Now this campaign appears to have turned its attention to gender identity and sexual orientation as well. Indeed, lawmakers have continued to introduce anti-CRT and Dont Say Gay bills with regularity. Using a concealed survey technique called a list experiment, I found in an August 2020 survey that four in 10 American academics would not hire a known Trump supporter. . But there is also a soft authoritarianism that arises from political discrimination in hiring, promotion, grants and publication. And he said that the idea was not just to provide a diverse forum for professors, but to liberate students to bring up unpopular views. These laws and executive orders are summarized below. Every other gag order bill introduced in 2022 across the country has been written and sponsored exclusively by Republican legislators. Rather, they address an entirely different situation, where a teacher is offering biased or factually incorrect instruction. In his press release, Governor DeSantis also announced his intent to overhaul and restructure New College of Florida, a traditionally progressive school whose new board of trustees. Around the country, at school board meetings, in state legislatures, and in some local libraries, books are facing challenges, and many of the books being challenged have to do with race. Most state legislatures meet during the first half of the year; additional educational gag orders could become law before the end of 2022 via special sessions or in the few legislatures that meet year-round. Instead of prohibiting the inclusion of certain concepts, they would require that instruction be consistent with those concepts ideological opposites. The State of Censorship in the US: Why Good Books Get Banned By Imani Williams | November 17, 2021 This post will take a look at book censorship in the world of children's literature and investigate why good books get banned. Prohibitions on compulsion have increased significantly in 2022, appearing in 24 percent of bills compared to just 10 percent in 2021. . These new measures empower the sector regulator to fine universities which breach their academic freedom duties. Amanda Becker, Republicans See Schools as 2022 Political Battleground, 19th (website), March 23, 2022. Student-Enforced Censorship at Pennsylvania's Private Colleges. Except where otherwise noted, each bill referenced was considered in 2022. Educators might well conclude that a ban on compulsion will in practice be interpreted to mean something far more censorious than the plain language suggests. But legislation restricting what concepts and perspectives may be covered constricts classroom teaching and learning unreasonably. Such bills may reflect an understandable desire to repudiate slavery as inimical to the ideals of equality and freedom extolled by the nations founders. Is nuclear fission green? Students should click here to submit opinions of fewer than 250 words before March 22. Using eight surveys of academic and graduate student opinion, we examined the willingness of faculty to cancel controversial academics and to discriminate against political minorities. South Dakotas HB 1012 became law in 2022. And in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has, an outline of sweepingand draconianlegislative changes to the states public university system. Finally, the future of educational gag orders will likely unfold as part of a broader legislative campaign of educational censorship. For the purposes of this law, training includes seminars, workshops, trainings, and orientations, which under some interpretations could include classroom instruction. Chilling effects for political minorities stem from fears of being disciplined as well as worries about the consequences of being marked out as ideologically deviant in a world where those on the left typically outnumber those on the right by a ratio of over 10 to one. The founders of the University of Austin say they want to defend intellectual dissent, and declare that something in higher education is fundamentally broken. It occurs in all manifestations of authority to some degree, but in modern times it has been of special importance in its relation to government and the rule of law. It is in the process of raising $250 million and is looking at several sites for the campus, he said, and is hiring faculty fellows who will help design the curriculum and teach in the summer program. Self-censorship is widely practiced in university communities, under-discussed though it is. All rights reserved. Mississippis HB 437 would have denied state funds (e.g. Some of these policies have borrowed language from state bills and have proposed prohibitions on teachers related to instruction about race and sex. In addition, students must be instructed that if any of these political systems were to replace the current form of government, the government of the United States would be overthrown and existing freedoms under the Constitution of the United States would no longer exist. Other bills would achieve a similar effect via a different route. Stanley Kurtz, The Partisanship Out of Civics Act, National Association of Scholars, February 15, 2021, For instance, Texass SB 3, which became law in 2021, states that whenever public K12 school teachers broach a current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs, they must strive to explore the topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective., Missouris SB 694 would have required teachers to teach controversial topics from both sides and without showing preference or deference to one perspective., And under Kentuckys SB 1, which became law in April 2022, instruction must be relevant, objective, non-discriminatory, and respectful to the differing perspectives of students., The final type of prohibition found in gag order bills would prohibit educators from including, discussing, or making part of a course certain topics or ideas in the curriculum, regardless