thegovernment to afford bigger tax
cuts to billionaires and toprivatize everything.
The Heritage Foundation has alsoproduced Project Esther, which
(26:25):
is a lot of what Dylan wastalking about.
It's a war on students.
It's a war on education tocontrol the narrative about
Israel.
And although the LegislativeIsrael caucus in California,
many of them perceive themselvesas progressive on housing or
water, or artificialintelligence, whistle blowing.
(26:47):
At the end of the day, they arebacking Project Esther in
California.
They are doing Trump's work herein censoring ethnic studies.
Christine (26:59):
And this is not by any stretch of the imagination
work that began after October7th, 2023.
It has long been in the works asevery single one of us can
attest here.
We have been targeted by Zionistorganizations for now going on
(27:25):
many years.
Some of us have been subjectedto hate mail to death threats.
People have been doxed, peoplehave lost work.
And we could see from the kindof, tactics that were deployed
that ethnic studies became akind of arena for the kind of
(27:51):
warfare that Dylan isdescribing.
In no small part because of theZionist fear that ethnic studies
is a place in which Israelisettler colonialism could be
studied.
Israel's genocide of thePalestinian people, its ethnic
(28:14):
cleansing of the Palestinianpeople could be studied, and
that Palestinian perspectives onIsraeli genocide, settler
colonialism, and apartheid couldbe centered.
And in fact.
Newsom in signing AB 1 0 1 cavedto the Zionist lobby by ensuring
(28:42):
that there were ideologicalguardrails around ethnic
studies.
What were those guardrails?
There were guardrails thatattempted to understand any
mention of Palestine orPalestinian right to life as a
form of bias, bigotry, anddiscrimination.
(29:04):
So what we're seeing here is akind of war strategy in which
Palestine must be expunged fromthe order of knowledge.
Not only is there a genocidehappening against the
Palestinian people, butPalestine cannot even enter into
(29:27):
the order of knowledge.
Jennifer, I wonder if you couldaddress the fact that one of the
bill's, co-authors andintroducers Josh Becker, has
stated, point blank in publiccomments about AB 1468, that
(29:49):
there was no Palestine beforethe creation of the State of
Israel in 1948, and he andothers in the legislative Jewish
caucus have professed that oneof their key concerns about
ethnic studies is its lack ofhistorical accuracy.
(30:13):
The person who has said thathe's concerned about ethnic
studies being historicallyinaccurate has stated that there
was no Palestine.
Jmo (30:23):
Yes.
Thank you Christine.
I wanted to just start by sayingthis is why we can't trust
legislators who have nohistorical knowledge or access
to education to be doing thework of policing or setting
standards, quote unquote fordisciplines that they have no
(30:44):
expertise in.
And this question requires alonger historical understanding
of the question of Europeancolonialism in the region and
the colonial nature of the wayin which nation states are
formed.
And so I think this point thatthey're trying to make, that's
(31:04):
historically inaccurate pointsto the fact that they are.
Privileging a specific sort ofnation state, European nation
state order of the accounting ofhistory and the landscape of the
region in which Palestine is apart.
But I also wanted to say thatjust as a counter to this
(31:30):
argument, maybe many people haveseen that visit Palestine poster
that.
Is heavily circulated.
That poster was circulatedactually by Zionists trying to
push for Jewish migration toPalestine prior to the state of
(31:53):
Israel being formed.
And you look at even the BelforDeclar declaration in 1917,
right prior to the British eventaking official mandatory
control over Palestine andmilitarizing Palestine, that
they state that they promisebasically a Jewish homeland in
(32:14):
Palestine to the leaders of theZionist movement.
And the Zionists themselves knowthat there was something and is
something called Palestine inthose historic lands.
I wanted to go back a little bitto the IRA definition of
antisemitism and how thisweaponizing is deeply
(32:35):
racialized.
I think this bill promotes antiPalestinian racism because it
works to erase our existence.
It also works to target, and ithas historically in California,
for the past five plus years,worked to target Arab American
Studies as a whole, as asubfield of Asian American
(32:57):
studies and, you really cannotstudy Arab-American studies
without centering the questionof Palestine.
It's always been a centralquestion.
For Arabs and for the history ofArab-Americans in the United
(33:17):
States.
Palestine has always been acentral issue.
And the last point that I wouldlike to make, turning back to
the IRA definition, is thatweaponizing a critique of a
foreign nation state.
The Israeli genocidal state asantisemitic is deeply offensive
(33:42):
and also dangerous for Jews inthe United States.
Who may experience actual formsof antisemitic violence because
it flattens the definition ofantisemitism and it applies it
to different frameworks forunderstanding what a foreign
(34:06):
nation state is doing.
And so it waters down the waysin which Jewish communities here
might actually being attackedfor racist or xenophobic
reasons.
Marcy (34:18):
This is Marcia.
I absolutely agree and I thinkthat this kind of definition,
the International HolocaustRemembrance Alliance definition
and examples that conflateanti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
are anti-Semitic at the core.
I was raised as a Jewish personand raised to believe in one God
monotheism is a bedrock of theJewish religion and tradition,
(34:41):
and yet.
Even though we were taught toreject idolatry, this worship of
a nation state is a form ofidolatry.
Not only that, not only the factthat it runs counter to the
teachings of Judaism, theInternational Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance definitionpaints all Jews as a monolith,
(35:01):
that we all support the state ofIsrael, that we all view
criticism of the state ofIsrael's founding principles as
anti-Semitic.
We don't, that's not true.
And so I would just turn thisquestion on its head and say,
why would anyone support thisdefinition and examples when it
(35:21):
promotes antisemitism?
Christine (35:24):
Ironically, one of the definitions of antisemitism
in the IRA definition is theconflation of Jewish people with
a state of Israel.
Yet this is what the legislativeJewish caucus itself does.
And by expanding the definitionof antisemitism to include any
(35:51):
critique of the state of Israel,the caucus itself is violating
the IRA definition.
This is not an endorsement ofthe IRA definition, but to point
out that the fatal flaw in thisexpanded notion of antisemitism
(36:13):
and its application to ethnicstudies is that these kinds of
legislators who don't even dane.
To consult with ethnic studiesexperts before arrogantly
attempting to legislate onethnic studies.
They do not understand thatethnic studies is not ethnicity
(36:40):
studies and ethnic studies, sureas hell is not the
propagandistic imperialistwhitewashing of repressive ethno
nationalisms Dylan.
You are the sole distinguishedprofessor in the uc system who
(37:04):
received a degree in ethnicstudies from the uc.
So we are ethnic studiespractitioners, we're scholars,
we're experts, and I'd reallylike to invite you to weigh in
on AB 1468.
In particular two provisions ofthis bill.
(37:24):
One of the provisions basicallystates that ethnic studies has
to focus strictly on thedomestic experience of
marginalized peoples in theUnited States.
And that it has to, as Marcy wasdiscussing before, studiously
(37:47):
not go into the realm ofideological theories, causes, or
pedagogies that inform aspecific group's experiences.
And so that's one provision ofthe bill.
Another one is that ethnicstudies cannot fall into the
(38:09):
arena of advocacy, personalopinion, bias, or partnership
that it has to abide by.
Accepted standards ofprofessional responsibility and
that it must be fair andbalanced.
Could you please speak to thisand could you weigh in on any
(38:30):
aspect of this bill as an ethnicstudies expert?
Dylan (38:36):
I appreciate this question and I'll just say that
I'm not sure that I'm the onlydistinguished professor with a
PhD in ethnic studies from theuc system, but I can guarantee
I'm one of very few if there areothers.
And which is meaningful only inthe sense here that none of us
distinguished professor orotherwise, none of us who
actually hold a PhD in the fieldof ethnic studies was ever
(38:57):
remotely contacted, much lessconsulted by anybody who had
anything to do with writing thislegislation.
