Ed. Code, § 201 · Article 1. Declaration of Purpose
Ed. Code, § 201
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) All pupils have the right to participate fully in the educational process, free from discrimination and harassment.
(b) California’s public schools have an affirmative obligation to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of bias, and a responsibility to provide equal educational opportunity.
(c) Harassment on school grounds directed at an individual on the basis of personal characteristics or status creates a hostile environment and jeopardizes equal educational opportunity as guaranteed by the California Constitution and the United States Constitution.
(d) There is an urgent need to prevent and respond to acts of hate violence and bias-related incidents that are occurring at an increasing rate in California’s public schools.
(e) There is an urgent need to teach and inform pupils in the public schools about their rights, as guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions, in order to increase pupils’ awareness and understanding of their rights and the rights of others, with the intention of promoting tolerance and sensitivity in public schools and in society as a means of responding to potential harassment and hate violence.
(f) It is the intent of the Legislature that each public school undertake educational activities to counter discriminatory incidents on school grounds and, within constitutional bounds, to minimize and eliminate a hostile environment on school grounds that impairs the access of pupils to equal educational opportunity.
(g) It is the intent of the Legislature that this chapter shall be interpreted as consistent with Article 9.5 (commencing with Section 11135) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code, Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981, et seq.), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681, et seq.), Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794(a)), the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1400 et seq.), the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1701, et seq.), the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Secs. 51 to 53, incl., Civ. C.), and the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Pt. 2.8 (commencing with Sec. 12900), Div. 3, Gov. C.), except where this chapter may grant more protections or impose additional obligations, and that the remedies provided herein shall not be the exclusive remedies, but may be combined with remedies that may be provided by the above statutes.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by renumbering Section 45 by Stats. 1998, Ch. 914, Sec. 5. Effective January 1, 1999.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=EDC§ionNum=201.
- Text hash
- sha256 06ea7417a47dbf9bc8e16f722a075aae4aeb597cd1a0d4a00f5e307b7d3bee83
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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