of how objective or balanced the discussion is. We have written previously about the focus of many legislative and policy efforts to curb teaching about racism in American history, many of which include language copied from President Trumps 2020, barring a list of divisive concepts in federal trainings (the Executive Order was revoked by President Biden). These are some of the major categories and trends among the educational censorship bills we have seen so far this year. This report offers a deep dive into what these bills say and how they operate. American Civil Liberties Union, Legislation Affecting LGBTQ Rights across the Country, July 1, 2022. In 2022, bills and policies weakening tenure have been adopted in Mississippi and Florida, with similar efforts underway in Texas and Louisiana.126Molly Minta, College Presidents Now Have Final Say on Tenure after IHL Quietly Revises Policy, Mississippi Today, April 21, 2022, https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/21/tenure-ihl-revises-policy/; Divya Kumar, Florida Legislature Passes Bill Allowing More Scrutiny of Tenured Faculty, Tampa Bay Times, March 10, 2022, https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2022/03/10/florida-legislature-passes-bill-allowing-more-scrutiny-of-tenured-faculty/; Dan Patrick, Statement on Plans for Higher Education and Tenure, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, February 18, 2022, https://www.ltgov.texas.gov/2022/02/18/lt-gov-dan-patrick-statement-on-plans-for-higher-education-and-tenure/; Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Legislature Approves Task Force to Study Tenure, Reveille, May 23, 2022, https://www.lsureveille.com/news/louisiana-legislature-approves-task-force-to-study-tenure/article_5383fe44-daea-11ec-8d83-33854e609d64.html. This provision poses a threat to college and university faculty members First Amendment rights. And a pair of North Carolina bills, HB 755 and HB 1067, would have banned instruction on these topics until the fourth and seventh grades, respectively.83North Carolina HB 755, https://legiscan.com/NC/text/H755/id/2592056/North_Carolina-2021-H755-Amended.pdf; North Carolina HB 1067, https://legiscan.com/NC/text/H1067/id/2590617/North_Carolina-2021-H1067-Amended.pdf. In their 2021 report. The third provision requires that all instruction and supporting materials in public K12 schools be consistent with a list of principles related to race, color, national origin, religion, disability, or sexprinciples that essentially contradict the prohibited ideas enumerated elsewhere in the law. This surveillance has taken many forms. Nikoel Hytrek, Why More Students Are Walking Out at Iowa Schools, Iowa Starting Line, April 17, 2022, Such strained conditions also seem likely to add to the nations worsening teacher shortage. Eric Kaufmann is a professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) and the Manhattan Institute. Recent guidance issued by the Florida Board of Governors and various state universities has not allayed these concerns.28Florida Board of Governors, 10.005 Prohibition of Discrimination in University Training or Instruction, https://www.flbog.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/10.005-Prohibition-of-Discrimination-in-University-Training-or-Instruction.pdf; University of Florida, Understanding House Bill 7, https://media.coip.aa.ufl.edu/public_live/hb7/presentation_html5.html; Northwest Florida State College, HB7, https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2022/06/20/HB_7_Circle_5.3.22.pdf; University of North Florida, House Bill 7 (2022) Restrictions on Training/InstructionRequirements & Action Plan, https://www.muckrock.com/foi/jacksonville-326/hb7-impact-university-of-north-florida-129928/?#file-1023523. Heterodox Academy, an organization deeply concerned about . Many of these bills follow templates established in prior sessions, but some reflect novel proposals to bring censorship to new extremes. Sign up to receive email updates about PEN Americas vital work on these issues, including reports, legislative roundups, media coverage, and advocacy alerts. The second type of gag order bills would prohibit the promotion, endorsement, or inculcation of particular ideas or concepts. These concerns are not far-fetched. First, at least 27 bills introduced in 12 states could have the effect of removing existing protections for employees of schools, libraries, and sometimes museums, exempting them from being charged with violations of state obscenity laws exemptions that have long been in place to facilitate public education about anatomy, sex education, and art, among other topics. Titled "Books Under Fire: Law and the Right to Read," Caldwell-Stone told librarians that 151 bills designed to restrict or censor access to information and library services have been . Taken as a whole, the overwhelming trend in 2022 has been toward punitiveness. But the energy of the newer anti-critical race theory campaign has helped such bills gain new momentum, becoming law in Florida and proliferating to other states. However, the greatest change this year has been a heightened focus on LGBTQ+ issues and identitiesa development that resulted in the most highly-publicized educational gag order of the year, Floridas HB 1557. For instance, Indianas HB 1231 would have stripped state accreditation from any nonpublic K12 school that discussed race, sex, or US history in an unacceptable way. In April, a group of students at Iowas Johnston High School reported that there was a different atmosphere at the school after the states gag order became law; that one teacher, explaining the history of redlining, felt compelled to deny in class that they were trying to make students feel guilty; and that another teacher felt unable to explain the motivations behind the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution without violating the states educational gag order law. A pair of Missouri bills (HB 2189 and SB 645) state simply that K12 schools and colleges must offer courses that promote an overall positive . In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Supreme Court struck down a state law requiring that public school students recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In each case, it is hard to see how an accurate account of American slavery, Jim Crow, or Japanese internment would survive such restrictions. (Note that PEN America tracks only those anti-LGBTQ+ bills that censor speech in educational institutions; this is only a small fraction of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed across the country in 2022. At the heart of this war are educational gag ordersstate legislative attempts to restrict teaching, training, and learning in K12 schools and higher education. 