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

Agema

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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.
I am deeply skeptical it would really survive testing in a court. In order to make the argument it requires numerous logical contortions.

The first is that something that is against freedoms is not oppressive. Well, good luck with that, because that's a tough ask. Never mind when you stop and have a think about how Communism and socialism are characterised, including by yourself, which will undoubtedly be relevant in a court. Because that very charaterisation you regularly employ will be thrown straight at it to demonstrate the point. And never mind that, but if the ideologies are neither inferior nor oppressive, why does teaching them need to be banned? The criterion for banning surely must be that they pose a risk to other people and wider society, otherwise this is just thought policing.

The second is to make an incredibly dubious separation between an ideology and affiliation. What do we think political affiliation is, if not a statement of adhering to views and ideologies? How is the ideology of Marxism dangerous, unless there are Marxists acting on it?

What do you think the practical ramifications are going to be of saying "Marxism is evil" in how people behave towards Marxists? Is this not overtly encouraging prejudice? Have you forgotten that your country has already been there: McCarthyism, HUAC, etc.? How do you think lots of Americans feel towards Muslims generally, even though we know it's only a miniscule proportion that are terrorists? It is simply irrational to think you can teach people to fear and hate an ideology, and then expect them to act with no adverse feelings towards adherents of that ideology.
 
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Gordon_4

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But even if they are evil, you can't spit on someone in school for associating with them.
I think here you mean to say that 'you shouldn't spit on someone in school for associating with them (Nazis)'. Because you absolutely could do exactly that, and in my less intelligent days in high school probably would have. I'd just also expect to get suspended from school for my trouble. Or into a punch up and THEN suspended because actions have consequences.
 

tstorm823

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CRT isn’t even taught in most or all public schools. It’s mostly taught in universities/college campuses.
Taught to teachers, to employ in their teaching
And never mind that, but if the ideologies are neither inferior nor oppressive, why does teaching them need to be banned? The criterion for banning surely must be that they pose a risk to other people and wider society, otherwise this is just thought policing.
Neither bill bans teaching any ideology. One prescribes actively teaching about communism et al, as things contrary to American principles. The other bans teaching that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently inferior or worthy of discrimination. Nothing in either bill (that I'm aware of, I haven't read both start to finish, so I might be ignorant of it) seems to ban teaching about any ideology.
The second is to make an incredibly dubious separation between an ideology and affiliation. What do we think political affiliation is, if not a statement of adhering to views and ideologies? How is the ideology of Marxism dangerous, unless there are Marxists acting on it?

What do you think the practical ramifications are going to be of saying "Marxism is evil" in how people behave towards Marxists? Is this not overtly encouraging prejudice? Have you forgotten that your country has already been there: McCarthyism, HUAC, etc.? How do you think lots of Americans feel towards Muslims generally, even though we know it's only a miniscule proportion that are terrorists? It is simply irrational to think you can teach people to fear and hate an ideology, and then expect them to act with no adverse feelings towards adherents of that ideology.
I mean, Satan is evil essentially by definition. It's difficult to imagine a group would deliberately associate themselves with Satan and then not be evil, and yet Satanism is a thing. Sometimes you actually can't judge an individual by their affiliations.
I think here you mean to say that 'you shouldn't spit on someone in school for associating with them (Nazis)'. Because you absolutely could do exactly that, and in my less intelligent days in high school probably would have. I'd just also expect to get suspended from school for my trouble. Or into a punch up and THEN suspended because actions have consequences.
Yes, rather I should say "you can't spit on them while following the rules".
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Well that's clearly bullshit
I remember a few years ago, conservatives put out their knock out punch, that in the past, the democrats were the party of slavery. They were sure this would blow every millennials mind and they would all suddenly turn into republicans since slavery is bad and republicans seem to have a 5 year olds understanding of history.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I mean, Satan is evil essentially by definition. It's difficult to imagine a group would deliberately associate themselves with Satan and then not be evil, and yet Satanism is a thing. Sometimes you actually can't judge an individual by their affiliations.
Satan is only evil by certain specific religions definitions. But more importantly, you didn't answer the question: how do you teach a religious or philosophy is evil without teaching that people that follow that religion or philosophy is evil?

