Republican Rep. Adam Morgan, a co-sponsor of the bill, says it doesn’t stop teachers from giving their students the facts.
“Nothing in this bill restricts the teaching of fact-based history. It’s not in there. Read it. It clearly lays out the prohibited concepts, basically don’t discriminate, don’t push racism, don’t indoctrinate kids in your personal political viewpoints. That’s what it says,”
he said. “There is nothing in that bill that really should be controversial.”
That is, except the part that
bans teaching anything that assumes “fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to race, sex, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, or to members of a race, sex, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin because of their race, sex, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin.” That’s code for teaching that white people are responsible for slavery.
Democratic Rep. Jermaine Johnson expressed his frustration to his Republican colleagues. According to Johnson, the bill is an effort to prevent white people from being “uncomfortable” with facing the reality of slavery and its impact. He added that it was even more shameful to have the discussion during Black History Month.
“This bill comes from people being uncomfortable about learning Black history,”
Johnson said. “The nation’s founders killed people who looked like me. They hung people who looked like me. Is that indoctrination, or is that truth?”