Moms for Liberty watch out: California Gov. Gavin Newsom is fighting to cease school book bans in the Golden State. Newsom has been engaged in a running battle with a recently elected extremist school board in Southern California that voted in May to reject a social studies curriculum that included a textbook with materials referencing LGBTQ+ activist Harvey Milk.
Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S. in 1977 when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated nearly a year later by a disgruntled former city supervisor.
Newsom is offering an example for how Democrats can fight back strongly without resorting to offensive or dehumanizing language—a much-discussed topic on this site in recent days. On Thursday, Newsom announced that the state would be purchasing the banned textbooks and distributing them to students in the Temecula school district.
RELATED STORY: Mentioning Harvey Milk got a textbook banned in California
Newsom said:
“Hey everybody, it’s Gavin Newsom, father of four, with two young elementary school kids and I want to talk to the parents in the Temecula School District. … We’re all worried about access to information, access to the latest social studies books that are being made available quite literally to hundreds of thousands of kids all throughout the state of California, but are being denied to the kids in the Temecula district. That social studies book is being censored by the local school board.
“I know this has created a lot of anxiety. The last thing we need is more anxiety. … So I want you to know that the state is moving forward and purchasing and procuring those social studies books. Your kids have the freedom to learn and you have the freedom to access those books, the same books that hundreds of thousands of kids throughout the state are accessing. So rest assured we’ll be sending those books down in very short order. And let’s do our best, all of us, to soften the edges of these debates and to make sure that we provide accurate information and the freedom for our kids to learn.. That, after all, is the California way.”
In a press release, Newsom said later that the state would begin delivering the banned textbooks to students and their parents in the school district if the Temecula school board did not lift the ban by its next meeting. He said the state will then send the district the bill for the textbooks and fine them for violating state law. Schools are scheduled to open in Temecula on Aug. 14.
“Cancel culture has gone too far in Temecula: radicalized zealots on the school board rejected a textbook used by hundreds of thousands of students,” Newsom said in the press release.
Newsom’s actions were supported by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins, and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, among others. They went even further by endorsing legislation that Thurmond said was aimed at protecting students “from the harmful effects of book banning, exclusion of inclusive textbooks and discrimination.”
The proposed legislation, AB 1078, would require a two-thirds supermajority vote to remove instructional materials or curricula. (The Temecula school district voted 3-2 to ban the social studies curriculum.) It would also establish a process for the State Department of Education to purchase adequate standards-aligned materials for a district that fails to provide them for students, and introduce a funding penalty for school districts that do not provide such educational material.
Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already signed similar legislation. The Illinois law, which takes effect next year, prohibits book bans in the state’s public schools and libraries. Pritzker said the bill was the first of its kind in the nation.
“While certain hypocritical governors are banning books written by L.G.B.T.Q. authors, but then claiming censorship when the media fact-checks them, we are showing the nation what it really looks like to stand up for liberty,” Pritzker said at the bill-singing ceremony at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. Washington was Chicago’s first Black mayor. Pritzker in general is a big fan of taking the high road, as shown in this Northwestern University graduation speech:
The two Democratic governors are showing how to fight back against the fascist policies being introduced by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Newsom has staked out some strong positions in recent months. The California governor proposed a gun safety constitutional amendment with provisions including an assault weapons ban. He also issued an executive order that would require phasing out all gasoline-powered cars by 2035 to combat climate change.
And when DeSantis started flying migrants to California, Newsom called the Florida governor a “small pathetic man” and threatened to arrest him for kidnapping migrants.
Newsom, who has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection bid in 2024, even went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program to support progressive policies and tout the successes of Bidenomics. Newsom also recently gave an interview to Jen Psaki on MSNBC in which he denounced the records of Abbott and other Republican governors on gun safety, abortion rights, book bans, and expanding Medicaid.
He concluded by saying: “With all due respect, we should not be on the defensive as a Democratic Party. The Republican Party should be on their heels, not us.”
In his dispute with the Temecula school district, Newsom was taking on a movement led by the well-funded extremist group Moms for Liberty that has moved beyond Florida to push for electing conservative school boards.
And what happened in Temecula is typical of what is happening elsewhere in the country, even in blue states that have large swaths of Republican-leaning territory, particularly in rural areas. Last fall, voters elected three school board members, backed by far-right pastor Tim Thompson, in the Temecula Valley Unified School District.
At their first meeting right after being sworn in, the new board members stirred up controversy when they passed a resolution condemning critical race theory even though the subject wasn’t being taught in local schools, Politico reported. That resulted in their appearing on “Fox and Friends.”
Then in May, the school board initiated the curriculum fight that caught Newsom’s attention. The district had been using an outdated social studies textbook published in 2006 and was in the process of obtaining updated textbooks for students in grades one through five.
Milk does not even appear in the actual textbook, but a photo and short biography of him was included in supplemental resources optional for teachers to use in class, according to The Sacramento Bee. And what was the point of contention? Here’s how Politico described it:
The board rejected a social studies curriculum that featured a half-page biography of Milk, with (board President Joseph) Komrosky repeating a disputed allegation against the slain San Francisco supervisor. “Why even mention a pedophile?” he said.
In June, the school board fired Superintendent Jodi McClay without cause. McClay had criticized the board over the banning of critical race theory and the social studies curriculum.
In his press release, Newsom said the Temecula district’s curriculum is outdated and in violation of state law. He noted:
The board voted by a 3-2 majority to reject the adoption of the new social studies curriculum that was recommended by teachers representing every elementary school in the district and overwhelmingly supported by parents and community members. The textbook, one of four standard programs approved by the state, is routinely and widely used across hundreds of school districts in California.
Komrosky told The Los Angeles Times that Newsom had “mischaracterized not only what has occurred, but why.” He said the board had put together a curriculum to be presented at its next meeting set for Thursday,
The extremist school board’s bans have provoked a backlash from parents. An effort to recall the three recently elected conservative board members is now under way. Politico wrote:
After just six months in office, those officials face a recall effort on top of a civil rights investigation launched by the state’s Democratic-led education department. Students have held protests, and irate parents and teachers are swarming the board’s meetings, feeling that their town — the fast-growing, politically diverse suburb of Temecula in Riverside County — has become consumed by partisan warfare.
“We don’t want culture wars. We don’t want Fox News appearances,” Alex Douvas, a parent of two kids in the district who previously worked for two Republican congressmembers in Orange County, told the board recently. “Our schools are not ideological battlegrounds. They’re not platforms for religious evangelism. These are institutions for learning and growth.”
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