SB 928 adds Education Code section 89500.3 to expressly require that the instructor of record for any California State University course be a person who satisfies trustee-established rules to serve as a faculty employee. The text defines “faculty employee” to include professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches, across full- and part-time and temporary appointment types.
The bill also clarifies that CSU employees may use AI tools to assist operations and service delivery but stops short of allowing an AI system to serve as the instructor of record. Practically, this limits the ability of campuses and vendors to substitute automated systems for accredited human instructors and creates new compliance questions for HR, academic affairs, and procurement teams.
At a Glance
What It Does
SB 928 requires the instructor of record for any CSU course to be a person who meets the trustees' rule for serving as a faculty employee, defines the scope of “faculty employee,” and explicitly permits employees to use AI tools as assistance. It makes that requirement applicable to both credit and noncredit instruction and to all appointment categories identified in trustee rules.
Who It Affects
Directly affects CSU faculty (tenured, probationary, adjunct/lecturers, extension instructors), campus HR and academic affairs offices, system trustees, and vendors that provide AI-driven instructional platforms. It also touches campus offices that oversee academic quality and student services — e.g., library and counseling units.
Why It Matters
The bill establishes a statutory, human-centered baseline for instruction at the largest public four-year system in California, constraining models that would replace instructors with AI. That has implications for contracting, course design, procurement of automated systems, and how campuses incorporate AI into teaching while preserving regulatory and accreditation accountability.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB 928 amends the Education Code to make explicit what some CSU stakeholders already assumed: the person listed as the instructor of record must be a human who meets the California State University trustees' rules for serving as a faculty employee. The statute spells out that “faculty employee” covers common academic roles — professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches — and that the term embraces instructional and noninstructional positions across full-time, part-time, temporary, tenure-track, and extension-for-credit appointments.
The bill is careful to separate two ideas. First, it bars delegating the formal role and responsibility of instructor of record to something other than a qualifying person.
Second, it permits employees to use artificial intelligence tools to assist with operations or in support of services to students. That carveout leaves room for AI as a productivity tool while reserving formal instructional responsibility to a human accountable under trustee rules and campus policies.Implementation will fall to CSU governance: trustees implement the “rule to serve as a faculty employee” (the statute references Section 89500), and campuses will need to ensure course rosters, hiring, and contracts reflect the human-instructor requirement.
Procurement officers and legal teams will face practical questions about whether a course primarily delivered by an automated platform but supervised by a human meets the statute, and how to document the human instructor’s substantive role for accreditation and liability purposes.Because the state’s Department of Technology is already inventorying high‑risk automated decision systems used by state agencies, CSU and campus IT units will need to coordinate procurement and risk review processes to ensure third‑party AI instructional products are not being used to evade the instructor-of-record requirement. The bill also makes an explicit legislative intent statement protecting CSU employees from “encroachment” by AI, which campus labor relations and bargaining units will likely invoke in operational and contracting disputes.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Section 89500.3 defines “faculty employee” to include professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches and applies that definition to instructional and noninstructional roles.
The bill requires the instructor of record for any CSU credit or noncredit course to be a person who meets the trustees’ rule to serve as a faculty employee.
The definition and instructor-of-record requirement cover all appointment categories specified — full-time, part-time, probationary, tenured, temporary, and extension-for-credit positions.
The statute expressly permits CSU employees to use artificial intelligence tools to assist operations or provide services to students but does not permit AI to replace the human instructor of record.
SB 928 includes an explicit legislative intent to protect CSU employees from the ‘encroachment’ of artificial intelligence, signaling a policy priority rather than a narrow procurement or technical rule.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Who counts as a ‘faculty employee’
This subsection lists categories that fall within “faculty employee” — professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches — and serves to anchor the statute to everyday campus roles. Practically, naming librarians and counselors pulls non-classroom instructional and student-support staff into the protection, which matters for how campuses allocate duties and report staffing.