Because "hate the sin love the sinner" has never actually been a thing, regardless of how often I heard that mantra in church. Catholic funerals for suicide victims are very, very cold.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I mean, Satan is evil essentially by definition. It's difficult to imagine a group would deliberately associate themselves with Satan and then not be evil, and yet Satanism is a thing. Sometimes you actually can't judge an individual by their affiliations.
Actually its really easy to imagine groups deliberately associating themselves with Satan. Christians do it all the time. Satan is part of their belief system, can't really be a Christian without Satan.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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This is quite tiresome, because almost the whole post is sidestepping the issues you need to deal with.

Neither bill bans teaching any ideology. One prescribes actively teaching about communism et al, as things contrary to American principles. The other bans teaching that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently inferior or worthy of discrimination. Nothing in either bill (that I'm aware of, I haven't read both start to finish, so I might be ignorant of it) seems to ban teaching about any ideology.
Okay then. The law demands that these ideologies are taught to schoolchildren as harmful (to the USA), including effectively characterising them as oppressive, as explained. You are necessarily going to induce people to draw unfavourable conclusions about their adherents, as explained, which is contrary to the other law.

I mean, Satan is evil essentially by definition. It's difficult to imagine a group would deliberately associate themselves with Satan and then not be evil, and yet Satanism is a thing. Sometimes you actually can't judge an individual by their affiliations.
This is a terrible comparison for numerous reasons: chiefly failing to understand what modern Satanism is, or misunderstanding how evil relates to law.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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Satanism does not have a vast history of covering up worldwide systemic child abuse and ethnic cleansing, therefore Satanism is morally superior to Christianity. I Stan Satan.
 

Silvanus

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One prescribes actively teaching about communism et al, as things contrary to American principles. The other bans teaching that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently inferior or worthy of discrimination.
These literally contradict one another.
 

Schadrach

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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.
So, like most of these bills, this one has an explicit list. The list quoted below (the same list gets repeated a few times in different contexts within the bill) and the bit that follows it every time.


  1. That any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently superior or inferior to another sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  2. That an individual, by virtue of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
  3. That an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  4. That members of any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation should not attempt to treat others without respect to sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  5. That an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  6. That an individual, by virtue of the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  7. That any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
  8. That meritocracy or traits such as hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation to oppress members of another sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
Nothing in this chapter may be construed so as to exclude the teaching of historical injustices committed against any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation.
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...
To be clear, you're saying that it is impossible to teach about racism without teaching people that they should feel bad for being members of a certain race? Or without telling students to adopt the view that certain races are inherently superior to others?

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.
Not quite what the bill says. It does call for a curriculum review committee composed of at least 40% faculty and at least 40% parents who are required to make all materials and lesson plans available (aside from tests, answer keys and the like). They can also recommend new curricular materials. Also "(b) Except as otherwise provided by law, the committee may recommend to the governing body that parents of students enrolled in the school corporation may be allowed to opt out of or opt in to curricular materials and educational activities identified by the committee." So the committee can recommend that parents be allowed to opt-out their kids from a given lesson, but that recommendation doesn't have any power behind it other than that the governing body has to review it before making a decision. Recommendations of the curricula review committee are not binding, at all. It's basically giving a group of teachers and parents a suggestion box that the school board has to read, but not necessarily follow.

"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."
I don't think it works like that, but if you're the right sort of Biblical literalist you might be able to get away with pi = 3.

Also, I've been told repeatedly on Twitter that believing 2+2=4 is racist, so we don't even need to go for the religious or political affiliation angle. Bad math is really just anti-racism.

But I thought republicans cared about freedom of speech? Not allowing a teacher to teach race related issues is going against their free speech!
I gave the list from the bill above, which ones would you need to violate and why? Are you saying you can't teach about race without supporting melanin theory, supporting white supremacy, or advocating that students feel racial guilt?

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.
Anti-CRT bills typically list a handful of tenets that they are explicitly about, rather than "critical race theory." In fact, this bill makes no reference to "critical race theory" at all in the bill text. But that's not atypical for "anti-CRT" bills - the people pushing for and the people writing these bills know exactly what they'r trying to oppose, and are simply attaching the wrong name to the notion. It doesn't help that I could grab a dozen people who have taken courses that covered CRT or even are involved with the topic in academia and get at least a dozen definitions of what it is outside the very broadest strokes.
 
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Trunkage

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To be clear, you're saying that it is impossible to teach about racism without teaching people that they should feel bad for being members of a certain race?
To be clear, yes. In the US context, white people did the slaving. If you point this out, a conservative will feel bad about this. The slavers do not need to be an ancestor, just the same skin colour. It's automatic.