26 v. Pico, 457 US 853 (1982), https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/decision/board-of-education-island-trees-union-free-school-district-no-26-et-al-v-pico-by-his-next-friend-pico-et-al/. In 2021, the North Dakota legislature passed HB 1508 after just five days of debate. The third most common form of punishment in 2022 has been professional discipline for the teacher or professional committing the violation. A few died thanks to effective politicking by their opponents; this list includes multiple gag order bills in Indiana, which were defeated in 2022 amid political gaffes, citizen pressure, and disagreements among Republican legislators over whether the bills went too far or not far enough.6Stephanie Wang and Aleksandra Appleton, How Indianas Anti-CRT Bill Failed Even with a GOP Supermajority, Chalkbeat Indiana, March 10, 2022, https://in.chalkbeat.org/2022/3/10/22971488/indiana-divisive-concepts-anticrt-bill-failed-gop-supermajority/. We see here how an earlier focused attack on instruction related to racism and sexism has transformed in 2022 into a more general assault on discussions of systemic inequality. And these threats are leading to widespread self-censorship among political minorities. Two major mechanisms have been proposed. , secular humanism would be defined as a type of religion, with critical race theory, drag queen story hours, sexual orientation, and gender identity identified as inseparably linked to secular humanism. Of the educational gag order bills introduced in 2022, 55 percent have included some form of explicit punishment. Advocates who believe that educational gag orders are narrowly focused instruments to fight indoctrination of students should recognize that these laws, in practice, create broad and unspecific new government restrictions on speech that are difficult to interpret and easy to overenforce. As American society reckons with the persistence of racial discrimination and inequity, and the complexities of historical memory, attempts to use the power of the state to constrain discussion of these issues must be rejected.5PEN America, Educational Gag Orders: Legislative Restrictions on the Freedom to Read, Learn, and Teach, November 2021, https://pen.org/report/educational-gag-orders/. Missouris SB 694 would have required teachers to teach controversial topics from both sides and without showing preference or deference to one perspective.49Missouri SB 694, https://legiscan.com/MO/text/SB694/id/2453615/Missouri-2022-SB694-Introduced.pdf. The new law prohibits public and private employers alike from subjecting any individual to training or instruction that promotes, espouses, or in any way advances certain ideas related to race, sex, color, or national origin. Rather, as its lead sponsor, Rep. Jermaine Johnson. Many have also targeted instruction related to US history and contemporary American society. Some educational censorship bills contain provisions designed to make it easier to challenge and remove library content that offends an individuals sensibilities. Dr. Kanelos, who describes himself as a Shakespeare scholar and old soul, said he was pleased by the uproar over his announcement. Two bills in North Dakota and Oklahoma take aim at social-emotional learning. Such bills would likely have ruled out a host of curricular content, including books with LGBTQ+ characters, history about LGBTQ+ rights movements, and more. Employers who do so may be fined up to $10,000 per violation under Floridas Civil Rights Act. This represents a significant increase over 2021, when only 44 percent explicitly referenced a punishment. is one of the most sweeping. Finally, a smaller but still significant number of gag order bills have included some other form of punishment, such as loss of institutional accreditation, loss of tax-exempt status, or criminal penalties. HB 7 also deals a significant blow to academic freedom. In 2022, 39% of all proposed educational gag orders restricted higher education, up from 30% in 2021. And in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed an outline of sweepingand draconianlegislative changes to the states public university system. As American society reckons with the persistence of racial discrimination and inequity, and the complexities of historical memory, attempts to use the power of the state to constrain discussion of these issues must be rejected. For instance, North Dakotas HB 1522 would bar public and private schools from adopting a policy establishing or providing a place, facility, school program, or accommodation that caters to a students perception of being any animal species other than human. This is a reference to the urban myth, popular along the political fringe and embraced by Representative Lauren Boebert, that schools are providing litter boxes for students who believe that they are cats. Despite. As its name suggests, this executive order regulated how federal agencies and contractors could discuss issues surrounding race and sex. . Sunday's press announcement reads in part: "Today, as we grapple with a new wave of censorship in schools, libraries, and bookstores