Newspeak in the Classroom: California AB 715 and the Language of Control
by
I’m writing this as both a Californian and an investigative journalist who’s spent years watching how governments wrap control in the language of protection. California’s Assembly Bill 715, introduced in February 2025, passed the State Assembly on May 29, cleared the Senate later that summer, and was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 7, 2025. On the surface, it’s framed as a civil-rights measure to combat antisemitism in schools. In practice, it gives the state power to define acceptable thought and punish institutions that fail to enforce it.
This isn’t just a California issue. It’s part of a global pattern—governments everywhere using education to standardize belief and condition obedience. What follows is my commentary and analysis of how AB 715 functions as a case study in state-driven re-education, and why it matters far beyond California. I’m writing from the standpoint of voluntaryism, self-ownership, and black-flag anarchism—because any system that compels belief through force, funding, or fear deserves to be exposed.
AB 715 is sold as protection. In operation it is a compliance machine. The statute expands discrimination definitions inside California K–12, commands investigations through the Uniform Complaint Procedure, and ties institutional funding to proof of obedience. That is the spine. If a district cannot show it has corrected what the state defines as bias, the state can audit and tighten the screws. Money is the lever. Bureaucracy is the weapon.
Civil-rights compliance here means enforcement against institutions to produce behavior in individuals. That is not a theory. It is the structure. Administrators rewrite codes of conduct. Teachers attend compulsory “anti-bias” sessions. Students who say the wrong thing are sent to “counseling.” The euphemism translates into re-education. Call it what it is. Correcting thought. Shaping speech. Conditioning belief. The safest path for any school under this system is over-compliance. That is how you get uniform narrative by financial pressure, not persuasion.
A record exists for every step. Complaints, interviews, findings, sanctions, parent meetings, follow-ups, training rosters. FERPA and state code claim to protect it, yet protection here is procedural, not absolute. Digital records are indexable. Indexed records are queryable. Queryable records become policy tools. Once data exist, they can be cross-referenced, audited, compelled by court order, and shared under interagency agreements. That is not speculation. That is how modern governance operates.
Outside vendors write the catechism. State offices rarely author the training themselves. They contract it. Big civil-rights nonprofits and professional consultancies deliver the manuals, slides, and “best practices.” The government outsources orthodoxy, then grades schools on how faithfully they repeat it. Advocacy manufactures the rubric. Bureaucracy enforces the rubric. Careers and budgets depend on the rubric. That is a closed loop.