In October 2025, Governor Newsom signed AB 268 into law, making Diwali, a Hindu celebration, an official California state holiday. Public schools were authorized to close. State employees were authorized to take paid time off. And California public schools were authorized to hold exercises “acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance” of Diwali, with a State Board of Education curriculum guide to follow.
Now, six months later, Sacramento is moving to do the same thing for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the two most significant holidays in Islam. AB 2017, authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), has passed two Assembly committees without a single no vote. The Assembly Committee on Appropriations will decide this week if the bill will proceed to a vote by the full Assembly, which would occur by the end of the month.
Two bills. Two minority faith traditions. Two sets of school celebration exercises authorized in statute.
Christmas gets December 25 as a state holiday. Good Friday gets three hours of partial recognition (noon to 3 p.m.). Easter gets nothing. And no California statute has ever authorized public schools to hold exercises celebrating the meaning and importance of any Christian holiday.
This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern.
What are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha?
Most Californians are not familiar with these holidays. Understanding what they are matters, because the question of whether Sacramento should be celebrating their religious meaning inside public schools is exactly what is at stake.
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Muslims observe Ramadan by abstaining from food and drink during daylight hours, concentrating on prayer, reading the Quran, and giving to the poor. Observing Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, the five foundational obligations that define Muslim religious practice. Eid al-Fitr is the joyous celebration that follows: communal prayers, feasting, giving gifts, and visiting family. Its religious significance is deep. It marks the completion of a month-long act of submission and worship to Allah.
Eid al-Adha, known as the Festival of Sacrifice, commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham in the Islamic tradition) to sacrifice his son Ismail in obedience to God’s command. In Islam, Ismail, not Isaac, is understood to be the son Ibrahim was prepared to sacrifice. Eid al-Adha marks the culmination of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, which is itself another of the five pillars of Islam. The holiday is observed with communal prayer, the ritual slaughter of livestock, and distribution of meat to the poor. It is a day of reflection on submission, obedience, and sacrifice in the path of God.
These are not cultural festivals with religious overtones. They are explicitly theological observances rooted in Islamic doctrine, the five pillars of the faith, the Quran’s account of Ibrahim, and the obligation of hajj. AB 2017 would authorize California public schools to hold exercises “acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance” of both holidays and direct the State Board of Education to develop a curriculum guide for doing so.
What AB 2017 Actually Does
AB 2017 adds Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to California’s Government Code Section 6700 list of state holidays. It excludes both days from judicial holiday status, so courts remain open. But within public schools and state employment, the bill’s reach is significant.
For public schools and community colleges, governing boards may close campuses on both Eid holidays if they negotiate that closure into a union memorandum of understanding. On the day of closure, or on an alternate day, schools are authorized to hold exercises “acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance” of the holidays. The State Board of Education may adopt a model curriculum guide for those exercises.
For state employees, the bill allows eight hours of existing vacation, annual leave, or compensating time off to be used for Eid observance.
The bill also adds Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to Education Code Section 48205 as required excused absences, removing principal discretion to deny the absence when a parent submits a written request. No other named religious holiday carries this automatic guarantee in the Education Code.
Celebrating Islamic Theology in Public Schools
California Family Council believes every student should be able to take time off for any religious holiday. That is not our objection here.
Our objection is to the state authorizing and promoting the celebration of specific religious holidays inside public school classrooms.
When CFC Vice President Greg Burt testified against AB 268 last year, he made this point directly: if you are teaching students to celebrate a religious holiday, that is not neutral. The state is not simply accommodating the beliefs of Muslim or Hindu families; it is directing public school teachers to lead exercises that acknowledge and celebrate the religious meaning of these observances. That is the government taking sides on religion, and it is constitutionally different from simply excusing a student’s absence.
No California statute authorizes public schools to hold exercises celebrating the meaning of Christmas, Easter, or Good Friday. Schools cannot teach the Resurrection or the Nativity. They cannot celebrate Yom Kippur or Passover. Yet, after AB 268 and now AB 2017, public school teachers will be authorized and curriculum-guided to celebrate the end of Ramadan and the Festival of Sacrifice. The asymmetry is written into the law.
When Does It Stop?
California is one of the most religiously diverse states in the nation. Consider the range of faiths and their major holidays represented among California’s residents:
Christianity (the state’s largest faith group): Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost. Judaism: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover, Sukkot, Hanukkah. Islam: Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha. Hinduism: Diwali, Holi, Navaratri, Rama Navami. Sikhism: Vaisakhi, Gurpurab. Buddhism: Vesak, Losar. Zoroastrianism: Nowruz, Mehregan. The Bahai Faith, Jainism, and dozens of other traditions each observe their own sacred calendar.
Sacramento has now added Diwali and is advancing Eid. The bill’s own author argues that Eid deserves recognition because it aligns with the state’s treatment of Diwali. That logic has no stopping point. If the standard is that significant religious holidays of sizeable communities deserve named statutory recognition and school celebration exercises, California is at the beginning of an endless queue, or it will eventually have to explain why it stopped where it stopped.
There is a principled alternative: a religion-neutral framework that treats all faiths equally. California already has one. The existing Education Code allows any student to be excused for any religious holiday upon parental request. That provision protects every faith without the state having to pick which religions receive a curriculum guide. AB 2017 does not strengthen that framework. It bypasses it in favor of named recognition for one religion, following a law that did the same for another.
The Constitutional Question
The First Amendment prohibits government from endorsing or specially favoring one religion over others. Writing specific religious holidays into state law by name, authorizing school celebration exercises for their theological content, and commissioning State Board of Education curriculum guides to promote that content, while no comparable treatment has been extended to Christian or Jewish holidays, is the kind of selective government action that triggers Establishment Clause concern.
What CFC Is Asking
AB 2017 faces a hearing in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations this week. If it passes, the full Assembly will consider it by the end of the month. California Family Council opposes the bill and urges the Legislature to strengthen California’s existing religion-neutral accommodation framework rather than continue down the path of government-selected religious recognition.
We urge California parents, pastors, and church members to contact their Assembly member now and ask for a NO vote on AB 2017.
