North Carolina Republicans seek to limit racial teachings once again
State Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston County, answers questions about his bill to limit how teachers can discuss certain racial topics during Tuesday’s House Education Committee meeting at the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh, N.C.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A previously vetoed proposal advancing in the North Carolina House would restrict how teachers can discuss certain racial topics in the classroom amid a national GOP crusade against ideas they associate with ”critical race theory.”
The bill, which passed Tuesday in the House Education Committee, would ban public schools from compelling students to adopt a list of beliefs, including that students should feel guilty because of their race or sex and that they bear responsibility for past actions committed by members of the same race or sex.
Schools would also be required to notify the state’s Department of Public Instruction and post details online before they can host a diversity training session or a speaker who has previously promoted any of the beliefs restricted by the bill.
Bill sponsor Rep. John Torbett, a Gaston County Republican who chairs the education committee, said it will prevent discriminatory concepts from being taught as fact, now and in the future. He highlighted a provision that would prohibit educators from asserting that one race or sex is inherently superior.
“Who knows what group will rise to a prominent position to try to come and indoctrinate our children?” Torbett said. “This bill protects whatever group that is from soiling the minds of our kids with thoughts that don’t collectively bring us together.”
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the proposal in 2021 after warning that it would push “calculated, conspiracy-laden politics into public education.” Republicans resurrected it this year after gaining enough ground in the midterm elections to land within one seat of a veto-proof supermajority.
Their latest action is part of a national Republican effort to quell classroom instruction on topics they associate with critical race theory, a complex academic and legal framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions, which perpetuate inequalities.
While the bill does not mention the framework, it does prohibit schools from teaching that the United States was created for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex. It also rejects the notion that the government is “inherently racist.”
While many K-12 public schools teach about the effects of slavery and racism throughout U.S. history, there is little to no evidence that critical race theory, as it’s defined, is being taught. Republicans in recent years have co-opted the phrase as a catchall for racial topics they find unpalatable, using it as a political tool to limit lessons about systemic inequality, white privilege and racial justice efforts.