The Georgia Senate passed legislation on Friday that would bar teachers from discussing so-called divisive concepts about race in the United States.
The bill, which passed 32-20, now goes to the House of Representatives, which passed a similar bill last week. This House bill will go to the Senate for consideration.
If either becomes law, nine specific viewpoints will be banned from classrooms, including that one race is superior to another, that the United States or Georgia is systematically racist, or that every person should feel distressed or guilty because of the color of their skin.
The bill’s author, Cornelia Republican Sen. Bo Hatchett, said Senate Bill 377 will not prevent teaching about shameful moments in history, only prevent teachers from blaming impressionable students.
“The point of this is that a teacher should not be able to teach right now that the United States or the state of Georgia as a whole is racist today,” he said. “Well there are redlining rules, Jim Crow laws, these are things that have happened in the past and these are things that should be brought up. But today a teacher cannot say that the United States of America or the state of Georgia is fundamentally or systematically racist.”
The Democrats painted a different picture.
Atlanta Democratic Sen. Elena Parent called the bill “a jumble of words cut and pasted by the Heritage Foundation and an executive order from Trump.”
Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Stone Mountain Democrat, said this was in response to the racial justice protests following the killings of black Americans, including George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.
“Institutions and schools have taken a close look at their policies and have begun to implement new curricula, training and commitments to combat and dismantle racism,” she said. “This provoked a backlash among far-right activists and policymakers, and Senate Bill 377 is a direct product of that backlash. In other words, society tries to reckon with racism in the past and in the present through tough talks and a fight. Reckoning isn’t always pretty. Some people would just rather avoid the mess. Some people don’t even want that reckoning to happen.”
Republican Senator Randy Robertson, author of a bill targeting protests, pointed to a different origin. Robertson said “anti-American” protesters during the Vietnam War exported their ideology into college classrooms.
“And after they saturated our colleges and universities with it, they needed another place to go, so they took it to our high schools and eventually to our elementary schools,” he said. “This is nothing new.”
An earlier version of the bill included colleges and universities, but that language was dropped over concerns about academic freedom, Republicans said.
Gov. Brian Kemp has listed legislation against so-called critical race theory as a priority for this year’s session, and similar actions have surfaced in state legislatures, though teachers say the theory isn’t showing up in classrooms.
Hatchett declined to answer when asked if the bill addresses a specific issue in Georgia schools.
“From the beginning, one of the biggest questions I’ve been asked has been: Where’s the evidence? Where do you see that?” he said. “But I’m telling you, one of the things that has been shocking and alarming to me during this process, which is based on the internet, emails and comments on social media, is that there are people who are criticizing this bill and saying that these divisive concepts should be taught, and the fact that this rhetoric is out there and the fact that 0.01% of the population believe these divisive concepts should be taught in our schools, is an argument as to why this bill is correct is and why it is an appropriate time to introduce the Bill Forward.”
Other Republicans, such as Macon Republican Senator Bill Cowsert, have expressed shock at the idea that anyone might think America has a problem with systemic racism.
“I’m intrigued by this argument that America or the state of Georgia has systematic laws that are racially discriminatory,” he said. “Are you aware of any laws that are racially discriminatory? I think of the Voting Rights Act that specifically protects racial minorities from unfair treatment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I mean for the last 60 years, it seems to me that our country has more laws that prevent any kind of racial discrimination and then the creation of a system or legal framework for discrimination.”
Democrats said these laws were passed in response to the civil rights movement to curb systemic racism and did not show it was no longer a problem. Others addressed the shortage of teachers in Georgia, arguing that the bill allows disgruntled parents to cause further headaches with official complaints.
Democratic Senator Harold Jones, an Augusta Democrat, said the bill’s vagueness could land teachers in hot water.
Few would argue that the United States and Georgia were systematically racist during the height of slavery, but it’s not clear when it stops saying the country had a racial problem.
“When do I have to cut off the time?” he said. “So, the teacher says, ‘The United States of America and Georgia used to be discriminatory,’ when do they have to end it? Does it have to be 1965, is it 1945? Does it have to be 1985? Does it have to be 2000? What year do they have to cut it off to get in the rubric of that particular statute? And at this point, you have a complete language restriction.
Hatchett pushed back on Democrats’ arguments, saying the bill only prevents teachers from blaming current students.
“We can teach them these hard lessons, but at the end of the day, this bill says a teacher shouldn’t tell a child that they should feel guilty about their race, color or ethnicity, it’s their fault,” he said he. “This law allows history to be taught, but what it doesn’t allow is that because of that history and because of the color of your skin, a teacher says you should feel that way.”
Grayson’s Democratic Sen. Nikki Merritt was unconvinced. She told her fellow MPs about her grandmother living through Jim Crow and her uncle, who took part in student protests. She said she fears the bill will tell kids like hers that learning about their family history in school isn’t worth it.
“I know these conversations, they are difficult to hear. It’s hard for me to hear. But it’s our story. Like it or not, this is part of America, the United States, the South. And there’s nothing wrong with talking about accurate history. It’s about facing the truth in the story, that’s what we’re talking about. That’s part of the truth, and it’s meant to make us uncomfortable. It’s supposed to evoke a feeling. It should disgust us. And that’s what it’s supposed to do, so we don’t repeat history, that we learn to become better people and we learn to get along better with one another.”
This story was previously published by the Georgia Recorder, a subsidiary of the nonprofit States Newsroom, which also owns the Florida Phoenix.
