Students from Encinal High School and St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda, California, participating in anti-Israel demonstration on Jan 26. 2024: Photo: Michael Ho Wai Lee / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed with prejudice the legal challenge to a landmark California law enacted last year to combat rising antisemitic discrimination, bullying, and harassment in K-12 schools, ordering the case closed after finding that its opponents had failed to establish standing, ripeness, or a viable constitutional claim.

The ruling is a major defeat for efforts to block Assembly Bill 715, although the plaintiffs may still appeal.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation on Oct. 7, 2025, the second anniversary of Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel. The law created an Office of Civil Rights and an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator while strengthening procedures for investigating discrimination in public schools.

It also requires classroom instruction to be factually accurate and consistent with adopted curricula rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship. Materials found to have resulted in unlawful discrimination may be permanently removed.

In Tuesday’s ruling, US District Judge Noël Wise of the Northern District of California granted the state’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint.

“Plaintiffs have not provided any compelling reason for the Court to disturb any of its findings on standing, ripeness, or the merits,” Wise wrote.

The lawsuit was brought by public-school teachers, parents, students, and Los Angeles Educators for Justice in Palestine, with support from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. They alleged that AB 715 was unconstitutionally vague, chilled anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian expression, and discriminated against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim viewpoints.

Wise rejected the challenge partly because the abuses the plaintiffs predicted—including suppression of discussions about Palestinian history, anti-Zionism, and criticism of Israel—had not occurred.

“AB 715 took full effect on January 1, 2026, imposing legally binding and concrete obligations on schools at that time,” she wrote. “And yet, Plaintiffs have not pointed to a single instance in which AB 715 has been used, or has even been invoked, to challenge the type of conduct Plaintiffs intend to engage in.”

Wise added that the plaintiffs “may have a colorable claim” if such events occur, “but not before.”

The judge also rejected an equal-protection claim alleging that creating an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator privileged Jewish students. Wise noted that the Office of Civil Rights combats discrimination generally and that companion legislation created coordinators addressing other protected groups.

“The existence of an Antisemitism Coordinator does not change the Office’s overarching purpose to stop discrimination generally,” Wise wrote. “It merely reflects the State’s decision to accord specific funds to a specific problem.”

Jewish California praised the ruling for validating AB 715 as a “critical and constitutionally sound tool to address antisemitism in schools.” The organization helped coordinate an amicus brief supporting the law on behalf of 31 Jewish groups, with a legal team that included former US Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Tuesday’s decision follows Wise’s rejection in December of the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction preventing AB 715 from taking effect.

In that ruling, Wise held that public-school teachers generally do not possess a First Amendment right to determine what they say while delivering government-approved instruction. Teachers may speak freely as private citizens, she explained, but in public-school classrooms they speak on behalf of the state.

“The court correctly acknowledged that public school teachers do not have free speech rights in the classroom, because when they deliver lessons to students they are speaking on behalf of the government,” Carly Gammill, director of legal policy and litigation at StandWithUs Saidoff Law, said following the earlier ruling.

AB 715 has also faced efforts to weaken it in the California Legislature. In March, Assemblymember Robert Garcia proposed removing its reference to the Biden administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, altering the status of the Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, and eliminating language requiring instruction to avoid advocacy, bias, and partisanship. The proposal failed to advance.

The legal battle comes amid persistently elevated antisemitism across California. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 817 antisemitic incidents in the state during 2025, the second-highest total in the country behind New York. Nearly half—398—occurred in Los Angeles County, while 165 incidents statewide targeted Jewish institutions.

Nationally, the ADL recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025—the third-highest annual total since it began tracking such activity in 1979—and a record number of physical assaults.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.