It’s happened again, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill on Monday that would limit how race can be discussed in classrooms. The bill will take effect immediately, according to NBC News.
Instances similar to this one are happening in states all over the South. In Florida, a bill was just passed that would limit how schools and workplaces teach about race and identity. Last December in Texas, a law that would control how race and racism are taught in classrooms also went into effect. Now in Mississippi, the same thing is happening.
In a video posted on social media, Gov. Reeves said, “Contrary to what some critics may claim, this bill in no way, in no shape and in no form prohibits the teaching of history. Any claim that this bill will somehow stop Mississippi kids from learning about American history is just flat-out wrong.”
I’m no teacher or professor, but if the discussion of race was limited in my education, I feel like I would be missing out on a big chunk of American and world history.
From NBC News:
The short title of Senate Bill 2113 says it would prohibit “critical race theory.” But the main text of the legislation does not mention or define the theory, and many supporters of the bill also have said they cannot define it.
The new law says no school, community college or university could teach that any “sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.”
Critical Race Theory (CRT) aims to look at how racism has molded every part of American society such as public policy and institutions such as the justice system. It looks at how those policies and institutions were made to conserve the social, economic, and political inequalities between white people and people of color.
In a statement, the ACLU of Mississippi said that laws opposing critical theory “are thinly veiled attempts to silence discussions of race and gender amongst student and educators.”
In January, the majority Republican House voted to pass the bill after Black lawmakers debated for hours urging for the bill not to be passed. When it did, Black senators in Mississippi protested the state senators who voted for the bill.
According to NBC News, Mississippi Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said that critical race theory is not even taught in the state’s schools. Even though the University of Mississippi law school has an elective class on the subject.