{"id":31789,"date":"2022-02-25T15:03:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T21:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31789"},"modified":"2022-02-25T15:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T21:03:09","slug":"bill-would-ban-racial-gender-scapegoating-in-education-and-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31789","title":{"rendered":"Bill would ban racial, gender \u2018scapegoating\u2019 in education and training"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nebraska public schools, public postsecondary institutions and government entities would be prohibited from teaching, advocating, encouraging, promoting or acting upon race or sex \u201cscapegoating\u201d or stereotyping and from discriminating against students because of their political ideology under a bill heard Feb. 24 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Ben Hansen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB1077, introduced by Blair Sen. Ben Hansen, defines race and sex scapegoating as assigning fault, blame or bias to a race or sex or to members of a race or sex or claiming that, consciously or unconsciously, by virtue of an individual\u2019s race or sex, that members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others.<\/p>\n

The bill defines race stereotyping as ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status or beliefs to a race or to an individual because of the individual\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Also prohibited under the bill would be teaching that the U.S. or the state of Nebraska is fundamentally or systemically racist or sexist.<\/p>\n

An individual who believes an institution has violated the bill\u2019s provisions could file a complaint with the state attorney general\u2019s office. The state would withhold funding from schools found to be in violation of the bill\u2019s provisions.<\/p>\n

Hansen said the bill\u2019s intent is not to prohibit teaching of America\u2019s history of racism or sexism, but rather to ensure that no student feels \u201cdiscomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of their race or sex\u201d while in the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory is objective,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cIt should be taught without subjective editorializing that assigns fault to a whole race or sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate Anderson, a senior at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, testified in support of LB1077. During a political science class, Anderson said she was required to read books and heard articles that suggested that white Americans have rigid and bigoted definitions of what it is to be an American and that racism led to Donald Trump being elected president in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not appreciate that race was the predominant topic of the entire semester,\u201d she said. \u201cI never intended to pay for my professor to shame my race in the name of higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyler Henningsey also spoke in support of the bill, which he said would promote education instead of indoctrination.<\/p>\n

Dozens of students, educators and administrators testified against the bill, many raising concerns that it would discourage accurate teaching of American history.<\/p>\n

Richard Moberly, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law, spoke against LB1077 on behalf of the University of Nebraska System. He said the bill\u2019s language is broad and vague and would subject universities to the \u201cspeech police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[It] would chill speech and make our educational institutions weaker rather than stronger,\u201d Moberly said.<\/p>\n

Edward Ventura Jr. also testified in opposition. He said America cannot become an anti-racist society unless individuals have uncomfortable conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching through an anti-racist lens means helping students understand racism\u2019s origins and guises, past and present, so they can act to disrupt white supremacy,\u201d Ventura said.<\/p>\n

Also speaking against LB1077 was history teacher Jake Bogus. He said the bill would \u201crob\u201d students of the opportunity to learn about individuals who are different from themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation isn\u2019t just about algebra and proper punctuation, it\u2019s about the reality of the world that we live in,\u201d Bogus said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nebraska public schools, public postsecondary institutions and government entities would be prohibited from teaching, advocating, encouraging, promoting or acting upon race or sex \u201cscapegoating\u201d or stereotyping and from discriminating against students because of their political ideology under a bill heard Feb. 24 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[252],"class_list":["post-31789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-ben-hansen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31791,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31789\/revisions\/31791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}