targeting a wide range of expression, including fiction and . Similar examples are common throughout discourse on gag orders and illustrate the expansive ways supporters would seek to enforce them. For instance, Illinoiss HB 5505 appears at first glance to have been a straightforward ban on compulsion. These are some of the major categories and trends among the educational censorship bills we have seen so far this year. Among them is that the teacher may provide additional balance or factual basis, or correct any factual bases found to be incorrect or biased., Note that these two remedies (providing balance and correcting false claims) do. ; without it, colleges would be subject to the whims of the legislature, inviting ideological control or politically-motivated incursions over what should be a bastion of open inquiry. The second mechanism is a reporting apparatus for alerting the authorities to any violation. Now many are targeting higher education with some of the most censorious language to date. In higher education, educational gag orders are just one of the ways lawmakers are increasingly seeking to undermine academic freedom, shared governance, and faculty tenure. , which would prohibit public school history teachers from offering any instruction about persons who owned slaves. However, this bill, which is one of just three educational gag orders to have been authored by a Democrat so far in 2023, is not meant to ever become law. The prohibitions on promotion are problematic as well. We should protect our children from being exposed to this evil by sweeping it under the rug and never addressing it.. It builds on PEN Americas 2021 report on educational gag orders, as well as the PEN America Index of Educational Gag Orders, a comprehensive dataset, updated weekly, of every gag order bill introduced since January 2021. The Dont Say Gay bills are only the most visible aspect of a broader campaign by legislators in 2022 against discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in educational settings. And should these bills become law, many teachers may simply avoid any content that could even approach the restrictions laid out in this legislation. Similarly, the CRT Forward Tracking Project at UCLA Law School has documented hundreds of district-level educational gag order measures on instruction related to race.117The UCLA CRT Forward Tracking Project has documented hundreds of critical race theory bans at the district level. This bill not only has serious implications for individual and artistic expression it could potentially be applied to a student or parent attending or affiliated with the school. Similarly, the CRT Forward Tracking Project at UCLA Law School has documented hundreds of district-level educational gag order measures on instruction related to race. PEN America, Failed Bill Brought by Arizona Democrats Would Have Restricted What Teachers Can Teach, July 5, 2022. This seems to be the position of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has actively steered multiple state legislatures toward this formulation. And West Virginias HB 4016, which targets public K12 schools, would have prohibited. Over the past two years, the anticritical race theory campaign has displayed remarkable energy and success in targeting classroom discussions of race and sex, as the 19 educational gag order laws passed in 15 states demonstrate. Now this campaign appears to have turned its attention to gender identity and sexual orientation as well. For example, one of the concepts that HB 7 prohibits faculty from espousing is that an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion. By any reasonable interpretation, HB 7 makes it illegal in the state of Florida for a law professor to articulate arguments in favor of affirmative action in the classroomeven though affirmative action exists and is currently held by the Supreme Court to be constitutional in some forms.27Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978), https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and . Under North Dakotas HB 1526, schools would be forbidden from teaching that a students inner feelings are capable of guiding the students life or inform[ing] a students worldview based on emotions. And Oklahomas SB 1027 would prohibit schools from using any instructional materials that address non-cognitive social factors including but not limited to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making, and/or other attributes, dispositions, social skills, attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, feelings, emotions, mindsets, metacognitive learning skills, motivation, grit, self-regulation, tenacity, perseverance, resilience, and/or intrapersonal resources.. Some bills have proposed something similar for public (non-school) libraries as well. (Note that PEN America tracks only those anti-LGBTQ+ bills that censor speech in educational institutions; this is only a small fraction of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed across the country in 2022. The Wyoming State Senate attempted to defund the gender studies program at the University of Wyoming.127Rebecca Kelliher, Wyoming Senate Votes to Stop Funding University of Wyomings Gender Studies Program, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, March 1, 2022, https://www.diverseeducation.com/news-roundup/article/15289113/wyoming-senate-votes-to-stop-funding-university-of-wyomings-gender-studies-program. The Dont Say Gay bills are only the most visible aspect of a broader campaign by legislators in 2022 against discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in educational settings. In fact, academics display similar levels of political prejudice to the rest of the highly-educated population. After Florida passed HB 1557, the "Don't Say Gay" bill, signs and billboards reading "Say Gay" cropped up across the state in protest. By Monique M. Altman American college campuses have long