Indiana Senate Bill 167: Holy crap, what a mess.

thebobmaster

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I was going to post this in the anti-woke thread, because it initially just seemed to be another "we can't discuss racism in the classroom" bill, but it goes so much deeper, and worse, than that.

This bill, filed in the Indiana Senate last Thursday, includes the expected language, banning schools from teaching that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation” is inherently superior, inferior, racist, sexist, or oppressive. In addition, schools cannot teach students that they should feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, responsibility or any other form of psychological distress” based on those same criteria. As I said, so far, your standard "You can't teach that racism is a thing, or that we should feel bad about it." But then you dig a little deeper...

You see, another part of the Senate bill, schools would have to create a curriculum review committee composed of parents, teachers, and others. This committee would then post all materials, lesson plans, and educational activities outside of tests on a web portal for everyone to see. This would allow parents to review the material and opt out of certain items if they wished.

That, to me, is much more troubling. It's basically saying that parents should have ultimate control over what their students learn in school, and if the parents don't want them to learn something, then they won't let them. At that point...it's basically free homeschooling. Well, free for the parents, not the taxpayers. It's one thing to keep parents informed of what their kids are learning, but to let them decide in advance what they will and will not learn is how you get people convinced they are right to only focus on half the picture because someone kept covering up the other half, so to them, it doesn't exist.
 
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Agema

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You see, another part of the Senate bill, schools would have to create a curriculum review committee composed of parents, teachers, and others. This committee would then post all materials, lesson plans, and educational activities outside of tests on a web portal for everyone to see. This would allow parents to review the material and opt out of certain items if they wished.
Ace. So they've finally find a way that they might sneak in that refusal to have their kids taught about evolution?

There might be a big advantage in them stopping anyone discussing differences by age, gender, race, etc. The main difference left to discuss that they forgot to ban will be class / wealth, and they might not like how that turns out.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
"2+2=5 and if you disagree or try to tell me that is the wrong answer then I will feel such discomfort and stress that I can only assume you are deliberately trying to tell me that I am inherently inferior because of my deeply held beliefs."
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Thank you for making a threat about this. Seriously, whoever made this idea they shall get kicked in the nuts or cherry for even thinking about it and making things worse.
Conservatives have long been trying to... essentially gut education and go by very strict educational standards set by them. CRT gave them much needed ammo to make bigger pushes for it, despite the fact that its a college level concept and discussion.
 
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tstorm823

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But I thought republicans cared about freedom of speech? Not allowing a teacher to teach race related issues is going against their free speech!
If you cannot teach about race related issues without telling someone that they are inherently superior, inferior, or guilty based on their race, you shouldn't be teaching about race-related issues.
 
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Fallen Soldier

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If you cannot teach about race related issues without telling someone that they are inherently superior, inferior, or guilty based on their race, you shouldn't be teaching about race-related issues.
So should talking about the civil rights movement be banned? Or Jim Crow? What does CTR even mean to you anti woke people? Even the voters in Virginia doesn’t have a good idea what ctr really means.
 

tstorm823

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So should talking about the civil rights movement be banned? Or Jim Crow? What does CTR even mean to you anti woke people? Even the voters in Virginia doesn’t have a good idea what ctr really means.
No, those things shouldn't be banned. Critical race theory is a field of study that seeks the way in which structures of society serve to create or exacerbate racial inequality. The methodology leads to stupid conclusions, in much the same way as anyone who decides what their conclusion should be and rationalizes backwards reaches stupid conclusions. The inevitable perspective drawn from a field that assumes everything is racist is that, you guessed it, everything is racist. And typically it's racist and invented to benefit white people.

Like, what is Jim Crow? If you google the definition of Jim Crow, you get "the former practice of segregating black people in the US." And that's what we've been teaching kids about Jim Crow for decades, that those laws were federally banned, and that's a good thing, and no Republican is going to complain about that. BUT here's the catch: racial inequality still exists, and schools are societal structures, so the CRT perspective inevitably decides that what the schools have been teaching are tools to perpetuate white supremacy. So just teaching that Jim Crow was a bad thing is now a tool to perpetuate white supremacy.

Like, read this: https://hechingerreport.org/how-do-you-teach-antiracism-to-the-youngest-students/

The outrage over CRT isn't about teaching kids Jim Crow or the Civil Rights Movement. We've taught those things for decades. The outrage is that they want to teach children as young as two to be actively aware of their race. They want to give kids picture books about how going into a room with people of other skin colors is an act of courage. They don't want to teach the history of Jim Crow, they want to teach Jim Crow as a present circumstance, and act as though society makes white people powerful and black people weak through laws and systems designed to do so. Proponents of CRT in education directly refer to what they do as "activism".
 

Trunkage

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So should talking about the civil rights movement be banned? Or Jim Crow? What does CTR even mean to you anti woke people? Even the voters in Virginia doesn’t have a good idea what ctr really means.
Dude. It's just feelings before facts.
 

Trunkage

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'Cannot discuss social and emotional issues with children without parent consent.'

