A pro-Hamas activist posts a banner near an encampment to demonstrate at the Claremont Colleges on May 7, 2024, in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Qian Weizhong via Reuters Connect

Good — that’s within range now (645 words). Here’s the trimmed, edited story:

California’s legislature has begun weighing a bill that would curb the right of public university administrators to file misconduct charges against students who stage unauthorized demonstrations, a measure intended to overturn the policy regime higher education institutions established in recent years to prevent riotous, anti-Zionist protests.

Proposed by a coalition of progressive Democrats, the bill, AB 2551, represents an effort to win back ground the anti-Zionist student movement lost amid a shift of American politics to the right and the cultural force of “MAGA” (Make America Great Again). Since returning to the White House in 2025, US President Donald Trump (R) has confiscated billions of dollars in public funds from colleges and universities which allegedly failed to stop students from taking over campuses after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre inspired some three years of extremist activity which, at a few schools, is ongoing.

Universities that struck deals with Trump to restore funding did so under terms including restrictions on transgender athletes and racial preferences in admissions — reforms often unrelated to antisemitic incidents. Some schools, including Harvard University, also enacted new “expressive activity” policies governing campus space use, holding violators “financially responsible.”

California lawmakers backing AB 2551 argue that approach leaves little room for free speech, and say the disciplinary process must be made “transparent” to the public — a component critics say would discourage correcting unruly behavior when doing so is politically inconvenient.

The measure has drawn considerable support from far-left student groups, notably Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which served as the anti-Zionist student movement’s center of operations, coordinating protests and distributing Hamas-aligned talking points. SJP members have previously spit on Jewish students at UC Berkeley, while UCLA students chanted “death to the Jews.”

AB 2551 is also backed by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has distributed antisemitic content and sued to block Northwestern University from creating an antisemitism awareness training program. “AB 2551 passing the Senate Education Committee is a significant step forward in upholding students’ free speech rights,” the group said, calling existing enforcement policies “no longer content neutral.”

California’s legal and education systems continue to send mixed signals to the Jewish community. Last month, the State Assembly passed AB 2664, the “Safe Worship Zone Act,” creating 100-foot protest-free buffer zones around houses of worship — a measure endorsed by Jewish California. The state also previously enacted a landmark K-12 antisemitism law creating an Office for Civil Rights to monitor antisemitism in public schools.

At the same time, California State Assemblymember Robert Garcia (D) is pushing AB 2159, a bill to gut that same K-12 law, which has already gained wide support among progressives. Garcia’s bill “removes reference to a definition of antisemitism that could include criticism of Israeli government policy” and eliminates “vague and subjective language that exposes schools and teachers to discrimination complaints,” according to the text.

Garcia is a former trustee of the Etiwanda School District, which faces a civil rights complaint alleging a 12-year-old Jewish girl was flogged with a stick and mocked with jokes about Adolf Hitler, with the district allegedly failing to punish the bullies despite repeated complaints, according to a March 2025 filing by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.

“It is shameful that Assemblymember Garcia not only introduced a bill that would harm Jewish students, but ‘worked closely’ on it with organizations that have promoted or enabled antisemitism,” StandWithUs, a California-based Jewish advocacy group, said in a statement.

Still, California is recognized by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a leader in antisemitism legislation, having earned a score of 94 out of 100 in the group’s 2025 US Jewish Policy Index. “I am proud that California has been recognized as a champion in the fight against antisemitism and hate,” California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) said at the time, pledging to “continue the fight against anti-Jewish violence and bigotry.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.