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Tennessee’s Legislative Version of Targeting "Divisive Concepts" Nears Final Passage

Republican-controlled legislatures around the country have been passing laws that mirror each other. They have been targeting issues concerning , , and . The latest point of contention is what’s called “divisive concepts.” and have already set bills in motion to ban these teachings in the classroom. They usually include subjects about and anything LGBTQ-based.

Tennessee is now the latest state to draw up legislative measures. A, a Republican-backed bill that would allow students and staffers to sue public colleges and universities if they feel they’ve been unfairly punished for not accepting “divisive concepts” is about to become law. The state Senate passed the bill Monday. Before Gov. Bill Lee can sign the bill, the Tennessee House and Senate will have to work out how it will be enforced.

The measure would prohibit public colleges and universities from punishing students and staffers if they disagree with specific ideas and open them up to lawsuits if they violate the measure. Like many of the “divisive concepts” bills before it, there’s no clear cut definition of what can be interpreted to be a violation, as Sen. Jeff Yarbro points out:

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“I don’t think what we’ve got in these definitions is exactly clear and I think what it does is invites conflict and invites challenge,” said Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro, who opposed the bill.

The House and Senate versions of the bills overlap in what they interpret  “divisive concepts” are.

Both the House and Senate versions of the measure identify more than 15 “divisive concepts.” They range from declaring that “one race or sex is inherently superior or inferior to another race or sex” to “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously” to “this state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”

Last year, Tennesee Republicans they thought taught Critical Race Theory. This was just one of a signed by Gov. Bill Lee to prevent teachers from using critical race theory concepts in class.

Source: Tennessee’s Legislative Version of Targeting “Divisive Concepts” Nears Final Passage

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Law Limiting Discussion of Race in Schools Signed by Governor of Mississippi

It’s happened again, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill on Monday that would limit how race can be discussed in classrooms. The bill will take effect immediately, according to NBC News.

Instances similar to this one are happening in states all over the South. In Florida, a that would limit how schools and workplaces teach about race and identity. Last December in Texas, a law that would also went into effect. Now in Mississippi, the same thing is happening.

In a video posted on , Gov. Reeves said, “Contrary to what some critics may claim, this bill in no way, in no shape and in no form prohibits the teaching of history. Any claim that this bill will somehow stop Mississippi kids from learning about American history is just flat-out wrong.”

I’m no teacher or professor, but if the discussion of race was limited in my education, I feel like I would be missing out on a big chunk of American and world history.

From

The short title of says it would prohibit “critical race theory.” But the main text of the legislation does not mention or define the theory, and many supporters of the bill also have said they cannot define it.

The new law says no school, community college or university could teach that any “sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.”

(CRT) aims to look at how racism has molded every part of American society such as public policy and institutions such as the justice system. It looks at how those policies and institutions were made to conserve the social, economic, and political inequalities between white people and people of color.

In a statement, the ACLU of Mississippi said that laws opposing critical theory “are thinly veiled attempts to silence discussions of race and gender amongst student and educators.”

In January, the majority Republican House voted to pass the bill after Black lawmakers debated for hours urging for the bill not to be passed. When it did, the state senators who voted for the bill.

According to NBC News, Mississippi Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said that is not even taught in the state’s schools. Even though the University of Mississippi law school has an elective class on the subject.

Source: Law Limiting Discussion of Race in Schools Signed by Governor of Mississippi

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A New ‘Critical Race Theory’ Law Goes Into Effect In Texas

A new “critical race theory” law went into effect for Texas public schools last Thursday, replacing and broadening a similar bill passed earlier this year. This law, Senate Bill 3, goes beyond controlling how history, race and gender are taught in the classrooms with stipulations such as requiring a new civics training program for teachers and preventing students from getting credit for participating in political campaigns or interning with advocacy groups.

According to , the law directs that “a teacher may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” It doesn’t specify what is considered controversial, only that if a teacher discusses these “issues” it must be done without any political bias.

Over the summer, Governor Greg Abbott , which was just the start of abolishing “critical race theory” in the state’s public schools. Now, Senate Bill 3 was passed in September to be even more restrictive.

From Chron:

In comparison to House Bill 3979, Sikes said SB 3 is more restrictive and broader in scope in terms of how it regulates classroom discussions about race, gender, sex and other issues. The new law also expands the scope of what it considers to be prohibited from solely social studies classes to all subjects taught from Kindergarten through grade 12. In reaction to these new rules and without clear guidance on how to implement or enforce them, some educators have pulled books from shelves and canceled civic engagement programs and events. Sikes believes matters will only continue in this way, with the state bringing increasing scrutiny to educators’ curriculums in the hopes of deterring certain conversations in the classroom.

“What’s happening is a broader interpretation and confusion about how we talk about race and really important conversations are being silenced,” Sikes said. “In practice, because they [the laws] are so vague, they are interpreted as applying to any conversation about race, racism, social justice, . That’s where that chilling effect and silencing is happening and it’s really concerning.”

With this law, teachers can run the risk of being fired for how they teach race and history in social studies classes. Many Texas educators already chose to ban certain literature from their classrooms thanks to House Bill 3979 but, according to the , this law also names the New York Times’ 1619 Project as work that students cannot be assigned to read. The project is a collection of essays that take a deep dive into how Black American contributions (and slavery) shaped today’s United States.

“That’s a huge state overreach outside of the accountability system we have for monitoring at the state agency level over what is going on in specific classrooms and how social studies is taught,” Dr. Chloe Latham-Sikes said, according to Chron. Sikes is the deputy director of policy for the Intercultural Development Research Association. “This is a different level of surveillance than we typically see.”

The law requires at least one teacher and administrator from each district to attend a civics training program by the Texas Education Agency, the Tribune reports. The program, which hasn’t been created yet, is intended to teach educators how to cover race and racism in classrooms. The law requires that the TEA also creates an advisory board to oversee the program and the training must be implemented no later than the 2025-2026 school year.

According to the Tribune, the Legislative Budget Board says creating the program in the more than 1,200 Texas school districts will cost about $14.6 million annually.

“All of this is really about routing out any acknowledgement of the salience of sex, race, gender and silencing those conversations, which, in the end, ultimately hurt students of color and students in the LGBTQ community,” Sikes said, according to the Tribune.

Just to be clear, even though laws like these are referred to as “critical race theory bans” . Critical race theory, a university level subject that examines racism’s presence in social constructs, is being used as a catch- all phrase for anything dealing with race.

Source: A New ‘Critical Race Theory’ Law Goes Into Effect In Texas