Just keep them at home then. That's 50% of what a teacher does
 

Trunkage

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So, that bounty system for abortions is in this law right? If any person sees a teacher do something they dont like to any child (not even yours), you can sue them

Like, what is Jim Crow? If you google the definition of Jim Crow, you get "the former practice of segregating black people in the US."
Are you pretending that, just because thats the way it has been taught, that no one (or this law) can change it? Just because... that's how its been?

I'm pretty sure there is a bunch of words in your statement that wouldn't fulfill on this law... unless you added that the segregation was 'equal treatment' and removed any concept of race. In fact, after reading that sentence, it would be a good idea to call segregation a postive for everyone.

Lastly, what is the point of teaching Jim Crowe as you stated above? It sounds like absolutely nothing happened and is pointless bringing it up. I know your so scared of the possibility feeling any sort of guilt that you will do anything to escape. But you are warping history just to suit your own purposes. What you are doing is not history or dealing with facts. If you hadn't got it yet - all those things you are so worried about CRT doing, is exactly what you are doing
 
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Trunkage

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Sorry. Forgot to add this. I was describing this bill to a colleague and her immediate response was, 'It's Political Correctness gone mad.'

I don't think I can sum this bill up any better
 

Satinavian

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If you cannot teach about race related issues without telling someone that they are inherently superior, inferior, or guilty based on their race, you shouldn't be teaching about race-related issues.
This bill is literally forbidding to teach that Nazis ( political affiliation ) are racist. Or oppressive.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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This bill is literally forbidding to teach that Nazis ( political affiliation ) are racist. Or oppressive.
I don't think it is.

It says that it cannot be taught that one race IS superior/inferior, it does not ban teaching that certain organisations or individuals thought that certain races were superior / inferior (implicitly, they were wrong to think that). The exception of course appears to be the USA, where anyone is at risk of prosecution if they say it was racist or sexist upon founding, even though it manifestly was.

* * *

I wonder if there isn't another major problem with this and another law (in the same or a concurrent bill):

Prohibition of teaching "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation" being racist or oppressive

Mandatory teaching that "socialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are incompatible with and in conflict with the principles of freedom upon which the United States was founded"

These two statements look to me to be clearly contradictory, because the second is doing what the first aspires to ban. Bluntly, I don't think the latter can survive challenge because it's anti-democratic, prejudicial, and even self-contradictory because surely the principles of freedom that the USA was founded on includes freedom of political views.
 

tstorm823

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This bill is literally forbidding to teach that Nazis ( political affiliation ) are racist. Or oppressive.
No, it isn't. It's forbidding teaching that a political affiliation is inherently bad (which Democrats should be happy about, because they really don't want to be tied to the sins of the past, political parties can change and aren't inherently anything), and then forbids a bunch of judgments and mistreatments of individuals based on the list of characteristics. You can't teach that Nazis were inherently evil because of their party, you can teach that they were actually evil because they did the Holocaust, but even if they are evil, you can't spit on someone in school for associating with them.
These two statements look to me to be clearly contradictory, because the second is doing what the first aspires to ban. Bluntly, I don't think the latter can survive challenge because it's anti-democratic, prejudicial, and even self-contradictory because surely the principles of freedom that the USA was founded on includes freedom of political views.
They aren't on a lot of levels. You're taking the logical jumps that something detrimental to the US is inherently inferior or something in conflict with the US's founding principles is oppressive. At bare minimum, there are a few users here who would see no contradiction. But also, the former cares about political affiliation, not political ideology. They aren't trying to mandate that all ideologies are treated equal in schools, they're trying to snuff out "guilt by association" tactics.
 

Fallen Soldier

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I don't think it is.

It says that it cannot be taught that one race IS superior/inferior, it does not ban teaching that certain organisations or individuals thought that certain races were superior / inferior (implicitly, they were wrong to think that). The exception of course appears to be the USA, where anyone is at risk of prosecution if they say it was racist or sexist upon founding, even though it manifestly was.

* * *

I wonder if there isn't another major problem with this and another law (in the same or a concurrent bill):

Prohibition of teaching "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation" being racist or oppressive

Mandatory teaching that "socialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are incompatible with and in conflict with the principles of freedom upon which the United States was founded"

These two statements look to me to be clearly contradictory, because the second is doing what the first aspires to ban. Bluntly, I don't think the latter can survive challenge because it's anti-democratic, prejudicial, and even self-contradictory because surely the principles of freedom that the USA was founded on includes freedom of political views.
Here’s the thing though. CRT isn’t even taught in most or all public schools. It’s mostly taught in universities/college campuses. And as you pointed out these anti CRT bills are contradictory and the people writing these bills have no idea what CRT is actually about. Which is teaching how racist the system can be for non whites.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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No, it isn't. It's forbidding teaching that a political affiliation is inherently bad (which Democrats should be happy about, because they really don't want to be tied to the sins of the past, political parties can change and aren't inherently anything), and then forbids a bunch of judgments and mistreatments of individuals based on the list of characteristics. You can't teach that Nazis were inherently evil because of their party, you can teach that they were actually evil because they did the Holocaust, but even if they are evil, you can't spit on someone in school for associating with them.
Well that's clearly bullshit