Education Week - April 28, 2021 - 15

8 States Debate Bills to Restrict
How Teachers Discuss Racism, Sexism
legislators reject the idea that racism
and sexism are still forces that shape
American society, and don't want
teachers telling this to students.
" What inequities do we deal with
today? Everybody has equal opportunity, " state Sen. Rick Brattin, who
sponsored the Missouri bill, said in
an interview with Education Week.
" We're a nation ... of equal opportunity for people to prosper or not
prosper. To say that everyone should
have equity in property and all things,
that's the antithesis of America.
That's socialism, " Brattin said.

By Sarah Schwartz

Proposed legislation could have
chilling effect

iStock/Getty Images Plus

Lawmakers in eight states have introduced legislation that may make
it harder for teachers to talk about
racism, sexism, and bias in the classroom.
Over the past few months, Republican legislators in Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire,
Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West
Virginia have drafted bills that would
ban the teaching of what they deem
" divisive " or " racist and sexist " concepts. The bills use similar language
as an executive order former President Donald Trump put in place to
ban diversity trainings for federal
workers.
Some of these new bills also aim
to put restrictions on workplaces or
state contractors. All of the legislation uses similar phrasing in listing
topics that would be off-limits to
teach, including:
That one race or sex is inherently
superior to another race or sex;
That the United States or specific
states are fundamentally racist or
sexist;
That individuals, because of their
race or sex, are inherently oppressive,
whether consciously or unconsciously;
That individuals bear responsibility for actions committed in the past
by members of their same race or sex;
That anyone should feel " discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form
of psychological distress " because of
their race or sex.
The language outlining " divisive
concepts " in the proposed legislation copies sections of Trump's executive order from September of last
year, which banned federal trainings
designed to confront racism, sexism,
and bias. President Joe Biden has
since rescinded that order.
Several of these bills have stalled
or died in committee. In other states,
though, the proposals are moving
through the legislature.
In New Hampshire, the bill has
been tabled, but its language banning " propagation of divisive concepts " has been added to the state
budget proposal.
In Idaho, the issue has derailed
budget negotiations. House Republicans refused to fund the teacher
salaries budget unless a provision
was added prohibiting schools from
advocating for social justice education, citing inaction on a separate
" racist and sexist concepts " bill, according to Idaho Ed News.
The Iowa bill passed the state
Senate in March, and has already
paused state efforts to discuss race
in schools. The Iowa Department of
Education recently postponed a conference on social justice and equity
in education, originally scheduled
for April, in response to the bill, Iowa
Public Radio reported.
" We are mindful of pending legis-

*
*

*
*
*

E
2
m

lation that may impact the delivery
and content of certain topics related
to diversity, equity, and inclusion and
postponing the conference will ensure the Department and Iowa's educators are best positioned to comply
with any legislation, " an event page
for the conference reads. The statement notes that the department will
plan to hold a conference in the fall.
These bills come at the same time
some states have taken other steps to
limit the ways in which racism, sexism,
and inequity are discussed in schools.
In North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, has formed a task
force dedicated to " exposing indoctrination in the classroom, " asking parents to report lessons. Idaho's lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, also
a Republican, recently announced that
she would form a similar task force.
And earlier this year, lawmakers in
several states pushed to ban schools
from teaching curriculum designed
around the 1619 Project, a New York
Times series that aims to reframe
United States history by putting the
legacy of slavery and the contributions
of Black Americans at its center.
" Right now, we're in a moment
where terms like systemic racism
aren't only used at universities, or
among people who talk about race.
These are commonly used terms
now. So we see a little shifting of
the tide of what people understand
racism to be, " said Kristen Duncan,
an assistant professor of secondary
social studies education at Clemson University. " Making schools
a place where students would not
learn about it that at all is kind of an
attempt to put the genie back in the
bottle. "
Waves of pushback can be expected when calls for social change

include curriculum, said Andrew
Hartman, a professor of history at Illinois State University, who has written a book about the history of the
culture wars in American schools.
" When there are social movements pushing for justice in terms
of race, and sexuality, and gender,
these movements are going to generate a lot of controversy, " he said.
" Conservatives are going to push
back however they can. And if they
control state legislatures, that's a
good way to do it. "
Bills' sponsors say they oppose
critical race theory

