In the opening essay to our four part series, Professor Charles Stone traces the rise of ethnic studies pedagogy from student activism in the 1960s to its institutionalization in California law. This foundation sets the stage for the deeper curricular battles at the heart of the controversy.
The academic discipline of ethnic studies has its roots in California’s educational history. It was born from activism, not policy. In 1968, students led by the Third World Liberation Front organized a strike, demanding that universities provide a rigorous academic lens to study the experiences of African American, Asian American, and American Indian communities, and how they shaped and were shaped by America’s political and economic systems. These efforts culminated in the creation of the first College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University in 1969.
Fast forward to 2020, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1460, making a class in ethnic studies a graduation requirement for undergraduates in the California State University system. Around the same time, efforts were underway to embed ethnic studies into California high school education.
AB 2016 called for the creation of a model ethnic studies curriculum for public schools, asserting that such education benefits students by increasing academic engagement, improving test scores, and promoting empowerment.
Yet, from the moment it transitioned from grassroots movement to institutional requirement, ethnic studies in California began to raise concerns. The first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), written in response to AB 2016, explicitly introduced a concept of “education debt” owed by White people to People of Color. This divisive framing places students in a debtor/creditor relationship based on skin color.
Why must ethnic studies be grounded in a debtor/creditor narrative? This will likely impose an unfair bias in class lessons that make an effort to teach students how the African American and White American communities stood side by side and were beaten side by side in their active resistance to the segregationist south.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to frame the “education debt” not as what White owes Black but what inhumanity owes humanity. The ability to be unjust and cruel is not driven by the color of one’s skin but by “the content of one’s character”. An honest and complete examination of history and the current state of our world makes this quite evident.
Among the most contested elements in California’s ethnic studies debate is the portrayal of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The treatment of these subjects in various curricula reveals not only pedagogical priorities, but also ideological commitments. Central to the critique is the consistent framing of Zionism as a settler colonial movement. This interpretation is echoed in the writings of prominent ethnic studies scholars, such as Loubna Qutami of UCLA, who links Zionism to Manifest Destiny and casts it as a force of indefinite statelessness and global oppression. In these narratives, Zionism is not just political—it is moral wrongdoing.
Such a stance effectively places Zionism outside the bounds of moral legitimacy. It turns an entire national movement of Jewish self-determination into a crime. In doing so, it delegitimizes Jewish historical experience and silences complexity. And when this framing becomes part of public education, it risks normalizing antisemitism under the guise of anti-colonial critique.
Critics saw the first draft as not only divisive but dishonest. Governor Newsom ultimately vetoed AB 331—which would have made ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement—because the curriculum was “unbalanced, unfair and excluded certain communities.”
Yet, the project did not end there. In 2021, AB 101 was signed into law. It mandated that starting in the 2025–26 academic year, California high schools must offer a one-semester class in ethnic studies. For the class of 2030, it would become a graduation requirement. Unlike AB 331, AB 101 acknowledged previous controversies, explicitly advising schools to discard parts of the ESMC that were rejected due to concerns of bias or bigotry.
Even so, the concern remains: when policy is written, it is only a guide. It is the teacher who determines what students actually learn. Once the classroom door is closed, their word becomes the truth for a wide-eyed fourteen-year-old.
The effort to integrate ethnic studies more deeply into high school curriculum continued with the “Area H” proposal—a plan to add ethnic studies to the seven existing UC-required subjects (A-G). Area H proposed embedding ethnic studies into existing categories like history or government. From its inception in 2020 until its defeat in April 2025, the proposal went through numerous revisions. Ultimately, the UC Faculty Assembly voted it down.
As of 2025, approximately 418,000 California high school students will graduate each year. Over the next four years, 1.6 million students who recently graduated from a California high school will become eligible to vote. Their views, shaped in part by what they learned in school, will have serious implications. Ethnic studies has the potential to enrich those views. But if it becomes a vehicle for ideological indoctrination, particularly on complex issues like Israel and Zionism, the consequences may be severe.
The debate over the content and integration of ethnic studies into the public education system of California are not abstract. They are unfolding in real time across schools and legislative halls. The path from student activism to mandated curriculum has not been smooth. And If this journey shows anything, it is that ethnic studies, when implemented without care and balance, risks dividing rather than uniting students.
It is not the curriculum alone that will shape minds. It is the teachers. The promise of ethnic studies must be upheld not just in law, but in practice—with fairness, historical context, and a commitment to truth.
