Get your CLES swag today at tinyurl.com/CLES-merchstore! Help us reclaim, defend, and build liberatory Ethnic Studies across the United States by purchasing CLES swag designed in collaboration with author and illustrator Robert Liu-Trujillo (work.robdontstop.com)! The design features youth holding up protest signs that read: Coalition for Liberated Ethnic Studies, Stop Anti-Asian Violence, We Didn’t Cross The Border, The Border Crossed Us, Free Palestine, Black Lives Matter, Read Banned Books, No More Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Ethnic Studies is Queer Too!

‼️NEW CALL TO ACTION - HELP STOP AB 715 ‼️ On May 14, the California Assembly Education Committee passed AB 715. It then goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee and if passed there, to the Assembly floor. Bills must clear the Assembly by June 6, so please take some time to send emails, calls, and outreach to stop AB 715! Link in bio! 🛑 AB 715 is a blatant attack on racial justice, education and educators! 🛑 AB 715 is a thinly veiled attempt at vilifying open and accurate discussion of Palestine in our schools! 🛑AB 715 would amend the California Education Code to expand the definition of “nationality” to include perceived ancestry or religion tied to a country. This would conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and thus facilitate banning books, articles and films that purportedly "promote discrimination” based on nationality or religion! ➡️Take a few minutes to send emails, calls, and outreach to stop AB 715: tinyurl.com/stop-ab715 (link in bio)

Repost @cair_sfba CAIRCA, @arocaction, @jvpaction, and other members of a statewide coalition strongly condemn the unanimous passage of AB 715, a bill that would concerningly expand the definition of “nationality” in California’s Education Code to include perceived ancestry, ethnicity, or even religious affiliation tied to a country, such as Israel. The bill passed in a 9–0 vote during a special Assembly Education Committee hearing earlier today.    AB 715 is an assault on academic freedom that would open the door to punish educators who teach about Palestine, colonialism, or human rights abuses, simply because someone claims an offense tied to their national or religious identity.    Visit ca.cair.com to learn more.

‼️URGENT & TIME SENSITIVE - TAKE 1 MINUTE TO PROTECT ETHNIC STUDIES‼️ We are winning—but the fight isn’t over.  Thanks to powerful, intersectional organizing from students, educators, and community members like you, AB 1468 is tentatively being pulled from its hearing. This is a major victory. The bill sought to gut Ethnic Studies and censor conversations about Palestine, colonization, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia. Together, we forced its now anticipated withdrawal. But instead of listening to us, they’re doubling down.  AB 715 is now being quietly gutted and amended to push the same dangerous agenda—this time under the guise of combating antisemitism. Rumored changes would weaponize a politicized definition of antisemitism to silence educators who teach about Palestine, replacing honest education with fear and censorship.  Tell your Assemblymembers: We won’t trade one bad bill for another. We are watching AB 715 closely. Stand up for Ethnic Studies, academic freedom, and Palestinian voices. Send a letter by 5/14: tinyurl.com/stop715 (link in bio)

As we stand in the crosshairs of MAGA’s attack on K-12 education, the legal rights that protect educators’ ability to teach about liberation and justice depend on our collective political power to defend them. Many of our students are coming to school in a condition of extreme unsafety, with daily threats that the MAGA regime may abduct their parents, take away their medical care and their bathrooms, or assassinate their cousins abroad. The repression targeting teachers is aimed at creating a climate of fear to make teachers afraid to protect kids, and to make kids afraid to ask for what they need to learn. Courage is as contagious as fear, and we are here to spread courage for our students. At the same time, we want our resistance to be strategic and sustainable. In that spirit, this article provides an overview of students’ and teachers’ free speech rights in and out of the classroom. Please keep it close at school so you can share it with other teachers, administrators, and parents. 📚Read The Article: tinyurl.com/KYR-Teachers (link in bio)

📢Join us for the #TeachTruth Day of Action on Saturday, June 7, to defend the freedom to learn! 📢 We need to reach as many people as possible with information about the chilling effect of anti-history education laws and executive orders. As journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones noted, "They erase your history so that they can erase your rights." Event hosts receive resources for activities and displays for their day of action to engage the public in a range of activities at a library, bookstore, city hall, farmers market, festival, or other public spaces. Defend a truthful education and the rights of all of our students, no matter their race, gender identity, or immigration status. Learn more and sign-up: zinnedproject.org

California’s AB 1468 is just another iteration of racist and anti-Palestinian policy from Zionist opposition to Ethnic Studies. Read more about the long fight for liberatory Ethnic Studies in California and to teach Palestine in Ethnic Studies: 👩🏾‍💻tinyurl.com/truthout-ab1468 (link in bio) Sign on to say no to AB 1468: tinyurl.com/no-ab1468 (link in bio) “There are so many layers of policing and surveillance that no other academic area has [like Ethnic Studies]...[California’s AB 1468] is absolutely unprecedented overreach, and it’s an arm of the state trying to censor what our children are learning [and] censor the truth of our students’ realities.” - Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen Co-chair of the San Diego Unified School District Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee, lecturer in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz 📝"California Ethnic Studies Bill Aims to Censor Palestine-Related Education” by Marianne Dhenin , TRUTHOUT, Published April 2, 2025

“We believe there are several reasons for their choice of Santa Ana. The first is the same reason that Zionist organizations have focused on Berkeley. They believe if they can get progressive, avowedly anti-racist school boards to silence teaching about Palestine, other school districts will fall in line. The second is the targeted attack on educators and organizations that have fought for the inclusion of Palestine as a necessary topic in Ethnic Studies. In Santa Ana, that’s an attack on XITO. In Berkeley, it’s an attack on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium; in Pajaro Valley and Fresno, it’s an attack on Community Responsive Education.” Santa Ana Unified School District Caves to Anti-Palestinian Racism 👩🏾‍💻Read Our Full Statement: tinyurl.com/sausdES (link in bio)

CLES is deeply troubled that the Santa Ana Unified School District (Santa Ana, CA) bowed to the demands of Zionist lawyers, essentially eviscerating their robust and community-supported Ethnic Studies program. The Santa Ana Board of Education signed a 13-page agreement, caving to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Zionist organizations—the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Stand With Us and Potomac Law. Under the agreement, the district will stop teaching Ethnic Studies World Geography, Ethnic Studies World Histories, and Ethnic Studies: Perspectives, Identities and Social Justice after this academic school year. The courses must be redesigned under a process that includes inviting input from the instigators of the lawsuit. 👩🏾‍💻Read our full statement: tinyurl.com/sausdES (link in bio)