Alright, so that leads to twopoints I wanna make in response
to your question.
One is, we need to treat thislegislation and it's writers for
what they are.
These are clown ass politicians.
They're the opportunistic footsoldiers of a larger community
of political, propagandists ofan academic community that
(39:22):
supports Zionism in Israel andwants to normalize it and
naturalize it as the onlyposition that one can take in
the university setting.
These are groups of politicallyand ideologically driven people,
Jewish and non-Jewish, whointentionally and persistently
treat the scholarship of ethnicstudies and affiliated fields
through logics of what can onlybe called academic apartheid,
(39:45):
curricular colonialism, and goodold fashioned racist and
anti-black double standards.
What do I mean by that?
Those are heavy words, heavyaccusations.
Every damn word of it.
Okay?
Imagine a group of ideologicallydriven elected state officials.
Telling any field, for example,in stem, all right, any field in
the business schools that thegovernment should control the
(40:08):
content of their curriculumwhile simultaneously not
consulting with a single scholarwho is actually based in those
fields.
That shit would never happen.
Y'all it would never everhappen, right?
It would never happen there.
There'd be no credibility.
So it's warfare on multiplefronts, but at the level of
curricular ideological warfare,that's what's ironic in some
ways and hypocritical, but Ithink entirely intentional about
(40:30):
the way the bill is written, isthat there's an implicit
accusation that people who teachethnic studies are somehow
ideologically driven when theentire bill is an ideological
declaration of war, right?
There's not even a remoteunderstanding of what ethnic
studies is as a scholarly fieldand how much rigor has gone into
compiling archives and conceptsand curricula, like all the
work.
Okay?
So that's the first point.
(40:50):
The second point is a shorterone that I just wanna make to
just tie some threads togetherto just convey how insidious and
how dangerous the forces behindthis bill actually are.
The bill itself is dangerous,but I'm talk about the forces
behind the bill.
Everything about this billechoes what has come to be known
as white supremacist replacementtheory.
Okay?
(41:10):
In the case of this bill, theterm multiculturalism intends to
displace and replace ethnicstudies and the multiculturalism
concept that got thrown out withthe trash, literally decades
ago, right?
So the notion ofmulticulturalism that's being
put forward in this build, thisis a kind of rhetorical cover
for the anxieties of whitesupremacists and
(41:32):
multiculturalist replacementpropagandists, right?
Who are concerned.
Somehow that that their versionof knowledge, their version of
teaching and curriculum, issomehow going to be wholly
destroyed and replaced by ethnicstudies, which of course is not
the case.
Maybe it should be, but it's notthe case.
So this is really no differentthan white supremacist
replacement theory in theacademic setting.
So those are two points I'd makeabout this.
Christine (41:54):
This is something that Marcy was mentioning
before, this attempt to dumbdown the criticality of a field
that originated in a thirdworlds student movement.
Anyone wanna speak about thekind of dumbing down to the
domestic experience and whatkind of violence that re
inscribes.
Sean (42:15):
I'll just say that, one of the most threatening things of
those student movements of the1960s and seventies that
resulted in ethnic studies isthat they were not simply
organizing for ethnic studies.
They were not simply organizingfor an institutionalized
formation that included theirvoices and the voices of their
communities.
They were organizing aninternational solidarity against
(42:37):
genocide and imperialismprojects that their own
universities and government wereengaged in.
And that has always beenthreatening Even the more
limited formation of ethnicstudies that arose out of those
protests, which in no ways metthe full vision of those
students, even that more limitedvision remains threatening
because it does.
It does not simply critiquepower, but shows how that power
(43:01):
operates across internationalborders and offers students
tools for thinking about ways toresist that in a way that is not
confined to the borders of theUS nation state.
And there are always people, notjust Republicans, not just
conservatives, but manyDemocrats and liberals who find
that idea terrifying,
Christine (43:21):
Thank you, Sean.
Some of you have described thisbill as racist both during this
conversation and elsewhere.
And I wonder if you couldelaborate on what you mean by
that and further, how does thisparticular bill fit into the
current political landscape?
(43:42):
One in which, as Dylan wassaying, we have seen massive
repression of students, faculty,staff.
How does it relate to the Trumpagenda?
The members of the legislativeJewish caucus are by and large
members of the Democratic party,and they're part of that,
(44:02):
bipartisan war party apparatus.
But can you situate this bill inour current moment and can you
also elaborate on what you meanwhen you say this is racist?
This bill is brought forward bythis caucus that claims that
it's trying to thwart and guardagainst antisemitism.
What is racist about this bill?
Marcy (44:23):
This is Marcy.
I think what Dylan laid outspeaks to this, and that is the
bill.
Ideological warfare.
It says that students should notbe looking at the connection
between what's happening hereand what happened over there.
Forget about internationalrelations, US foreign policy,
(44:45):
colonialism across the board.
Focus only on what, I don'tknow, focus on festivals, is
that what they're asking?
It says, don't look at thecauses of marginalization.
So we're not supposed to look atwhite supremacy and how that
impacts students of color in ourcountry.
As Dylan pointed out, none ofthe people that worked on this
(45:07):
bill, the co-authors actuallyconsulted ethnic studies
scholars.
That's presumptuous to say theleast.
at the end of the day, the billalso doesn't make economic
sense.
We have a big debt inCalifornia.
We wanna fund ethnic studies.
That should be the principledemand at this point.
It is unfunded, even though ithas been codified into state
(45:29):
law.
And instead, we have alegislative Israel caucus
focusing on policing thediscipline.
Sean (45:36):
Yeah.
This is Sean and I want to justunderline a pointment that's
been made by Marcy and by Dylan.
We are all very rightly focusedon the current assault on
education and our basic civilliberties from the current.
Administration of Washington aswe should be.
I know people who are on thispodcast are particularly
concerned about assaults on ourstudents.
From that administration,students literally being
(45:57):
disappeared into unmarked vans.
As we fight that, we also needto acknowledge the way in which
Democrats, liberals, and folksin deep blue states like
California have been complicitin that agenda.
And actually long before Project2025 of the current
administration have beeninvolved in efforts to
(46:18):
systematically censor.
Repress efforts to learn aboutissues around race, about
Palestine.
This is not simply a Trumpproblem or a Republican problem,
or a project, 2025 problem.
This racist bill is being putforward by Democrats in a deep
(46:39):
blue state with a two thirdsuper majority.
We have problems here.
We need to confront that gobeyond the current
administration, and even as wefight the censorship and
repression and violenceunleashed by the Trump
administration, we need to haveour eyes on the folks in
Sacramento and elsewhere.
I believe Dylan called themclown ass politicians.
(47:00):
I hope I quoted you correctly,Dylan.
Those folks are mostlyDemocrats.
And while we here in Californiamay not have the ability to
instantly change policy inWashington we have power in our
local elections.
We have power to put pressure onthose who represent us in
Sacramento and locally to walkaway from this racist bill, and
(47:23):
also to more broadly act infavor of liberation rather than
repression.
And that is something thatcannot be said of the vast
majority of our representativesin Sacramento right now.
Jmo (47:35):
This is Jennifer.
I wanted to bring theconversation back to how this
bill is anti Palestinian,anti-Arab and discriminates is
anti-Muslim and xenophobic tojust say that the authors and
supporters of this bill are atbest genocide, deniers, and at
most genocide supporters.
(47:55):
And so when we're talking aboutteaching and educating our
students in a framework that.
Largely fits outside of whatwe're traditionally taught.
It's really important that thosewho have studied from a
different perspective throughethnic studies and related
(48:16):
fields are central determinantsof this curriculum.
And I think just to add a lastpoint is that we're seeing
perhaps one of the largeststudent movements that we've
seen since the inception of thefield in 1968.
(48:36):
The center of that is Palestineand the central threat.
To establishment politics thatare bipartisan is this question
of Palestine.
