California mandates ‘anti-hate speech’ training, doesn’t define hate

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills Sept. 27 that add “anti-hate speech” instruction to the harassment training required for most employers and for elected officials, beginning Jan. 1, 2028. The laws do not define hate speech, and critics charge that this could result in Christian or other beliefs being treated as hate speech.  

“What does it mean to vilify? What speech actually humiliates?” Greg Burt, vice president of the California Family Council, asked during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” 

“[M]any times legislators consider many Christian beliefs when they’re expressed — especially regarding sexuality or gender — they accuse us of hating people,” Burt said. “That’s [the] farthest thing from my mind. But we are simply advocating for our view that sex is determined by biology, and God created us both male and female. Well, to many people that is humiliating and that incites hatred. And so that’s the problem with this legislation.”

AB 1803, sponsored by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, adds the training to the sexual harassment courses that employers with five or more workers must already provide. It requires “practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred” against people based on protected characteristics, according to the bill text as amended in June. 

A Senate Judiciary Committee analysis said it adds no training hours to the existing one-hour course for employees and two-hour course for supervisors. Independent contractors, volunteers, and unpaid interns count toward the five-worker threshold established for required training, the Civil Rights Department says. Employers with fewer than five workers are not required to train their personnel.

“Hate speech has no place on the job, just as sexual harassment has no place on the job,” Lowenthal said, according to Reason. The Senate analysis argued that opponents’ First Amendment objections confuse whether the state can prohibit speech with whether speech can be harassment under state law, and that “this bill does not prohibit speech at all.”

But neither the bill nor the analysis defines hate speech. An Assembly committee analysis suggested the author consider adding a definition, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech group, argued that language could push employers to restrict lawful speech.

The California Family Council, a Christian advocacy group that opposed the bills, argued that the state and the training’s writers will decide what the terms mean.

AB 1578, introduced by Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, applies similar requirements to state and local officials. The measures are titled “training on responding to hate” for state agency officials and “anti-hate speech training” for local agency officials, according to the Assembly’s legislative record. 

Whether churches and other religious nonprofits must comply is disputed. The bills do not mention them, and the Daily Signal reported that the California Family Council says they are covered. The California Catholic Conference, which advocates for the state’s dioceses, did not take a position on either law and therefore declined to comment. 

State law excludes a religious association or non-profit from its definition of employer in discrimination cases, but a 2018 analysis by a law firm noted that the harassment training rules contain no express religious exemption. No court ruling or state guidance on the question was found.

Critics also point to the Civil Rights Department’s existing training. A department fact sheet says refusing to use an employee’s chosen name and pronouns “could be harassing or discriminatory.”