Originally Posted by Pete F.
On january 12, keith Ammon, a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, introduced a bill that would bar schools as well as organizations that have entered into a contract or subcontract with the state from endorsing “divisive concepts.” Specifically, the measure would forbid “race or sex scapegoating,” questioning the value of meritocracy, and suggesting that New Hampshire—or the United States—is “fundamentally racist.”
Isn't a key word here "endorsing"? That doesn't bar "discussing" an issue or the pros and cons of a given theory or a comparison of various theories or concepts.
And "race or sex scapegoating" is defined as "assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex, and includes claims that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others”-- which all seem to be discriminatory against either a specific race or a specific gender. Racial and sexual discrimination are already forbidden under law in various government institutions.
Ammon’s bill is one of a dozen that Republicans have recently introduced in state legislatures and the United States Congress that contain similar prohibitions. In Arkansas, lawmakers have approved a measure that would ban state contractors from offering training that promotes “division between, resentment of, or social justice for” groups based on race, gender, or political affiliation.
Again, a key word here is "training." "Discussing" the merits of resentment of a race or gender or political affiliation, might be useful. But conducting training courses with one point of view, especially a controversial view is not merely speech, it is indoctrination. Indoctrination is a form of suppressing speech, not promoting it.
The Idaho legislature just passed a bill that would bar institutions of public education from compelling “students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere” to specific beliefs about race, sex, or religion. The Louisiana legislature is weighing a nearly identical measure.
Key word here is "compelling." Compelling students to personally affirm specific beliefs is actually denying their free speech. To bar such compelling does not ban speech, it makes it more possible.
The language of these bills is anodyne and fuzzy—compel, for instance, is never defined in the Idaho legislation—and that ambiguity appears to be deliberate.
In law, dictionary definitions usually suffice. Various dictionary definitions don't leave much, if any, fuzziness about what it means to compel. And I don't know what is anodyne about the word "compel."
According to Ammon, “using taxpayer funds to promote ideas such as ‘one race is inherently superior to another race or sex’ … only exacerbates our differences.”
I agree that racism and sexism shouldn't be funded by taxpayers. And that promoting any racial or sexual superiority does exacerbate differences. Discussing those things should be allowed.
But promoting, or training one point of view discourages or suppresses the freedom to dissent.
But critics of these efforts warn that the bills would effectively prevent public schools and universities from holding discussions about racism;
They absolutely would not prevent schools from holding actual discussions. They would make it more difficult, perhaps, from having a course specifically devoted to the notion that a given race is inherently racist but that other races are not. But it wouldn't prevent discussions on whether a given race, and only that race, is inherently racist.
the New Hampshire measure in particular would ban companies that do business with government entities from conducting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. “The vagueness of the language is really the point,” Leah Cohen, an organizer with Granite State Progress, a liberal nonprofit based in Concord, told me. “With this really broad brushstroke, we anticipate that that will be used more to censor conversations about race and equity.”
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