Really?? Bounties on Teachers

Since the beginning of 2021, legislatures in twenty-four states have introduced fifty-four separate bills aimed at banning the teaching of “prohibited” or “divisive” concepts, mostly relating to race and gender in American history.  Eleven of those bills have passed and twenty-four are still pending.

The impetus behind these laws dates to … September [2020], when President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order banning federal agencies and contractors from conducting diversity trainings that draw on “race or sex scapegoating” or promote “divisive concepts,” such as the claim that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist.” [The New York Times]

The New Hampshire legislature has taken the craziness several steps further.  It began with a bill forbidding the teaching of “divisive concepts” related to race and gender; the provisions of the bill were then folded into the state budget.  As in other such state laws, the language is extraordinarily vague:

One of the central problems with this bill is its ambiguity in what constitutes a banned so-called “divisive’ concept.” … One part of the bill aims to permit “workplace sensitivity training” while other portions of the bill ban speech aimed at addressing “unconscious racism” in the workplace. Similarly, one part of the bill purports to protect academic freedom while another portion bans the teaching on so-called divisive concepts. Frankly, the bill is indecipherable and internally contradictory.

Nevertheless, the legislature then doubled down, adding that teachers who violate the law can be brought before state authorities and lose their license if they are found to have discriminated against an individual or identified group.

The state went further to develop a website through which students and parents can turn in teachers they believe have broken the law.  Finally, the New Hampshire chapter of the right-wing Mom’s for Liberty went one logical step further to offer a $500 bounty**

for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law. Students, parents, teachers, school staff... We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want.

In a country as large as ours, there are bizarre things happening all the time, so it’s sometimes difficult to know how much meaning to ascribe to reports of local events: Does a bizarre and troubling attack on our democracy occurring in New Hampshire portend major trauma to the country, or is it simply a few radicalized right-wingers making noise?

I’m not sure, but I take it seriously.  There are reports from many parts of the country.

Reflecting on Montana’s new law banning classroom discussion of racism and sexism, Attorney General Austin Knudsen said that asking students to reflect on their racial identities and privilege is an example of the prohibited “race-based discrimination” that parents or students can file complaints about.  He also condemned anti-racism training as “discriminatory.”

School boards across the country, too, are being harangued and threatened.  According to the New York Times,

In recent months, there have been Nazi salutes at school board meetings and emails threatening rape. Obscenities have been hurled — or burned into people’s lawns with weed spray.

In Corvallis, Oregon, school board chairman Sami Al-Abdrabbuh has received death threats after public meetings concerning mask mandates and teaching about race.

In California, according to the Times,

school board members have received so many threats that Vernon M. Billy, the executive director of the state School Boards Association, wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking for help. Near Sacramento, he wrote, one entire school board had to flee its chamber after protesters accosted the members.

The Department of Justice has responded to a “disturbing spike” in harassment by directing the FBI to meet with local school boards to coordinate responses to threats that are “not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values.”

When students can claim $500 bounty for turning in teachers for violating a vaguely defined law against “divisive speech,” when parents can threaten teachers with the possibility of legal action or job termination because their child feels “discomfort, guilt, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex,” or when school board members can be threatened with bodily harm for supporting a curriculum focused on racial inequality, then we must recognize a powerful threat to democracy is building within the country.

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** The term “bounty” is not hyperbole; in response to a question about how to contribute, Moms for Liberty NH suggested to PayPal them and mark “CRT Bounty” in the notes.