Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill intended to prevent conservative school boards from banning textbooks on the basis of how they portray minorities and LGBTQ people.
“From Temecula to Tallahassee, fringe ideologues across the country are attempting to whitewash history and ban books from schools,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a news release in a not-so-subtle dig at Florida Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
“With this new law, we’re cementing California’s role as the true freedom state: a place where families — not political fanatics — have the freedom to decide what’s right for them,” Newsom said Monday, Sept. 25.
The bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Perris, said in the release that it “is the responsibility of every generation to continue the fight for civil and human rights against those who seek to take them away.”
“Today, California has met this historical imperative and we will be ready to meet the next one,” Jackson added.
The bill, AB 1078, requires school boards to approve learning materials that “accurately portray the contributions of people of all genders and the role and contributions of Latino Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, and other ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic status groups.”
School boards defying the mandate would risk losing state funding. Conservatives opposed AB 1078, saying it infringed on local control and parents’ rights to determine what their children learn in school.
Jackson’s bill followed several attempts by school boards earlier this year in California’s conservative enclaves to ban textbooks they saw as sexually explicit or divisive. Some said the bans sought to erase LGBTQ history and truthful lessons about race in America.
In Temecula, the school board rejected an elementary social studies curriculum with supplemental materials that referenced the late LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk. Two board members called Milk a “pedophile.”
Newsom threatened to send textbooks to Temecula and, using AB 1078’s provisions, fine the Temecula Valley Unified School District if the board did not approve the curriculum. The Temecula school board eventually adopted it.
In Murrieta, the school board in April rejected an 11th-grade social studies textbook. Some board members said it contains elements of critical race theory and negatively portrays former President Donald Trump.
