Is California’s Ethnic studies plan too politically correct even for California? Cal Matters’ Elizabeth Castillo asked the question last week.

The answer is: Yes.

The public comment period ends today, but the draft officially became toast Monday, when the State Board of Education said the current draft “needs to be substantially redesigned” to be “accurate, free of bias (and) appropriate for all learners in our diverse state.”

A Los Angeles Times editorial called the draft curriculum “an impenetrable melange of academic jargon — hxrstory, misogynoir, cisheteropatriarchy — and politically correct pronouncements.”

We have no objection to a course that broadens students’ thinking about race and gender and sexuality and history and power. But too often the proposed ethnic studies curriculum feels like an exercise in groupthink, designed to proselytize and inculcate more than to inform and open minds. It talks about critical thinking but usually offers one side and one side only.

The draft states that capitalism is a “form of power and oppression,” alongside “patriarchy,” “racism,” “white supremacy” and “ableism,” writes Bill Evers in the Wall Street Journal. Among “significant figures” teachers are encouraged to teach are “convicted cop-killers Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur” and Puerto Rican terrorists.

Among the critical comments on the Education Department’s web site is one by Malka Weitman, a Berkeley resident, reports the Washington Post.

This entire curriculum reads as an extreme political agenda being presented under cover of an ethnic studies program. At a time when many of us are concerned about the divisive right-wing bigotry we hear from Donald Trump, this curriculum exposes our children to the equally divisive bigotry of the extreme left.

The Legislature’s Jewish caucus, all Democrats but not all Jewish, blasted the curriculum, writes Dan Walters, a veteran Capitol columnist who now writes for Cal Matters. In a July 29 letter to state education officials, the caucus said the curriculum “erases the American Jewish experience, fails to discuss anti-semitism, reinforces negative stereotypes about Jews, singles out Israel for criticism and would institutionalize the teaching of anti-semitic stereotypes in our public schools.”

The draft mentions anti-semitism only briefly, in a section on Pacific Islanders. There’s a whole section on Arab Americans.

Legislators are considering Assembly Bill 331, which would make a semester of ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement beginning in 2024-25. The bill would mandate use of the state-approved curriculum.

Requiring ethnic studies has “broad backing” in Sacramento, reports the Los Angeles Times. “A separate bill, mandating an ethnic studies class for every Cal State student, has drawn a mixed reaction at campuses.”

I suspect enthusiasm to require all students to take ethnic studies will wane. It’s one thing to offer ethnic studies to interested students, quite another to require it.