been proffered as safe places to freely exchange and discuss ideas. This is being attempted in two ways. This seems to be the position of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has actively steered multiple state legislatures toward this formulation.59Greg Gonzalez, FIRE Continues to Oppose Curricular Bans in Race and Sex Stereotyping Bills, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, July 11, 2022, https://www.thefire.org/fire-continues-to-oppose-curricular-bans-in-race-and-sex-stereotyping-bills/. Finally, a group of parents have sued the Forest Hills School District in Ohio to block a district-level educational gag order. The UCLA CRT Forward Tracking Project has documented hundreds of critical race theory bans at the district level. As Justice Robert H. Jackson declared in his majority opinion, If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word their faith therein.. The combination in 2022 educational gag order bills of extreme vagueness and extreme penalties would virtually guarantee a significant chilling effect on teachers and schools were these bills to become law. Bills attacking institutional independence have appeared in at least 5 states, including Iowa, North Dakota, Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma. As a literary and human rights organization, our chief concern is with state censorship of the free flow of ideas, and with government restrictions on the freedom to read, to learn, and to teach. Similar tip lines have been proposed in Alaska, New Jersey, and Oklahoma. Seven bills currently under consideration would ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity altogether, from kindergarten right through to Grade 12. Finally, the future of educational gag orders will likely unfold as part of a broader legislative campaign of educational censorship. Librarians train to defend intellectual freedom and fight book bans at Chicago conference. Of these three types of prohibitionscompulsion, promotion, and inclusionthose bills that prohibit inclusion are the most censorious. This year alone, 137 gag order bills like these have been introduced in 36 state. A Mississippi representative proposed a bill to install cameras in classrooms, something she said was necessary to hold teachers accountable for teaching so much critical race theory.. Compared to last years crop, the gag order bills introduced thus far in 2022 have tended to be more expansive and to target a wider array of educational speech than those filed last year. Such bills would likely have ruled out a host of curricular content, including books with LGBTQ+ characters, history about LGBTQ+ rights movements, and more. Bills legislating educational censorship in schools, colleges, universities, and libraries have been on the rise in the past two years, as PEN America has documented previously. Two lawsuits challenging Floridas HB 7 have already been filed: , have been brought against Floridas HB 1557. One bill with substantially similar language, Alabama HB 322, did become law, though it does not contain an explicit age or grade-based prohibition on speech. A prohibition on sexual content in school libraries became law Monday as Gov. The final type of prohibition found in gag order bills would prohibit educators from including, discussing, or making part of a course certain topics or ideas in the curriculum, regardless of how objective or balanced the discussion is. )87Glossary of Terms: Transgender, GLAAD Media Reference Guide, 11th Edition, https://www.glaad.org/reference/trans-terms. This law includes three principal provisions. Meanwhile, supporters of educational gag orders have filed complaints of their own in a bid to persuade courts and regulatory bodies to stake out a maximal interpretation of what these laws prohibitand more such actions will likely appear in the coming months. While social sciences and humanities scholars 30 and under ranked social justice and academic freedom equally, academics over 50 backed academic freedom over social justice by more than three to one. Whereas last year it was quite common for gag order bills to target state agencies, political subdivisions, and state contractors, reference to these institutions has been more or less absent in bills introduced this year. Similarly, 57 percent of laws passed in 2022 have included such punishments, compared with 42 percent in 2021.92Oklahomas HB 1775 (2021) is not counted on this list; the law itself includes no punishments, but punishments were added later in a guidance document from the state board of education. South Carolinas HB 3827 is one of the most sweeping. Kentuckys HB 706, the most extreme private right of action bill, would have given any resident of the state a right to sue, including a domestic business entity residing in the [state] or a foreign business entity that is registered and in good standing with the Secretary of State.98Kentucky HB 706, https://legiscan.com/KY/text/HB706/id/2532276/Kentucky-2022-HB706-Introduced.pdf. Since then, copycat bills have been filed in many other states. in North Dakota), which would mean banning any book where a character uses certain curse words or identifies themselves as a boy or a girl. Such legislation seems likely to have a pronounced chilling effect on teachers and to exacerbate tensions between educators and the communities they serve. South Carolinas H 4605 would have forbidden public K12 teachers from subject[ing] students to controversial and age-inappropriate topics such as gender identity or lifestyles.. While not all of these are direct attacks on speech, institutional independence has long been understood to be a necessary precondition for academic freedom and free speech on campus; without it, colleges would be subject to the whims of the legislature, inviting ideological control or politically-motivated incursions over what should be a bastion of open inquiry.
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