The Georgia state Senate passed a bill on Friday that forbids the teaching of certain race-ethnicity-related concepts in schools across the state of Georgia.
Senate Bill 377 passed by substitute by a vote of 32 to 20 Friday afternoon, according to a tweet from the Georgia Senate Press Office. The bill, which Republicans are in support of and Democrats are against, now moves to the Georgia state House for consideration.
According to the language in the bill, nine “divisive concepts” are forbidden to be taught in school if the law becomes effective. The prohibited “divisive concepts” include the ideas that one race or ethnicity is naturally inferior to another; the concept that the U.S. is “fundamentally or systemically racist”; and the practice of teachers making students feel guilty or demeaned because of the colors of their skin, their races or ethnicities.
However, the text in the bill does not “prohibit the discussion of divisive concepts, as part of a larger course of instruction, in an objective manner and without endorsement.”
In addition, the text of the bill also does not:
“prohibit the use of curriculum that addresses topics of slavery, racial or ethnic oppression, racial or ethnic segregation, or racial or ethnic discrimination, including topics relating to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in such oppression, segregation, and discrimination.”
A similar bill, House Bill 1084, also forbid teacher and school administrators from discriminating “based on race” by encouraging or promoting nine “divisive concepts” that are almost identical to those in Senate Bill 377.