And we're seeing radicalpersecution of people who are
exercising their First Amendmentrights because of this central
(49:01):
question.
And if we allow ethnic studiesto be censored and determined by
people who are racist, who denygenocides happening.
We're gonna allow not just theerasure of Palestinians from our
curriculum, or Arabs and ArabAmericans from our curriculum or
(49:24):
critical perspective on Muslimstudies.
It is going to come to all ofour communities that we center
in ethnic studies.
Palestine is the center rightnow, and it's using decades of
built up propaganda that is antiPalestinian and anti-Arab from
(49:47):
the Cold War, red Scarediscourse to the war on terror
policy changes.
And now we're seeing thatcrystallizing against
Palestinian communities andtheir supporters, especially
students real materialconsequences are being wielded
for speaking out againstgenocide.
Marcy (50:10):
Yes, this is Marcy and I appreciate everything that
Jennifer said.
And second that, and I thoughtnow might be an opportune time
to share the comments made byone of the co-authors, Josh
Becker, who is representing, inquotes, Menlo Park, the Atherton
area.
If anyone had any doubt aboutthe motivation for this bill, I
(50:32):
think listening to Becker willanswer you.
So if it's all right with you,I'll play this clip from a
webinar on the bill AB 1468, inwhich co-authors Don ATIs Rick
Chavez and Josh Becker wereinterviewed and they talk about
why they were so motivated tobecome a warrior.
(50:54):
They used the term warrior forthis bill.
And note of what he says.
Clip from JPAC (51:00):
All know the UN created Israel, um, and there
was no Palestine before that,and Gaza was controlled by
Egypt.
And we all know the history.
Marcy (51:09):
And think back to the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
I'm not holding it up as anadmirable document.
Absolutely not.
But even in the BalfourDeclaration, it talks about
establishing a Jewish homelandin quote Palestine.
Christine (51:22):
I wanted to just mention that one of the ways in
which the legislative Jewishcaucus has sought to portray
ethnic studies is that thefield.
Encourages students to dividepeople into two categories, a
binary of oppressors versusoppressed, this is a cartoonish
(51:45):
portrait.
But this gets at the question ofnot ever looking at causes.
It is not the case that ethnicstudies resizes groups at all.
Instead, ethnic studies enablesus critically to examine
structures and systems ofviolence, of which Zionism is
(52:10):
one.
And as Jennifer was saying,there is a genocide happening
and the repression that ishappening here, I.
Is tied to that genocide.
So we need to be able to have across border conversation about
(52:30):
transnational systems andstructures of violence.
And critical thinking also isnot comfortable.
It challenges receivedpreconceptions.
I wanted to say something too.
Gavin Newsom in a squirrelymoment issued an open letter to
(52:53):
California's Muslim, PalestinianAmerican and Arab American
communities last year.
And he essentially stated, okay,I realize that many of you are
alienated.
You have seen the DemocraticParty say exactly nothing about
what is happening in Gaza.
(53:14):
And he acknowledges that ArabAmericans, Palestinian
Americans, Muslim Americans,have been failed by the
political establishment.
And he says, we have to earnback your trust.
And then he states somethingextraordinary.
He said, but don't worry, thereis a place for you.
(53:38):
And one of those places is inethnic studies.
And so I want to close thisconversation and maybe we can
spool things back.
So what can people do And.
What kind of actions should theybe taking?
How can people get involved andin what ways?
Marcy (54:01):
This is Marcy Winter grad.
I am a proud member of UnitedTeachers of Los Angeles, 35,000
teachers strong, and a votingmember of their governing
structure, the House ofRepresentatives.
And we recently voted to take aposition as a union in
opposition to AB 1468.
The police ethnic studies billand this motion that passed is
significant because UnitedTeachers of Los Angeles is the
(54:24):
largest.
Chapter local of the CaliforniaTeachers Association that
represents 300,000 teachersthroughout the state of
California.
CTA defeated the last bill topolice ethnic studies.
They can do it again if theytake a principled stand in
opposition, and that's what weare urging them to do.
So if you are involved with yourunion, please bring this to the
(54:44):
union for a vote, for a motionto oppose and let CTA and the
legislators know also.
As a chair of a Central CoastAnti-War coalition, a chapter of
Code Pink, I've been urging allof our supporters to call their
representatives in the assemblyand in the California Senate and
say, vote no on AB 1468.
(55:06):
It's a backdoor attempt tosilence the voices for
Palestinian rights.
It would bloat our statebureaucracy to use SERP local
school district authority overcurriculum, over community
responsive curriculum.
So let's get on the phone, let'ssend those emails and let's take
this issue to our unions.
Christine (55:25):
Yes, and in closing, I want to state that this is a
bill that serves a very narrowideological purpose that has
broad damaging results.
And so in the interest ofdefending.
Israel at any and all costs.
(55:47):
The legislative Jewish caucus isproposing legislation like AB
1468 that actually harm theability of the majority of
California's population to haveaccess to an ethnic studies
education.
This is the sole field that hasbeen shown to have broad across
(56:12):
the board benefit forhistorically marginalized
communities of color.
This is the sole field of studythat increases life chances by
increasing college going, andthat increases attendance at the
K through 12 level.
(56:33):
And so this is part of theracist effect of legislation
like this, and we need to have.
Lawmakers that serve theinterests of the majority people
of California.
And that includes ArabAmericans, Palestinian
Americans, and Muslim Americans.
(56:56):
And there is no way no how thatanyone in the field of ethnic
studies would consent to theerasure of Palestinian people in
ethnic studies legislation.
Thank you so much, Marcy, forjoining the uc Ethnic Studies
Council in our first podcast.
(57:16):
Thank you everyone forlistening.
Marcy (57:18):
Great to be with you.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
Welcome to the first episode of the Lower
Frequencies, the uc EthnicStudies Council Podcast.
On March 27th, 2025, threemonths into Trump's war on the
people, which includes thegutting of education,
dismantling of DEI, targetingand disappearance of students
(00:20):
who've spoken out against the USbacked and funded genocide in
Gaza and criminalization ofcriticism of Israel.
The council launched our podcastnot from the ivory tower or
militarized fortress wereknowledge is produced as a
conquest circle.
From the lower frequencies, theun assimilated underground of
(00:45):
the university at a time ofsustained top-down attack.
When the university needs whatwe bear but cannot bear what we
bring to borrow from Fred Motonand Stefano Harney's account of
the under commons, we understandfully that ethnic studies, which
was never meant to be confinedto the classroom gets its
(01:08):
mandate from the left and frombelow.
Sean (01:13):
Our first guest was Marcy Winograd, an organizer with
Jewish Voice for Peace and CodePink, and a retired teacher and
voting member of United Teachersof Los Angeles, the largest
local of the California TeachersAssociation or CTA.
Our topic was AB 1468.
A bill designed to police ethnicstudies and to censor the
(01:34):
question of Palestine from Kthrough 12 education.
The bill was drafted by theCalifornia Legislative Jewish
Caucus or the LJC without anyinput from ethnic studies
practitioners, experts, orscholars, how is it that a bill,
which according to its framers,is intended to counter quote
unquote antisemitism, is beingwielded to erase Palestine from
(01:57):
ethnic studies?
A field that emerged from theanti-imperialist third world
student struggle.
Why was one of the authors onpublic record stating that
Palestine never existed?
Christine (02:10):
At the time of our conversation, the Council on
American Islamic Relations was amonth into its statewide
campaign against the billdescribing it as part of a
broader right wing effort tosuppress discussions on race.
History and global justice.
Jewish Voice for Peace Bay areaalso opposed the legislation
(02:34):
which it described as using MAGAlike tactics to prevent
individual school districts fromtailoring their ethnic studies
curriculum to local needs.
Pointing out that the LJ C'Sreal goal is to prevent open and
honest discussion of Palestine.