The problem is not what is being taught. The problem is identity politics.

EDIT: I mean US conservative here.
 
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tstorm823

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These literally contradict one another.
They do not literally contradict one another. Communism is not a sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation. But it's nice to know that you think things that are contrary to American principles are either inherently inferior or worthy of discrimination.
This is quite tiresome, because almost the whole post is sidestepping the issues you need to deal with.
It may appear that way, but the problems you all think you have with this bill are askew from the actual text. I cannot defend the bill without sidestepping your criticism because your criticism isn't aimed at either the language or intent of the law. What does the language ban? Teaching that an affiliation makes one inferior or worthy of discrimination. Why are the doing that? So teachers can't tell students that being a Democrat or a Republican makes you a bad person. It doesn't ban teaching about any ideology or historical event. It would never be enforced if someone violated it talking about Hitler. If the reality of the situation is sidestepping your issues, your issues aren't real.
I think you guys are missing tstorms point

Marxism et al are ideologies thus can be banned

Christian Conservative is reality so isn't an ideology
I really don't even comprehend how you could reach a take this bad.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Also, I've been told repeatedly on Twitter that believing 2+2=4 is racist, so we don't even need to go for the religious or political affiliation angle. Bad math is really just anti-racism.
What really? I had heard some idiots claiming that math was racist but I thought that was just memes.
 

tstorm823

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Well, guess what; they're already starting to do so and it's using the good ol "IT'S CRT!" excuse to make it happen.
Are they though? Or is it all things like this, where they aren't banning stuff but people are giving unreasonable, disingenuous takes?

In York, Pennsylvania, (the closest city to me right now) in light of the George Floyd protests, the school board appointed a committee to formulate a reading list on diversity and race relations to act as supplementary curriculum. They put copies of all the recommended books in a special shelf in the library for those looking for them and encouraged teachers to use the books in their lessons where appropriate. Students and parents than began to notice some questionable material in the list, particularly those recommended for teachers, like "Reparations Yes!: The Legal And Political Reasons Why New Afrikans, Black People In The United States, Should Be Paid Now For The Enslavement Of Our Ancestors And For War Against Us After Slavery". Like, I think suggesting teachers be activists in favor of reparations is a bit beyond the scope of diversity and inclusion, and some people around here also thought that. So they went to the school board and were like "what they hell kinda crap are you telling people to read", which the answer was basically "we don't know, we probably should have looked at what was recommended to us before putting it on a pedestal, we just kinda took the committee's word for it". So they froze the diversity curriculum for review. They did not ban any books, they just temporarily withdrew their recommendation to use them. So the media reported it as them banning MLK, Rosa Parks, and Sesame Street, because of course they did.

Like, one of the books they had for teachers was a 28-day self help guide to teach specifically white women how they contribute to white supremacy in their daily lives. Another was a guide for "white women who teach black boys". A bunch of the content was literal guidebooks on how to treat children differently based on their race. When we say we want CRT out of schools, this is the stuff Republicans are trying to get out of schools, not the history of slavery and segregation.
 

Schadrach

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What really? I had heard some idiots claiming that math was racist but I thought that was just memes.
It was a whole internet shit fight from a while back. Seattle wanted to introduce math curricula that didn't focus on being able to actually do calculations successfully and add an emphasis on the racial etc power structures of math, and then it blew up from there in the way it always does, leading to actual professors arguing that 2+2 might equal 3, 5, 8 or whatever and being able to determine the "right" answer is unimportant. The idea that there is a right answer is culturally informed and thus white supremacist patriarchy. Then came the memes. So many memes.

To be clear, yes. In the US context, white people did the slaving. If you point this out, a conservative will feel bad about this.
And this doesn't violate that law, unless you are teaching that they should feel bad about it as a consequence of their race or being a Republican or something else on the list of protected classes. There's a distinction between feeling bad about being taught about the rise of the Nazis because you have German ancestry and the topic happens to make you feel bad about the actions of your ancestors, and being taught that all German people to this day are collectively guilty of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis.
 

Silvanus

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They do not literally contradict one another. Communism is not a sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation. But it's nice to know that you think things that are contrary to American principles are either inherently inferior or worthy of discrimination.
Communism is a political ideology (among other things).

If you're going to split hairs about holding an ideology against holding an "affiliation", that'd be weak.