In latest Critical Race Theory backlash, NC Senate may vote on affirmative action ban
One of North Carolina’s most powerful Republican officials is calling for a state constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action and for legislation to prevent public schools from “indoctrinating” students with Critical Race Theory concepts.
Senate leader Phil Berger announced Wednesday that the Senate will take up legislation that forbids public schools from “promoting certain discriminatory concepts” such as that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.
The bill also bans promoting concepts such as that particular privileges should be ascribed to a race or sex or that people solely due to their race or sex should feel guilt, anguish or discomfort. The language comes amid complaints from conservatives about schools teaching about white privilege.
“Children must learn about our state’s racial past and all of its ugliness, including the cruelty of slavery to the 1898 Wilmington massacre to Jim Crow,” Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, said at a news conference Wednesday.
“But students must not be forced to adopt an ideology that is separate and distinct from history; an ideology that attacks ‘the very foundations of the liberal order,’ and that promotes ‘present discrimination’ — so long as it’s against the right people — as “antiracist,” Berger said, reading from prepared remarks that go on to attribute those and other quotes to supporters of Critical Race Theory.
Democrats and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina came out against the legislation. Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Raleigh Democrat, called the bill a “speech code” and said it is “un-American.”
“This bill is founded on the unfounded fear of Critical Race Theory,” Chaudhuri said during Wednesday’s Senate Education Committee meeting. “This bill, I believe, attempts to do away with so-called Critical Race Theory. But what I fear it really does away with is critical thinking in our classroom.”
The Public School Forum of North Carolina said Wednesday it still has concerns about the impacts the proposed law could have on North Carolina’s students, teachers, and public education system when it comes to having difficult and robust conversations about the nation’s complicated past and the systemic inequities that persist.
“Based upon his comments this morning, there appears to be sincere interest from Senator Berger and other legislators to hear from teachers and students on this issue,” the Forum sad in a statement. “In the next few weeks, the Public School Forum of NC and the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity will extend invitations to Senator Berger and our other state leaders and lawmakers to engage in a publicly accessible convening with teachers, students, and other education leaders on how this issue could impact classrooms across our state. “
Targeting affirmative action
In addition to the bill, Berger filed legislation on Wednesday to put on the ballot a state constitutional amendment saying, “the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Berger said the amendment would show how North Carolina is “affirming our commitment to the principles of the (1964) Civil Rights Act.” The amendment’s wording mirrors language used in other states such as California and Michigan to ban affirmative action programs.
Affirmative action is used in North Carolina in places such as UNC-Chapel Hill, which says an applicant’s race is important, but not dominant and is essential to improving diversity on campus, which enhances students’ academic experience.
A federal lawsuit challenging UNC-Chapel Hill’s admissions policy is ongoing.
Three-fifths of the Senate and the House would have to agree to put the amendment on the ballot for the 2022 primary elections. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper can’t veto constitutional amendments.
Targeting Critical Race Theory
Berger said all these steps are needed because Critical Race Theory has become “ascendant in American culture and in parts of North Carolina.”
Critical Race Theory, according to the UNC-Chapel Hill history department, is a “scholarly framework that describes how race, class, gender, and sexuality organize American life.”
This view holds that systemic racism has been and continues to be a part of the nation’s history.
Republican lawmakers have filed bills in state legislatures and in Congress targeting Critical Race Theory.
North Carolina school districts have denied they’re teaching Critical Race Theory. Berger said that while schools may not be teaching about the doctrine, they’re teaching in it.
Democratic lawmakers questioned Wednesday if indoctrination was as widespread as critics claim.
Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson said the task force he created to document cases of indoctrination in schools will release a report next week. He said teachers have been reporting how they’ve been required to teach concepts they fundamentally disagree with.
“The issue of indoctrination in our classrooms is real, folks,” Robinson said. “It’s not some figment of somebody’s imagination. It’s happening all across the state, unfortunately.”
Terry Stoops, a member of Robinson’s task force, told lawmakers that they’ve received reports such as students getting assignments talking about whiteness in science and being forced by teachers to accept that denying the role of racism makes you racist.
“This does prove that Critical Race Theory is present in classrooms,” said Stoops, who is director of the John Locke Foundation’s Center For Effective Education. “The submissions that we’re receiving from the task force are just the tip of the ice berg.”
Prohibiting promotion of certain concepts
In May, the state House passed a bill that would put new rules on how public schools teach about race and history. It prohibits teaching concepts such as promoting that “the United States was created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex.”
House Bill 324 was reviewed by the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday but no vote has happened yet. The House bill will modified to include additional things that schools can’t promote. This list of 13 concepts includes:
▪ “The United States government should be violently overthrown.”
▪ “Particular character traits, values, moral or ethical codes, privileges, or beliefs should be ascribed to a race or sex, or to an individual because of the individual’s race or sex.”
▪ “The rule of law does not exist, but instead is a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups.”
▪ “All Americans are not created equal and are not endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
▪ “Governments should deny to any person within the government’s jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”
The updated bill also now defines “promote” as “compelling students, teachers, administrators, or other school employees to affirm or profess belief in the concepts” listed in the legislation.
But the bill says it will allow “the impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history” and “the impartial instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.”
But Sen. Joyce Waddell, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, said the bill will do the opposite of what supporters say will happen.
“The most recent version of House Bill 324 incites a fear-based approach to limit teachers’ ability to assess the reality of racism in the United States and would limit students’ engagement with history and current events,” Waddell said.
Berger denied that the bill would prevent teachers from discussing any hard topics.
“I’d like to hear from a teacher who is concerned about being able to teach anything because of this bill,” Berger said. “I don’t believe a fair reading of the bill prohibits a teacher from providing instruction in any area of history.”
Right to view material
The revised bill now includes language saying schools will notify the state Department of Public Instruction and make available on their website detailed information at least 30 days in advance on anything they do that discusses the 13 concepts listed in the legislation.
This would include listing “curricula, reading lists, seminars, workshops, trainings, or other educational or professional settings.”
Schools would also have to give advance notice when they contract with “speakers, consultants, diversity trainers, and other persons for the purpose of discussing” the concepts mentioned in the law or who previously advocated for those concepts.
Berger has criticized the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system for paying $25,000 to anti-racism educator Ibram X. Kendi to speak at a district online conference.
The bill would “grant parents the right to access the materials used in a classroom so they can know what kind of curriculum their tax dollars are providing,” Berger said.
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This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 12:18 PM with the headline "In latest Critical Race Theory backlash, NC Senate may vote on affirmative action ban."