Since our conversation withMarcy, her union, the CTA, which
(02:58):
represents over 300,000 teachersin the state of California, has
come out in formal opposition toAB 1468.
Thus far no ethnic caucus hasendorsed the LJ C's most recent
effort to censor ideologicallypolice and criminalize the
(03:22):
content of ethnic studies
Sean (03:25):
In this moment of tyranny and terror, will ethnic studies
serve the people or will it beneutralized and coerced into
drawing a conquest circle aroundthe people of Palestine?
Join us on the lower frequenciesas we explore this question with
our guest for today.
Christine (03:41):
Welcome to the first ever uc Ethnic Studies Council
podcast.
We are so pleased to have MarcyWinow grad as our guest.
And we'll begin with a round ofintroductions before we dive
into an educational discussionaround AB 1468.
(04:06):
This is the legislative Jewishcaucus's bill on ethnic studies.
So let's go ahead and begin witha round if introductions.
My name is Christine Hong.
I'm part of the uc EthnicStudies Council, and I was the
inaugural chair of theDepartment of Critical Race and
Ethnic Studies at uc Santa Cruz.
(04:28):
I organized alongside ParoValley for Ethnic Studies and
Justice.
I was one of 20 people appointedby the uc to create course
criteria for ethnic studies andI served as part of a six person
writing team that drafted thosecriteria.
I also then served as theco-chair of the implementation
(04:52):
work group for those criteria.
I will pass things over to Sean.
Sean (04:58):
I'm Sean Malloy.
I'm faculty at the University ofCalifornia Merced in the
Department of History andCritical Race and Ethnic
Studies, and a member of the ucEthnic Studies Council.
Dylan (05:11):
Hey there.
My name's Dylan Rodriguez.
I'm distinguished professor atUniversity of California
Riverside, where I'm in theDepartment of Black Study in the
Department of Media CulturalStudies.
I also hold a PhD in ethnicstudies from uc, Berkeley and I
was in the Department of EthnicStudies at Riverside for 17
years and chaired for sevenyears.
I worked with y'all, the ethnicas council in all kind of
(05:33):
different other places, but I'mpleased to be here to talk about
this.
Jmo (05:37):
My name is Jennifer Mo.
I am an assistant professor atthe University of California
Santa Cruz in the Department ofCritical Race and Ethnic
Studies.
And I too have my PhD in ethnicstudies from uc, San Diego.
I am also a member of the ucEthnic Studies Council.
Trish (05:58):
Hi, everyone.
I am Dr.
Trish Gallagher Geren.
I teach in critical race andethnic studies at uc, Santa
Cruz, and also ethnic studiesand in the education studies
department at uc, San Diego.
I started out as a public schoolteacher in bilingual education
and, I'm pleased to be a part ofthis group as well working for
(06:19):
ethnic studies and in K 12 aswell as sustaining that work in
the university.
Darlene (06:25):
Hi Darlene Lee.
I've been a teacher educator for17 years and I currently am the
faculty advisor in the UCLATeacher Education Program for
the ethnic studies pathway.
And I'm the director of our ucLA ethnic studies certificate
program for in-service teachers.
Christine (06:41):
Thank you so much.
And Marcy, we would love for youto introduce yourself.
Marcy (06:47):
Sure.
I'm Marcy Win grad, and I firstwanna say how proud and honored
I am to be with you all.
I am an organizer with CodePink.
I co-produced Code Pink Radio, apodcast nationally broadcast on
most Pacific stations.
I'm also a retired English andgovernment teacher from the Los
Angeles Unified School District,where I did spend approximately
(07:08):
25 years, and three or four ofthose years were working as a
standards and literacy coach,visiting schools all across the
LA Unified School District.
In addition to that, I'm on thestate organizing committee for
Jewish Voice for Peace.
Christine (07:24):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Let's just dive right in.
There is legislation that hasbeen introduced by the
legislative Jewish caucus, andwe're here to have an
educational conversation aroundthis bill.
I just wanted to begin by askingthe question what is AB 1468?
Trish (07:47):
This is Trish.
So AB 1468 says that it intendsto create content standards for
ethnic studies and on its face,that sounds like a good idea.
It also, in addition to that,wants to create a curriculum
framework.
And it also creates severallayers of policing including
(08:10):
teachers having to post theirmaterials 60 days before they
teach those and community groupsthat will be able to vet that
curriculum and decide what theythink about that.
Non-experts, non-educators andmultiple layers of what they
call compliance monitoring.
So it pretends to create somesort of guideline for ethnic
studies but then also policesit.
(08:32):
It's easy to become skeptical asa long, longtime public school
teacher of what is the realintent of this legislation.
In response to this bill, beingsomehow helping to balance the
curriculum, ethnic studies ismeant to balance an already
unbalanced curriculum.
(08:52):
And I can tell you this frombeing a classroom teacher, that
our curriculum is already overlyfocused on white supremacist
concerns.
It always has been.
It's how all of us were educatedin California, those of us who
were educated in public schools.
So ethnic studies is the balancethat we're missing.
Christine (09:10):
From a teacher educator perspective, is this
bill sound policy?
Marcy, I wonder if you couldspeak to that.
Marcy (09:20):
Sure.
I can take parts of the bill oneby one and refute the contention
that this is a bill that isdesperately needed in
California.
This bill would.
Really dumbed down thecurriculum of ethnic studies.
As a standards coach.
One of my main focus areas wason Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a
hierarchy of critical thinking.
(09:42):
And at the bottom of thathierarchy, that ladder you have
recall and comprehension, andtowards the top are on the
higher rungs are analysis andevaluation.
So this bill in saying thatteachers should focus only on
domestic issues and not explorethe causes of ethnic
marginalization it stands in theway of promoting critical
(10:02):
thinking amongst students.
This is at the lower rungs ofBloom's Taxonomy.
How do you teach about.
Proposed reparations forslavery.
Without talking about thebrutality of the trans
transatlantic slave trade, howdo you talk about the challenges
facing immigrants, thedeportations the arduous road
(10:24):
that they take to come herewithout talking about the trade
policies that might havemotivated that, that might have
pushed them out of their homecountries.
So in many ways, this bill withits focus on domestic and
saying, don't talk about thecauses of ethnic
marginalization, is dumbing downa curriculum.
It's demeaning, some have calledit racist.
(10:45):
Why should we relegate ourstudents of color to factual
information without challengingthe causes of their
marginalization?
We should not.
Christine (10:57):
Trish.
Trish (10:58):
Yeah.
And I, they even say it theyreally do wanna dumb it down.
I agree with you, Marcy.
The bill says the goal shouldnot be to understand abstract
ideological theories, causes, orpedagogies.
Since when have we askedstudents not to understand
abstract ideological theories?
That is absolutely those highertiers of looms that you're
(11:20):
talking about, abstractthinking.
It's astounding to see that theyput this in writing, that they
want to have some level ofthought control over our
students.
And it's disturbing that they'rewilling to put that down in
writing.
Christine (11:32):
I wonder if we could stick to the issue of standards
and the fact that thisparticular bill actually
attempts to make impossiblecritical analysis and we need to
just be point blank about this,that ethnic studies exception
(11:54):
that we are seeing is based onthe Palestine exception.
Many of the bills co-authorstate every single field and
subject area has standards.
What we're trying to do isregularize ethnic studies so
that it too is subjected tostandards.
What do you have to say to that,Marcy?
Marcy (12:17):
As a former standards coach, I can attest to the fact
that we have existing standardsthat could well be applied along
with the guiding principles thestate adopted in the ethnic
studies model, curriculum, andstudent led research into their
own communities, the issues thatthey are facing in their local
areas.
So in many ways, this isduplicative in an effort to
(12:38):
censor public debate aboutwhat's happening in Palestine,
the genocide that's funded byIsrael.
