Sitting in the gallery, you may have witnessed a familiar scene. Lawmakers scurry around the room chit-chatting as usual. Men in suits, ladies in blazers. Some sit at their stations and punch in their votes with a delicate click. At the front of the gallery, the votes are tallied on a sizable video screen; it flashes with colors of green and red. The vote succeeds, the bill passes. You’ve just witnessed a moment in history.
The North Dakota House of Representatives voted on a bill banning Critical Race Theory on November 11, 2021. The bill passed by a wide majority, with 76 lawmakers voting yay, and 16 voting nay. The Senate followed the next day, and by the end of the day, the bill was on the Governor's desk. CRT has become a hot issue around the United States, but not too many people know what it is or why it's being discussed.
The frenzy around CRT first started near the end of 2020 when then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning a specific type of Diversity training in the federal government; this order was later revoked by President Biden.
Since then, states around the nation have pushed back against diversity training that asks white individuals to reflect on their privilege and promotes the idea that racism is driven by societal forces rather than individual prejudices. Parents have argued to their local school boards that teaching CRT is encouraging students to feel guilty about being white. These discussions have prompted more widespread political discourse in many states.
A growing trend has been emerging in state houses around the United States in 2021 to ban CRT. Already, 14 states have passed bills banning CRT from being instructed in their public schools, and many additional states have bills moving through their legislatures. The majority of these states are Republican-led states. North Dakota is now on that list.
In North Dakota, the bill’s effects on higher education are limited. At the moment, the bill allows Superintendent of Public Instruction Kristin Baeler to create rules regarding the teaching of topics related to race. Superintendent Baeler has no jurisdiction over the curriculum of higher education institutions. This means that the bill only directly affects the public K-12 school system, leaving BSC unaffected. Despite this, some believe that similar movements can affect collegiate level education in the future.
“The impact could also be felt as a potential chilling effect, and create a precedent to have this overreach spread to the collegiate level if it gathers supporters and becomes politicalized,” said Dr. Perry Hornbacker, who is a professor of history at Bismarck State College.
The largest concern for educators and lawmakers around the state regarding bills targeting CRT is that such a bill is unnecessary. The bill passed bans CRT, but fails to describe any sort of punishment for teachers who violate the law. Furthermore, some Democratic lawmakers have pointed out that, currently, there is no school curriculum in the state that mandates the teaching of CRT. This sentiment is shared by educators.
“CRT is not taught in the public schools yet this legislation creates a shadow over the field of education,” Hornbacker said.
In many districts, a concern of teachers is from the general gray-areas surrounding the concept of CRT. In many cases, teachers are not entirely sure what constitutes CRT. In an effort to avoid violating the law, instructors will change their lesson plans, removing lessons surrounding more widely discussed racial topic, such as slavery.
“This… legislation creates a threat that can intimidate and create self-censorship that will prevent in many cases the teaching of needed but difficult topics in our history,” said Hornbacker.
Self-censorship is reaching further than racism as a result of CRT bills. The same effects are being used to stop discussions of sexism, gender expression, and sexuality. Though bills specifically banning these topics have not become a reality yet, in some ways, it is beginning to happen. They have been the topic of discussion in school board meetings.
“Recent events indicate that polarization and anger are often expressed on the local levels in school board meetings,” said Hornbacker.
On local levels, bills like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and in other states, the banning of books regarding these topics is becoming a reality. In North Dakota, bills of this nature have not been proposed.
(Find on Page 3 of Mystician 83.6)
The House of Representatives Chamber in the North Dakota Capitol Building in Bismarck is empty after the 2021 legislative session at the beginning of the year. This room will be the site of the passage of North Dakota's bill banning Critical Race Theory later in the year.
(Credit: Zachary Weiand)
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