A bill that would require elected state officials to complete mandatory anti-hate speech training called AB 1578 is currently moving through the California legislature. AB 1578 was composed by Corey Jackson, who represents the 60th State Assembly District, and passed the Assembly Committee on Local Government on April 14th by a 8-2 vote. It would embed one hour of anti-hate speech training into California’s sexual harassment prevention training, which the state already requires for state and local officials. The bill would become effective on January 1, 2028. The bill would not just apply to state level officials, but also city council members, county supervisors, and school board trustees across the 58 counties of California.
The bill specifically states that state agencies must offer ethics training at least twice a year, and that officials must attend every two years. Officials must also complete anti-hate speech training within six months of taking office, then every four years from there. Local agency officials specifically must complete the hour of training within six months of taking office, and attend every four years after. The California constitution also requires reimbursement for this training. Jackson claimed that the bill was an appropriate public safety response to “documented trends in hate activity”, referencing findings from the Commission on the State of Hate. He claimed that words of officials heavily influence hatred, claiming that they are “the primary impetus of hate crimes”. With this, he suggests that correcting this through AB 1578 will uphold the state's claim of valuing equality.
That being said, California and the federal government do not currently have an official legal definition for “hate speech”. The Supreme Court case Matal v. Tam upheld the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech and ruled that the Disparagement Clause of the Lanham Act, which denied trademarks that disparage, was unconstitutional. The bill additionally delegates the curriculum design to exterior parties and does not establish standards for who develops the training or what views may be promoted in the training.
Given this lack of definition and delegation of content and interpretation to exterior parties, residents of California have raised concerns about subjectivity and bias among the training. The California Family Council (CFC) believes that this training will label unpopular Christian viewpoints related to sexuality and gender as hateful based on comments from California legislators over recent years. The CFC specifically stated that “Mandatory ideological training that frames certain viewpoints, particularly traditional religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, or gender, as inherently hateful would stigmatize these individuals”. With this, a couple concerns are raised regarding the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Firstly, Christians and other religious practitioners must make the choice to either comply with training that may frame their sincerely held beliefs as intolerable, or fail a government mandated requirement. Secondly, since Free Exercise protects from acting against one’s religious beliefs, and the Free Speech protects from being forced to conform with beliefs that one rejects. With that, one could argue that the bill requiring officials to treat religious beliefs as hate could implicate both. This raises the question: does requiring mandatory training that may label certain religious views as “hate speech” violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment?
This case is similar to Sherbert v. Verner since government officials were forced to make a choice between religious convictions and public benefit, with both cases creating a choice between faith and office. In addition, in Sherbert the state placed an indirect burden by denying benefits, and in this bill, opposers argue that the state is imposing an indirect burden by requiring officials to go through training that may deem their sincerely held religious beliefs to be intolerable hate speech.
In my opinion, this bill is unconstitutional as it forces officials to make a choice between faith and office. First and foremost, the fact that it is built around the term “hate speech”, which is not defined by the California or US government, is already questionable. Given that the training is administered with hostility toward religious viewpoints, which the CFC suggests that the California legislature has already demonstrated, a substantial burden is placed on free exercise. If an official with sincerely held religious beliefs must sit through this training that frames their beliefs as hateful in order to remain in office, the government is implying that the practice of their faith makes them unfit for their position. While the bill looks neutral from the surface as it applies to all, the fact that it would burden certain religious beliefs in practice makes it not neutral. In addition, since there are no defined standards of curriculum content, the state can delegate curriculums which target viewpoints that they oppose, making it not generally accessible. While the state’s interest in reducing hate speech and crimes is compelling, the government would likely not be able to prove that this training is the least restrictive means in achieving this as the training labels certain beliefs as hateful. The bill would need to define “hate speech”, establish standards for content, and explicitly exclude sincerely held religious beliefs from that definition in order to achieve the least restrictive means.
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