And when we talk aboutstandards, first lemme just back
up and explain that ethnicstudies the way it is, codified
in AB 1 0 1, the bill thatlaunched ethnic studies is that
it can be taught as a onesemester standalone course on
ethnic studies involving AfricanAmericans, Latinx, Asian
(13:00):
Americans, and Native Americans.
It could be broken out intoseparate courses on those ethnic
groups.
It could also be taught in anEnglish course, a science
course, a history or math, anyof these, A three A through G
courses for the University ofCalifornia.
Now, these content areas, theyhave their own content
standards.
History at every level has itsown content standards, science,
(13:22):
math as well, and English isframed by the English Language
Arts standards.
It suggests to me that theseeducators have never read the
California Frameworks forEducation because if they had,
they would see standards thatalready address.
Ethnic studies in part alongwith the guiding principles.
So for example, English languageArts, 11th grade, one of the
(13:44):
standards says, recognizestrategies used by the media to
inform, persuade, entertain, andtransmit culture.
Looking at bias, this issomething that could easily be a
focus standard.
In ethnic studies, you havehistory.
Students analyze the developmentof federal civil rights and
voting rights.
Why are we investing all of thisstate money?
(14:07):
Establishing a bureaucraticprocess to come up with new
standards when we already havethem, along with the guiding
principles.
These are the guiding principlesthe state adopted when the state
adopted the ethnic studies modelcurriculum.
So for example, number fourhere's the one that I think is
really a problem for those whowanna censor, debate, critique,
(14:29):
empire building in history andits relationship to white
supremacy, racism, and otherforms of power and oppression.
Number five, challenge racist,bigoted, discriminatory, and
imperialist colonial beliefs andpractices on multiple levels.
They don't like these guidingprinciples because they're
afraid that there might be somediscussion about an ongoing
(14:50):
genocide as a product of settlercolonialism in Palestine.
So they want to relegate thiscurriculum to the bottom level
of Bloom's taxonomy andshortchange our students, many
of them students of color.
For example, in the Los AngelesUnified School District, I think
it's al almost 77%.
So I understand why people arecalling this a racist bill.
Christine (15:11):
To that latter point, the state of California has been
majority minority for a fullquarter century, since the year
2000.
And in the state of California,in terms of the K through 12
population, 80% come fromcommunities of color.
Yet the legislative.
(15:32):
Jewish caucus proposes tointroduce this bill that would
set standards and ideologicalpolicing of ethnic studies that
no other subject area issubjected to.
Darlene, we would love for youto weigh in
Darlene (15:48):
I 100% agree with Marcy about the the complicated nature
of standards in this particularbill where it asks for a single
set of standards for ethnicstudies course, but ethnic
studies is.
An interdisciplinary field.
And so we can think about ethnicstudies being taught in a
variety of differentdisciplines.
(16:09):
So for example, I work with ateacher who teaches Chicano art,
and he's an art teacher.
He has an art credential, andhis expertise in training is in
art.
But he also has a background inChicano studies.
And so he teaches Chicano art.
And I have other teachers whoteach, for example, African
American literature, who have ateaching credential in English
and a background in AfricanAmerican studies.
(16:30):
And those two classes, just asan example, could never have the
same set of content standards asif it was a single course,
because those are two incrediblydifferent courses with different
content as well as differentmethodologies and pedagogies.
And so the concept of a singleset of standards has been used
(16:50):
and weaponized against ethnicstudies, but it is not even
aligned with what ethnic studiesactually is.
And it really is a sign that thepeople who created this bill
don't know what ethnic studiesis.
Sean (17:04):
Yeah, that's a great segue.
This is Sean and I wanna maybemove this conversation a little
from the text of this bill tohow it was that such a flawed,
and I will say it frankly,racist bill.
Has gotten to the point that ithas.
This is a bill that wasintroduced, co-authored and
sponsored by members of theLegislative Jewish Caucus.
(17:26):
And while you will not find itin the text of the bill, in
their copious public statementsmembers of this caucus have
stated that their principleconcern with the introduction of
AB 1468 is to oppose what theydescribe as anti-Semitic
material in ethnic studies.
That it is worth noting that noother ethnic or affinity caucus
(17:47):
has endorsed this legislation.
Christine, I know you've beenfollowing this pretty closely.
Can you tell us a little bitabout how we got here?
Why is this going on?
Christine (17:56):
If you just look at who introduced this bill, if you
look at its principleco-authors, you realize that
this is completely.
A creation of the legislativeJewish caucus.
And it's part and parcel of aseries of extraordinarily
(18:21):
repressive bills that thelegislative Jewish caucus has
introduced.
So it was introduced by RickZeer, Don Addis its principal
co-authors include JesseGabriel, Scott Wiener, and Josh
Becker.
(18:42):
You'll note that there is no onefrom any other ethnic caucus
that was involved in thecreation of this.
And it's not just that theseauthors were also central to a
very flawed prior legislation.
(19:04):
AB 2 9 1 8.
A bill that died in committee.
It was opposed by a number ofdifferent organizations,
including the CaliforniaTeachers Association.
It came out swinging against theprior legislation that prior
bill and this bill.
(19:26):
Both of them were createdwithout any kind of input or
collaboration with ethnicstudies, educators,
practitioners, and experts.
So you do not bake in theexpertise after the fact.
This is a fatally flawed pieceof legislation by a caucus that
(19:49):
has shown itself to be singleissue in terms of its interests
Marcy.
Her research has pointed outthat up until several years ago,
the banner image for thelegislative Jewish caucus was
the Israeli national flat.
Marcy (20:12):
As a footnote to that I wanna point out that from now
on, I vow to call this theLegislative Israel caucus.
They can brand themselves as theJewish caucus, but I don't agree
with that.
I'm Jewish.
They don't represent me in anyway, shape or form.
In fact, calling themselves thelegislative Jewish caucus is a
betrayal of the Jews in thiscountry who have marched by the
(20:35):
thousands to protest US backedIsrael genocide and Gaza.
So let's call it what it is.
It is the Legislative Israelcaucus.
Their website, their 18 members,and their website has.
Pictures of them visiting Israeland congratulating themselves
and jumping up in the air andexcitement.
Their past bills have includedan effort to silence the voices
(20:57):
of protest of Israel.
They introduced a bill, anextreme bill, which was to
prohibit boycott, divestment andsanctions in California by
taxing or imposing a huge fineon anyone, on any corporation
that boycotted Israel.
They even wanted to create anenemies list.
(21:18):
They wanted the attorney generalto create an enemies list of
companies and it could be asingle person that's
incorporated who refused to workor contract with Israel on
anything.
This, we were able to defeatthrough a year long lobbying
effort.
We weren't able to defeat thebill, but it's largely
duplicative now of existinglegislation barring
(21:38):
discrimination based on.
Nationality, origin, and soforth.
In addition, we saw that lastyear, one of the bills that they
pushed through the LegislativeIsrael caucus was a bill to
establish holocaust and genocideeducation.
Why are we even talking aboutholocaust and genocide
education?
It's all genocide education,right?
So the attempt here is to putthe holocaust at the top of the
(22:03):
hierarchy of genocides Somehow.
It is exceptional.
It was horrific.
We can agree on that, right?
11 million people murdered.
Is it different than the murderof 56 million Native Americans
throughout a hundred years of USHistory of Turtle Island
history.
So this bill that they also pushthrough would establish.
(22:27):
Professional development onHolocaust and Genocide
education.
Yes, it includes other genocidesin it, but primarily it is an
attempt to push on the studentsof California through their
teachers.
The curriculum developed by theAnti-Defamation League, the Shoa
Foundation and Yad, which hasadopted the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliancedefinition of antisemitism,
(22:50):
which says, if you criticizeIsrael as a state that
privileges one ethnicity overanother as a racist state, you
are antisemitic and we knowwhere this leads, right?
This leads to censorship andeducation, to teacher firings,
to harassment, to students beingvilified.