Scope across instructional status and appointment types
These clauses make clear the label applies to both instructional and noninstructional positions and to the full range of appointment statuses (full- and part-time, probationary, tenured, temporary, extension-for-credit). That removes ambiguity about whether adjuncts or extension instructors are covered and prevents vendors or administrators from arguing certain appointment types fall outside the statutory protection.
Instructor-of-record must be a qualifying person
Subsection (b) is the operative rule: the person listed as instructor of record must meet the trustees’ rule for serving as a faculty employee, for both credit and noncredit instruction. For administration this creates a compliance checkpoint — rosters, payroll, and course approvals must align so no automated system or nonqualifying contractor is designated as the formal instructor.
Faculty employee status tied to trustee rule
This subsection ties the statutory status of a CSU faculty employee back to trustee-established rules under Section 89500. That keeps the technical qualifications and appointment mechanics in trustee regulations while imposing a statutory prohibition against delegating the faculty role to a non‑qualifying entity.
Permitted AI assistance and legislative intent
Subsection (d) expressly allows employees to use AI tools to assist university operations and student services, preserving flexibility for AI as a support technology. Separately, the bill includes an intent statement declaring the Legislature’s aim to protect CSU employees from AI encroachment; the statement does not create enforcement mechanics but signals how courts, negotiators, and administrators may interpret the statute’s purpose.
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Who Benefits
- CSU faculty (tenured, probationary, lecturers, adjuncts): gains statutory protection that makes it harder for campuses or vendors to substitute AI systems for the formal instructional role, supporting job security and role clarity.
- Campus student-services staff (librarians, counselors): explicitly named in the definition, which protects their roles from being re‑characterized as automated services without a qualifying human employee.
- Faculty unions and collective bargaining representatives: receive a statutory anchor to argue against outsourcing or automation that would remove bargaining unit work.
- Students and accrediting bodies concerned with accountability: benefit from a clear human point of responsibility for courses, which preserves established standards for grading, academic integrity, and faculty oversight.
Who Bears the Cost
- CSU administration and campus academic affairs offices: face new compliance obligations to ensure rosters and contracts reflect a qualifying human instructor and may need to rework course delivery or third‑party contracts.
- Edtech vendors and automation providers proposing autonomous-instruction platforms: lose a pathway to serve as instructor of record and will need to adapt products to function as tools under human supervision rather than standalone instructors.
- Procurement and IT teams: must coordinate AI risk reviews and contract language to ensure automated systems do not circumvent the statute, adding legal and administrative work.
- Students and programs pursuing low-cost, highly scalable AI‑led delivery models: may see slower rollout or higher costs if campuses must preserve human instructional leadership rather than defer to automated systems.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between protecting human academic labor and accountability on one hand, and enabling adoption of AI-driven efficiencies and new instructional models on the other; the bill preserves a human point of responsibility but leaves open how much of the teaching must be human-generated versus AI-assisted, creating a trade-off between job protection and pedagogical innovation.
The bill is narrowly framed but leaves important implementation questions unanswered. It relies on the trustees’ “rule to serve as a faculty employee” without specifying the qualifications, supervision level, or minimum substantive involvement the human instructor must have when AI assumes a large portion of content delivery.
That opens a gap for interpretation: does a human who reviews AI‑generated materials and holds final grading authority satisfy the statute, or must the human create and deliver most content directly?
Enforcement is likewise unclear. The statute does not create a new enforcement mechanism, penalty, or reporting obligation; compliance will depend on trustees, campus policies, payroll and records checks, collective bargaining processes, and possibly accreditor scrutiny.
There is also a procurement tension: vendors can design platforms to position AI as an “assistant,” which may comply with the letter of the law while defeating its intent. Finally, the bill may slow certain AI-driven pedagogical innovations and force trade-offs between protecting employment and enabling cost‑saving instructional models, producing pressure for narrow regulatory or contract workarounds.
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