Legislators who have drafted these
bills say they hope to prevent critical
race theory from being taught in
schools.
Critical race theory is an academic
practice, a way of examining U.S. society that acknowledges how racism
has driven and continues to drive
inequity. Legal scholars, including
Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw,
and Alan Freeman, first developed
the field. In the decades since, the
framework has also been used to
study education systems, examining
school segregation and inequities in
instruction, assessment, and school
funding.
" It's an approach to grappling with
a history of white supremacy that
rejects the belief that what's in the
past is in the past, and that the laws
and systems that grow from that past
are detached from it, " Crenshaw told
TIME in September of last year.
Patricia Morgan, a Republican
in Rhode Island who proposed the
state's divisive concepts bill, called
critical race theory " a divisive, destructive, poisonous ideology " that

encourages people to judge each
other by the color of their skin.
" It makes white males oppressors
... and it makes everyone else the victims, " she said in an interview with
Education Week.
But Adrienne Dixson, a professor
of education policy, organization,
and leadership at the University of
Illinois who has edited several books
on critical race theory in education,
said that these lawmakers " completely misunderstand " what the
practice is.
" Critical race theorists would say,
absolutely, that people shouldn't
be discriminated against by virtue
of their race or sex. We don't locate
individuals as responsible for structural racism, " Dixson said. Instead,
she said, scholars acknowledge
that racism informed the country's
founding principles, and that some
groups have to " agitate and organize
and demand and protest " to secure
rights.
" I think in a sense, they're setting up strawmen, and claiming
that things are happening [in the
classroom] that I think are not happening, " Maureen Costello, the executive director of the Center for
Antiracist Education, said of the legislators proposing these bills.
For example, teaching about the
legacy of slavery and its far-reaching
impact on the United States today is
" not about assigning blame to the
students in front of you, " Costello
said. " It's actually about inspiring
them to do better in their lives. "
Decades of scholarship and testimony from people of color have long
demonstrated the persistent racial
bias and inequities that exist in the
United States, from education to
medical care to housing. Still, some

This is hardly the first time that
states or school boards have aimed
to stop the teaching of certain subjects or ideas, said Hartman.
From the 1920s through the
1950s, Southern states led successful efforts to ban instruction in
evolutionary biology. In the 1940s,
'50s, and '60s, state legislators and
local school boards tried to prevent
teachers from examining capitalism
through a critical lens, or prevented
teaching about socialism or communism at all, he said.
Still, Hartman said, it's hard to
imagine how " divisive concepts " legislation would be practically enforced,
or that states would take the measures
to do so. But any laws passed on this
issue could still have a chilling effect
on teachers, he said, if parents take it
upon themselves to enforce them.
" This bill is very intentional in its
approach to shut down equity work in
districts. I think they can sugarcoat it
however they want. That is what the
bill is intended to do, " said Jenny Risner, the superintendent of Ames Community school district in Ames, Iowa.
Leaders in the district, which participated in the national Black Lives
Matter at School Week of Action in
February as part of its ongoing equity work, were asked to speak in
front of the state's House Oversight
Committee after parents brought
concerns to lawmakers. Goals for
the week included supporting all
students to feel affirmed at school;
examining how the voices, accomplishments, and successes of Black
people were represented in curriculum; and questioning whether any
district instructional practices prevented students from bringing their
" whole selves " to school.
Anthony Jones, the district's director of equity, is concerned about how
state leaders might decide what is or
is not " divisive, " potentially shutting
down lessons that could lead to productive change.
" When we're having conversations about things that we're unaware of or even uncomfortable
with, we need to lean into that so
we can learn, " Jones said.

EDUCATION WEEK | April 28, 2021 | www.edweek.org | 15

W
o
2

E
S

DE
NO

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - April 28, 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - April 28, 2021