(23:10):
So we have to be reallyskeptical of this legislative
Israel caucus.
Christine (23:17):
I so appreciate that point.
this was part of a quartet ofrepressive bills that the
legislative Israel caucusproposed last year.
And this was signed into law byNewsom and locally in Santa
Cruz.
One of the bill's co-authors isGail Rin, and some of us
(23:37):
actually had a chance to meetwith her to speak to her about
her support for 1277.
This Holocaust and Genocideeducation Bill, which Marcy, you
rightly stated, represents acollaboration with the
Anti-Defamation League.
I.
It patrols what can be taught asgenocide in California
(24:00):
classrooms.
And like AB 1468, the bill thatwe're discussing today, it also
proposes top down ideologicalcontrol over the substance of
California's education withregard to the topic of genocide.
And when we spoke with Gail Rin,I asked her outright, I said, do
(24:25):
you believe that there's agenocide happening in Palestine?
And her response was, I do notbelieve that a genocide is
happening in Palestine.
I believe that there's ahorrendous war, but there are
atrocities on both sides.
That is what she stated, Dylan.
Dylan (24:47):
Yeah, I think it's important to not make any
mistake as to what's happening.
Around beneath and after thisparticular attempt at imposing
legislation to control ethnicstudies, which is that what
we're seeing is immobilizationby the forces of pro-Israel and
Zionist colonialism and onedirectional war, genocidal war,
(25:13):
to essentially define campusesas a particular theater of
conquest.
These forces, pro Israel Zionistforces intend to dominate those
of us that would pose informed,rigorously studied and research
critiques and analysis.
Of Israeli occupation andgenocide against Palestinian
(25:34):
peoples, across the diaspora,across historical periods.
They want to crowd us out.
They not only wanna crowd usout, they want to actively
criminalize our capacity toutter those statements, those
words, those analyses, whetherin the classroom or outside the
classroom.
So we need to take thatseriously.
It's warfare as both actualmaterial, ideological war
(25:56):
legislation and otherwise, andas a significant metaphor that
extracts casualties.
Marcy (26:03):
I'd just like to piggyback on what Dylan said.
Right now many of us have heardof project 2025, right?
That's from the HeritageFoundation.
It's to basically defund thegovernment to afford bigger tax
cuts to billionaires and toprivatize everything.
The Heritage Foundation has alsoproduced Project Esther, which
(26:25):
is a lot of what Dylan wastalking about.
It's a war on students.
It's a war on education tocontrol the narrative about
Israel.
And although the LegislativeIsrael caucus in California,
many of them perceive themselvesas progressive on housing or
water, or artificialintelligence, whistle blowing.
(26:47):
At the end of the day, they arebacking Project Esther in
California.
They are doing Trump's work herein censoring ethnic studies.
Christine (26:59):
And this is not by any stretch of the imagination
work that began after October7th, 2023.
It has long been in the works asevery single one of us can
attest here.
We have been targeted by Zionistorganizations for now going on
(27:25):
many years.
Some of us have been subjectedto hate mail to death threats.
People have been doxed, peoplehave lost work.
And we could see from the kindof, tactics that were deployed
that ethnic studies became akind of arena for the kind of
(27:51):
warfare that Dylan isdescribing.
In no small part because of theZionist fear that ethnic studies
is a place in which Israelisettler colonialism could be
studied.
Israel's genocide of thePalestinian people, its ethnic
(28:14):
cleansing of the Palestinianpeople could be studied, and
that Palestinian perspectives onIsraeli genocide, settler
colonialism, and apartheid couldbe centered.
And in fact.
Newsom in signing AB 1 0 1 cavedto the Zionist lobby by ensuring
(28:42):
that there were ideologicalguardrails around ethnic
studies.
What were those guardrails?
There were guardrails thatattempted to understand any
mention of Palestine orPalestinian right to life as a
form of bias, bigotry, anddiscrimination.
(29:04):
So what we're seeing here is akind of war strategy in which
Palestine must be expunged fromthe order of knowledge.
Not only is there a genocidehappening against the
Palestinian people, butPalestine cannot even enter into
(29:27):
the order of knowledge.
Jennifer, I wonder if you couldaddress the fact that one of the
bill's, co-authors andintroducers Josh Becker, has
stated, point blank in publiccomments about AB 1468, that
(29:49):
there was no Palestine beforethe creation of the State of
Israel in 1948, and he andothers in the legislative Jewish
caucus have professed that oneof their key concerns about
ethnic studies is its lack ofhistorical accuracy.
(30:13):
The person who has said thathe's concerned about ethnic
studies being historicallyinaccurate has stated that there
was no Palestine.
Jmo (30:23):
Yes.
Thank you Christine.
I wanted to just start by sayingthis is why we can't trust
legislators who have nohistorical knowledge or access
to education to be doing thework of policing or setting
standards, quote unquote fordisciplines that they have no
(30:44):
expertise in.
And this question requires alonger historical understanding
of the question of Europeancolonialism in the region and
the colonial nature of the wayin which nation states are
formed.
And so I think this point thatthey're trying to make, that's
(31:04):
historically inaccurate pointsto the fact that they are.
Privileging a specific sort ofnation state, European nation
state order of the accounting ofhistory and the landscape of the
region in which Palestine is apart.
But I also wanted to say thatjust as a counter to this
(31:30):
argument, maybe many people haveseen that visit Palestine poster
that.
Is heavily circulated.
That poster was circulatedactually by Zionists trying to
push for Jewish migration toPalestine prior to the state of
(31:53):
Israel being formed.
And you look at even the BelforDeclar declaration in 1917,
right prior to the British eventaking official mandatory
control over Palestine andmilitarizing Palestine, that
they state that they promisebasically a Jewish homeland in
(32:14):
Palestine to the leaders of theZionist movement.
And the Zionists themselves knowthat there was something and is
something called Palestine inthose historic lands.
I wanted to go back a little bitto the IRA definition of
antisemitism and how thisweaponizing is deeply
(32:35):
racialized.
I think this bill promotes antiPalestinian racism because it
works to erase our existence.
It also works to target, and ithas historically in California,
for the past five plus years,worked to target Arab American
Studies as a whole, as asubfield of Asian American
(32:57):
studies and, you really cannotstudy Arab-American studies
without centering the questionof Palestine.
It's always been a centralquestion.
For Arabs and for the history ofArab-Americans in the United
(33:17):
States.
Palestine has always been acentral issue.
And the last point that I wouldlike to make, turning back to
the IRA definition, is thatweaponizing a critique of a
foreign nation state.
The Israeli genocidal state asantisemitic is deeply offensive
(33:42):
and also dangerous for Jews inthe United States.
Who may experience actual formsof antisemitic violence because
it flattens the definition ofantisemitism and it applies it
to different frameworks forunderstanding what a foreign
(34:06):
nation state is doing.
And so it waters down the waysin which Jewish communities here
might actually being attackedfor racist or xenophobic
reasons.
Marcy (34:18):
This is Marcia.
I absolutely agree and I thinkthat this kind of definition,
the International HolocaustRemembrance Alliance definition
and examples that conflateanti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
are anti-Semitic at the core.
I was raised as a Jewish personand raised to believe in one God
monotheism is a bedrock of theJewish religion and tradition,
(34:41):
and yet.
Even though we were taught toreject idolatry, this worship of
a nation state is a form ofidolatry.
Not only that, not only the factthat it runs counter to the
teachings of Judaism, theInternational Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance definitionpaints all Jews as a monolith,
(35:01):
that we all support the state ofIsrael, that we all view
criticism of the state ofIsrael's founding principles as
anti-Semitic.
We don't, that's not true.
And so I would just turn thisquestion on its head and say,
why would anyone support thisdefinition and examples when it
(35:21):
promotes antisemitism?
Christine (35:24):
Ironically, one of the definitions of antisemitism
in the IRA definition is theconflation of Jewish people with
a state of Israel.
