Ethnic studies courses, which will become a graduation requirement for high school seniors at the end of this decade, are the latest flash point over curriculum that has left many parents on edge.

The conflict over ethnic studies is continuing in Sacramento where legislation authored by members of the Jewish Legislation Caucus to prevent antisemitism and prejudice from seeping into the courses passed its first hurdle earlier this month.

But Assembly Bill 2918, authored Assemblymembers Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, and Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, faces months of intense negotiations, according to reports, to persuade legislators who agree with its intent but question whether the bill’s restrictions and lack of clarity may lead to further conflicts. The bill, they say, could expose school districts to increased harassment and litigation, ostensibly from parents and Jewish groups.

The 2021 state law establishing an ethnic studies mandate — that all high schools offer a course in 2025-26 and make it a graduation requirement in 2030-31 — requires districts to hold two hearings before adopting an ethnic studies course. The law also includes a broad warning that the instruction must be free of “any bias, bigotry, or discrimination.”

But curriculum as presented hasn’t worked out quite that way. Parents have complained they had no idea what their children were being taught and school board members have complained they weren’t fully aware of what was in a course they approved.

The bill, which is supported by State Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond would require:

• A committee that would include classroom teachers and parents to formally review instructional materials and a locally developed ethnic studies course.

• The governing board of a district or charter school to determine that the course doesn’t promote any bias, bigotry, or discrimination and explain why they declined to adopt a course based on the ethnic studies model curriculum that the State Board of Education adopted in 2018;

• That parents receive a written notice before a course is presented for approval.

At the suggestion of staff, Zbur and Addis (who represents much of Santa Cruz County) agreed not to apply the bill to already approved courses and not to require school board members to certify with the State Department of Education that the course is factually and historically accurate.

At first reading, this bill deserves support — as tensions over the content of ethnic studies courses have continued since the State Board of Education first put together a voluntary ethnic studies framework. But almost from the outset critics, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Thurmond, said the framework, written mostly by academics, was overly ideological and biased.

But, after the state board adopted a changed framework in 2021, the first draft’s authors disavowed the final revised version and formed the “Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies.”

Its member organizations have contracted with districts to buy their versions of ethnic studies, which stress the challenges of white supremacy and an oppressive capitalist system, and solidarity with Palestine’s battle for liberation.

Over the past year, without mentioning the Liberated Ethnic Studies coalition by name, both Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Newsom administration have reminded school districts to adhere to the law’s prohibition of discrimination.

This battle has flared up in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, among other districts, where the issue of whether to restore a canceled contract with an ethnic studies consultant is facing new PVUSD Superintendent Heather Contreras. The proposed ethnic studies curriculum for PVUSD has been criticized as antisemitic and anti-American, which supporters deny while calling for the contract to be renewed.

We’ll take up the PVUSD curriculum battle in a subsequent Editorial.

Information on the legislative maneuvering on ethnic studies included a July 4 report by EdSource’s John Fensterwald.