Instead of taking the class on a field trip to the National Civil Rights Museum, they went to a baseball game. A choir director was scared of explaining the background to spirituals sung by persons who were once in slavery. Due to concerns about state-approved curriculum, a teacher was involved in administrative processes for months.
Teachers have resisted by sharing their experiences with the rule in a new federal lawsuit contesting its legality, nearly two years after Tennessee’s GOP-controlled Statehouse approved broad limits on teaching some notions of race, gender, and bias in classrooms.
In addition to challenging the validity of the ban, the 52-page lawsuit filed on Wednesday describes the stress experienced by instructors across the state as they work to adhere to the new regulations without impeding or damaging kids’ learning.
The lawsuit claims that “the ban poses an immediate threat to teachers in public K-12 classrooms in Tennessee,” adding that teachers risk being fired, having their licenses revoked, and suffering “reputational damage for delivering lessons they have taught for years.”
The lawsuit was brought by five educators and the Tennessee Education Association. The defendants include the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education. Both state agencies are represented by the attorney general’s office, which declined to comment since it was yet to receive the challenge.
Some of the most heated conversations during Tennessee’s 2021 legislative session revolved over what teachers ought to and ought to not say about race, gender, and other issues in their classrooms, with fighting that paralleled those in other GOP-led statehouses.
The effort was largely backed by the majority-white Republican House and Senate caucuses, with the sponsors stating that the measure was necessary to prevent young minds from being brainwashed with particular social views. Legislators primarily objected to the teaching of critical race theory, a term that has come to stand in for ideas like implicit bias and structural racism, but they also made care to forbid other ideas on sex and bias.
Black Democratic politicians expressed concern that it would prevent instructors from discussing how racism and race affected American history with their children, but their concerns were eventually ignored.
The Republican supermajority ultimately decided to prohibit the teaching of 14 ideas, including the notion that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is intrinsically privileged, sexist, racist, or oppressive, whether intentionally or subconsciously.”
After stating earlier that kids should learn about “the exceptionalism of our nation,” rather than topics that “inherently divide” people, Republican Gov. Bill Lee approved it into law a few weeks later.
According to the law, “impartial discussion of disputed aspects of history” is still allowed, and restrictions on teacher speech do not apply when responding to a student’s query or mentioning a historical individual or group.
However, there are severe consequences for breaking the law: the state education commissioner has the authority to withhold funding from any school shown to be in disobedience, and teachers may lose their licenses.
A parent complained about a lesson on the 1975 book “Dragonwings,” which led to a teacher in Blount County, eastern Tennessee, being the subject of a months-long investigation into whether she had broken the law. The narrative is told from the viewpoint of a 9-year-old boy who moved to California from China and touches on the difficulties, mainly racial stereotypes, that immigrants encounter when arriving in the country.
The complaint claimed that even though the book had received approval from the State Board of Education and the Department of Education, the teacher had broken the 2021 “prohibited concepts” rule since the book advocated “racism and an anti-American agenda.” The parent appealing to the state Education Department after the school concluded that the teacher hadn’t broken the law. According to the lawsuit, this process involved the teacher spending more than 40 hours defend her work and answering questions from state representatives.
The teacher was likewise exonerated by the department of any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the work was dropped from the curriculum by the Blount County school system.
Near Memphis, in Tipton County, a teacher reported that her school no longer offers field trips to the National Civil Rights Museum as a result of the restriction. Students can instead attend a baseball game.
Other instances cited in the lawsuit describe teachers who were hesitant to lead class discussions on topics including Chinese New Year, Frida Kahlo, and George Orwell’s “1984”.
Laws must be unambiguous. Tanya Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said in a statement that the law’s conflict with the state’s academic standards and curriculum puts Tennessee teachers at unfair risk when they use state-approved materials, adhere to state standards, and deliver fact-based instruction. “Educators have already devoted countless hours to attempting to comprehend and navigate the murky requirements of the law.”
The teachers are requesting that the statute be declared illegal because it violates the 14th Amendment and that the court stop the state from enforcing it.