Yet this is what the legislativeJewish caucus itself does.
And by expanding the definitionof antisemitism to include any
(35:51):
critique of the state of Israel,the caucus itself is violating
the IRA definition.
This is not an endorsement ofthe IRA definition, but to point
out that the fatal flaw in thisexpanded notion of antisemitism
(36:13):
and its application to ethnicstudies is that these kinds of
legislators who don't even dane.
To consult with ethnic studiesexperts before arrogantly
attempting to legislate onethnic studies.
They do not understand thatethnic studies is not ethnicity
(36:40):
studies and ethnic studies, sureas hell is not the
propagandistic imperialistwhitewashing of repressive ethno
nationalisms Dylan.
You are the sole distinguishedprofessor in the uc system who
(37:04):
received a degree in ethnicstudies from the uc.
So we are ethnic studiespractitioners, we're scholars,
we're experts, and I'd reallylike to invite you to weigh in
on AB 1468.
In particular two provisions ofthis bill.
(37:24):
One of the provisions basicallystates that ethnic studies has
to focus strictly on thedomestic experience of
marginalized peoples in theUnited States.
And that it has to, as Marcy wasdiscussing before, studiously
(37:47):
not go into the realm ofideological theories, causes, or
pedagogies that inform aspecific group's experiences.
And so that's one provision ofthe bill.
Another one is that ethnicstudies cannot fall into the
(38:09):
arena of advocacy, personalopinion, bias, or partnership
that it has to abide by.
Accepted standards ofprofessional responsibility and
that it must be fair andbalanced.
Could you please speak to thisand could you weigh in on any
(38:30):
aspect of this bill as an ethnicstudies expert?
Dylan (38:36):
I appreciate this question and I'll just say that
I'm not sure that I'm the onlydistinguished professor with a
PhD in ethnic studies from theuc system, but I can guarantee
I'm one of very few if there areothers.
And which is meaningful only inthe sense here that none of us
distinguished professor orotherwise, none of us who
actually hold a PhD in the fieldof ethnic studies was ever
(38:57):
remotely contacted, much lessconsulted by anybody who had
anything to do with writing thislegislation.
Alright, so that leads to twopoints I wanna make in response
to your question.
One is, we need to treat thislegislation and it's writers for
what they are.
These are clown ass politicians.
They're the opportunistic footsoldiers of a larger community
of political, propagandists ofan academic community that
(39:22):
supports Zionism in Israel andwants to normalize it and
naturalize it as the onlyposition that one can take in
the university setting.
These are groups of politicallyand ideologically driven people,
Jewish and non-Jewish, whointentionally and persistently
treat the scholarship of ethnicstudies and affiliated fields
through logics of what can onlybe called academic apartheid,
(39:45):
curricular colonialism, and goodold fashioned racist and
anti-black double standards.
What do I mean by that?
Those are heavy words, heavyaccusations.
Every damn word of it.
Okay?
Imagine a group of ideologicallydriven elected state officials.
Telling any field, for example,in stem, all right, any field in
the business schools that thegovernment should control the
(40:08):
content of their curriculumwhile simultaneously not
consulting with a single scholarwho is actually based in those
fields.
That shit would never happen.
Y'all it would never everhappen, right?
It would never happen there.
There'd be no credibility.
So it's warfare on multiplefronts, but at the level of
curricular ideological warfare,that's what's ironic in some
ways and hypocritical, but Ithink entirely intentional about
(40:30):
the way the bill is written, isthat there's an implicit
accusation that people who teachethnic studies are somehow
ideologically driven when theentire bill is an ideological
declaration of war, right?
There's not even a remoteunderstanding of what ethnic
studies is as a scholarly fieldand how much rigor has gone into
compiling archives and conceptsand curricula, like all the
work.
Okay?
So that's the first point.
(40:50):
The second point is a shorterone that I just wanna make to
just tie some threads togetherto just convey how insidious and
how dangerous the forces behindthis bill actually are.
The bill itself is dangerous,but I'm talk about the forces
behind the bill.
Everything about this billechoes what has come to be known
as white supremacist replacementtheory.
Okay?
(41:10):
In the case of this bill, theterm multiculturalism intends to
displace and replace ethnicstudies and the multiculturalism
concept that got thrown out withthe trash, literally decades
ago, right?
So the notion ofmulticulturalism that's being
put forward in this build, thisis a kind of rhetorical cover
for the anxieties of whitesupremacists and
(41:32):
multiculturalist replacementpropagandists, right?
Who are concerned.
Somehow that that their versionof knowledge, their version of
teaching and curriculum, issomehow going to be wholly
destroyed and replaced by ethnicstudies, which of course is not
the case.
Maybe it should be, but it's notthe case.
So this is really no differentthan white supremacist
replacement theory in theacademic setting.
So those are two points I'd makeabout this.
Christine (41:54):
This is something that Marcy was mentioning
before, this attempt to dumbdown the criticality of a field
that originated in a thirdworlds student movement.
Anyone wanna speak about thekind of dumbing down to the
domestic experience and whatkind of violence that re
inscribes.
Sean (42:15):
I'll just say that, one of the most threatening things of
those student movements of the1960s and seventies that
resulted in ethnic studies isthat they were not simply
organizing for ethnic studies.
They were not simply organizingfor an institutionalized
formation that included theirvoices and the voices of their
communities.
They were organizing aninternational solidarity against
(42:37):
genocide and imperialismprojects that their own
universities and government wereengaged in.
And that has always beenthreatening Even the more
limited formation of ethnicstudies that arose out of those
protests, which in no ways metthe full vision of those
students, even that more limitedvision remains threatening
because it does.
It does not simply critiquepower, but shows how that power
(43:01):
operates across internationalborders and offers students
tools for thinking about ways toresist that in a way that is not
confined to the borders of theUS nation state.
And there are always people, notjust Republicans, not just
conservatives, but manyDemocrats and liberals who find
that idea terrifying,
Christine (43:21):
Thank you, Sean.
Some of you have described thisbill as racist both during this
conversation and elsewhere.
And I wonder if you couldelaborate on what you mean by
that and further, how does thisparticular bill fit into the
current political landscape?
(43:42):
One in which, as Dylan wassaying, we have seen massive
repression of students, faculty,staff.
How does it relate to the Trumpagenda?
The members of the legislativeJewish caucus are by and large
members of the Democratic party,and they're part of that,
(44:02):
bipartisan war party apparatus.
But can you situate this bill inour current moment and can you
also elaborate on what you meanwhen you say this is racist?
This bill is brought forward bythis caucus that claims that
it's trying to thwart and guardagainst antisemitism.
What is racist about this bill?
Marcy (44:23):
This is Marcy.
I think what Dylan laid outspeaks to this, and that is the
bill.
Ideological warfare.
It says that students should notbe looking at the connection
between what's happening hereand what happened over there.
Forget about internationalrelations, US foreign policy,
(44:45):
colonialism across the board.
Focus only on what, I don'tknow, focus on festivals, is
that what they're asking?
It says, don't look at thecauses of marginalization.
So we're not supposed to look atwhite supremacy and how that
impacts students of color in ourcountry.
As Dylan pointed out, none ofthe people that worked on this
(45:07):
bill, the co-authors actuallyconsulted ethnic studies
scholars.
That's presumptuous to say theleast.
at the end of the day, the billalso doesn't make economic
sense.
We have a big debt inCalifornia.
We wanna fund ethnic studies.
That should be the principledemand at this point.
It is unfunded, even though ithas been codified into state
(45:29):
law.
And instead, we have alegislative Israel caucus
focusing on policing thediscipline.
Sean (45:36):
Yeah.
This is Sean and I want to justunderline a pointment that's
been made by Marcy and by Dylan.
We are all very rightly focusedon the current assault on
education and our basic civilliberties from the current.
Administration of Washington aswe should be.
