New year brings smaller tally of new laws for 2021

As is tradition, the new year also brings new laws for Californians. The following is a brief summary of the new laws residents can expect for the new year.

California aims to improve policing

In response to nationwide protests following the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new policing laws aimed at improving police practices in California.

Starting Jan. 1, California will have its first statewide policy banning police from using a couple of neck restraints: carotid restraints, which temporarily cut off blood flow to the brain, and chokeholds, which temporarily cut off a person’s air.

Some cities, like San Francisco and San Diego, have already banned these neck restraints. But this is the first time there’s a state law. Significantly, it faced no opposition from police.

Also starting Jan. 1, the state attorney general will investigate incidents in which police kill anyone who is unarmed.

In the past, these have been handled by local law enforcement agencies — raising questions about police investigating their colleagues.

Supporters see it as a significant step to build trust by making investigations more independent, though the final version was neither a high priority for activists nor a target of police opposition.

While the state responded to political pressure with some new policing laws, many bills failed to make it out of the Legislature.

But they may make a comeback. Expect to see bills about making more police records available to the public and law about stripping cops of their badges when they commit serious misconduct to reappear in the 2021 legislative session.

Cal State requiring ethnic studies class

At the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, California students led the nation in creating college ethnic studies programs that explored the histories and cultures of people overlooked by the dominant European- centric curriculum.

It was a time of national racial introspection and wide-scale protest. Echoes of then are loud and clear in 2020, and the state’s lawmakers were listening, voting this summer to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement for all California state university students.

The genesis of the requirement goes back to 1968, when a coalition of Black, Mexican American, Filipino and other student groups at what is now San Francisco State University demanded the school create an ethnic studies program.

After a five-month standoff, the university debuted the first college of ethnic studies.

Similar programs spread throughout the state.

But support for those programs has been uneven, prompting lawmakers and California’s Democratic governor to require that students at all 23 Cal State campuses take at least one ethnic studies course to graduate. CSUS should have their courses ready by fall of 2021.

Opponents argued against the state mandating what should be taught in higher education, maintaining that professors— not politicians— should decide what’s taught in higher ed.

But supporters say requiring ethnic studies will better prepare students for life in a multi-racial society and making it a required course will stabilize funding for ethnic studies programs.

Future editions will include more updates about other new laws taking effect in 2021 — a smaller tally than usual given that the coronavirus pandemic dominated the Legislature’s 2020 session.