Governor Newsom recently signed into law AB 1803, which will require employers to provide anti-hate speech training.
As a reminder, California employers with 5 or more employees are already required to provide sexual harassment prevention training to employees within 6 months of hire and every 2 years.
Starting January 1, 2028, employers will have to include anti-hate speech training as a component of such training. The training will have to provide supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred against people based on the employment anti-discrimination law’s protected characteristics.
The law clarifies that if an employer’s training includes information about the prohibition against unlawful harassment and prevention of abusive conduct that is based on the law’s protected characteristics, it will satisfy this new “hate speech” training requirement.
While employers have time to get into compliance with this new requirement and the state will likely issue guidance closer to the law’s 2028 effective date, this serves as a reminder that employers should make sure that they are complying with the underlying sexual harassment prevention training requirements.