I know people who are on thispodcast are particularly
concerned about assaults on ourstudents.
From that administration,students literally being
(45:57):
disappeared into unmarked vans.
As we fight that, we also needto acknowledge the way in which
Democrats, liberals, and folksin deep blue states like
California have been complicitin that agenda.
And actually long before Project2025 of the current
administration have beeninvolved in efforts to
(46:18):
systematically censor.
Repress efforts to learn aboutissues around race, about
Palestine.
This is not simply a Trumpproblem or a Republican problem,
or a project, 2025 problem.
This racist bill is being putforward by Democrats in a deep
(46:39):
blue state with a two thirdsuper majority.
We have problems here.
We need to confront that gobeyond the current
administration, and even as wefight the censorship and
repression and violenceunleashed by the Trump
administration, we need to haveour eyes on the folks in
Sacramento and elsewhere.
I believe Dylan called themclown ass politicians.
(47:00):
I hope I quoted you correctly,Dylan.
Those folks are mostlyDemocrats.
And while we here in Californiamay not have the ability to
instantly change policy inWashington we have power in our
local elections.
We have power to put pressure onthose who represent us in
Sacramento and locally to walkaway from this racist bill, and
(47:23):
also to more broadly act infavor of liberation rather than
repression.
And that is something thatcannot be said of the vast
majority of our representativesin Sacramento right now.
Jmo (47:35):
This is Jennifer.
I wanted to bring theconversation back to how this
bill is anti Palestinian,anti-Arab and discriminates is
anti-Muslim and xenophobic tojust say that the authors and
supporters of this bill are atbest genocide, deniers, and at
most genocide supporters.
(47:55):
And so when we're talking aboutteaching and educating our
students in a framework that.
Largely fits outside of whatwe're traditionally taught.
It's really important that thosewho have studied from a
different perspective throughethnic studies and related
(48:16):
fields are central determinantsof this curriculum.
And I think just to add a lastpoint is that we're seeing
perhaps one of the largeststudent movements that we've
seen since the inception of thefield in 1968.
(48:36):
The center of that is Palestineand the central threat.
To establishment politics thatare bipartisan is this question
of Palestine.
And we're seeing radicalpersecution of people who are
exercising their First Amendmentrights because of this central
(49:01):
question.
And if we allow ethnic studiesto be censored and determined by
people who are racist, who denygenocides happening.
We're gonna allow not just theerasure of Palestinians from our
curriculum, or Arabs and ArabAmericans from our curriculum or
(49:24):
critical perspective on Muslimstudies.
It is going to come to all ofour communities that we center
in ethnic studies.
Palestine is the center rightnow, and it's using decades of
built up propaganda that is antiPalestinian and anti-Arab from
(49:47):
the Cold War, red Scarediscourse to the war on terror
policy changes.
And now we're seeing thatcrystallizing against
Palestinian communities andtheir supporters, especially
students real materialconsequences are being wielded
for speaking out againstgenocide.
Marcy (50:10):
Yes, this is Marcy and I appreciate everything that
Jennifer said.
And second that, and I thoughtnow might be an opportune time
to share the comments made byone of the co-authors, Josh
Becker, who is representing, inquotes, Menlo Park, the Atherton
area.
If anyone had any doubt aboutthe motivation for this bill, I
(50:32):
think listening to Becker willanswer you.
So if it's all right with you,I'll play this clip from a
webinar on the bill AB 1468, inwhich co-authors Don ATIs Rick
Chavez and Josh Becker wereinterviewed and they talk about
why they were so motivated tobecome a warrior.
(50:54):
They used the term warrior forthis bill.
And note of what he says.
Clip from JPAC (51:00):
All know the UN created Israel, um, and there
was no Palestine before that,and Gaza was controlled by
Egypt.
And we all know the history.
Marcy (51:09):
And think back to the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
I'm not holding it up as anadmirable document.
Absolutely not.
But even in the BalfourDeclaration, it talks about
establishing a Jewish homelandin quote Palestine.
Christine (51:22):
I wanted to just mention that one of the ways in
which the legislative Jewishcaucus has sought to portray
ethnic studies is that thefield.
Encourages students to dividepeople into two categories, a
binary of oppressors versusoppressed, this is a cartoonish
(51:45):
portrait.
But this gets at the question ofnot ever looking at causes.
It is not the case that ethnicstudies resizes groups at all.
Instead, ethnic studies enablesus critically to examine
structures and systems ofviolence, of which Zionism is
(52:10):
one.
And as Jennifer was saying,there is a genocide happening
and the repression that ishappening here, I.
Is tied to that genocide.
So we need to be able to have across border conversation about
(52:30):
transnational systems andstructures of violence.
And critical thinking also isnot comfortable.
It challenges receivedpreconceptions.
I wanted to say something too.
Gavin Newsom in a squirrelymoment issued an open letter to
(52:53):
California's Muslim, PalestinianAmerican and Arab American
communities last year.
And he essentially stated, okay,I realize that many of you are
alienated.
You have seen the DemocraticParty say exactly nothing about
what is happening in Gaza.
(53:14):
And he acknowledges that ArabAmericans, Palestinian
Americans, Muslim Americans,have been failed by the
political establishment.
And he says, we have to earnback your trust.
And then he states somethingextraordinary.
He said, but don't worry, thereis a place for you.
(53:38):
And one of those places is inethnic studies.
And so I want to close thisconversation and maybe we can
spool things back.
So what can people do And.
What kind of actions should theybe taking?
How can people get involved andin what ways?
Marcy (54:01):
This is Marcy Winter grad.
I am a proud member of UnitedTeachers of Los Angeles, 35,000
teachers strong, and a votingmember of their governing
structure, the House ofRepresentatives.
And we recently voted to take aposition as a union in
opposition to AB 1468.
The police ethnic studies billand this motion that passed is
significant because UnitedTeachers of Los Angeles is the
(54:24):
largest.
Chapter local of the CaliforniaTeachers Association that
represents 300,000 teachersthroughout the state of
California.
CTA defeated the last bill topolice ethnic studies.
They can do it again if theytake a principled stand in
opposition, and that's what weare urging them to do.
So if you are involved with yourunion, please bring this to the
(54:44):
union for a vote, for a motionto oppose and let CTA and the
legislators know also.
As a chair of a Central CoastAnti-War coalition, a chapter of
Code Pink, I've been urging allof our supporters to call their
representatives in the assemblyand in the California Senate and
say, vote no on AB 1468.
(55:06):
It's a backdoor attempt tosilence the voices for
Palestinian rights.
It would bloat our statebureaucracy to use SERP local
school district authority overcurriculum, over community
responsive curriculum.
So let's get on the phone, let'ssend those emails and let's take
this issue to our unions.
Christine (55:25):
Yes, and in closing, I want to state that this is a
bill that serves a very narrowideological purpose that has
broad damaging results.
And so in the interest ofdefending.
Israel at any and all costs.
(55:47):
The legislative Jewish caucus isproposing legislation like AB
1468 that actually harm theability of the majority of
California's population to haveaccess to an ethnic studies
education.
This is the sole field that hasbeen shown to have broad across
(56:12):
the board benefit forhistorically marginalized
communities of color.
This is the sole field of studythat increases life chances by
increasing college going, andthat increases attendance at the
K through 12 level.
(56:33):
And so this is part of theracist effect of legislation
like this, and we need to have.
Lawmakers that serve theinterests of the majority people
of California.
And that includes ArabAmericans, Palestinian
Americans, and Muslim Americans.
(56:56):
And there is no way no how thatanyone in the field of ethnic
studies would consent to theerasure of Palestinian people in
ethnic studies legislation.
Thank you so much, Marcy, forjoining the uc Ethnic Studies
Council in our first podcast.
(57:16):
Thank you everyone forlistening.
Marcy (57:18):
Great to be with you.
Thank you so much for invitingme.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.