Teaching Inequality in North Carolina

By GENE NICHOL

One hundred fifty-five years after the ratification of the Equal Protection Clause, 125 years after the Wilmington Massacre, and nearly six decades after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the almost all white Republican caucuses of the North Carolina General Assembly have moved to intimidate teachers from exploring and explaining our racial history.

The ironically entitled “Equality in Education Act” will require public schools to “notify the Department of Public Instruction” and “make detailed information available on the (school’s) website 30 days before “providing instruction” which, because of race, might make students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress.” The mandate applies unless the “information” represents “an impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history” or “an impartial instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality or geographic region.”

That’s a mouthful I know. But do we imagine any sensible public-school teacher will now willingly run this regulatory gamut comfortable that his or her view of “impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history” or “oppression based on race” will mirror those of the NC General Assembly or their henchmen? Really?

Recall, even though it’s painful, the Republican lawmakers’ work of the last dozen years. They’ve given us, judges ruled, among the most expansive racial gerrymanders ever seen in America. They’ve used precision to deny Black voters access to the polls. They’ve discriminated against African Americans so severely it demolished foundational requirements of popular sovereignty. They enabled greater racial segregation in education; repealed the Racial Justice Act; made it harder to get police video footage released; sanctified Confederate monuments; raised criminal penalties in response to Black Lives Matter protests; and claimed a pervasive need to outlaw critical race theory without knowing what it is.

This, apparently, is the NC General Assembly’s view of “impartiality” – as lawmakers embrace every Republican racial initiative distributed to red state legislatures across the land. “Impartiality” of this ilk might sensibly intimidate any conscientious teacher. I imagine that’s the goal. When it comes to race, mums the word.

The New York Times has characterized North Carolina as a “pioneer in bigotry.” But that’s hardly true with the “Equality in Education Act.” Here we just follow along, echoing the cynical talking points. Moving with the marginalizing crowd.

This proposal, though, is deeply reflective of the way in which we’ve become revolutionary. When push has come to shove, over the last decade, our Republican leaders have moved to put aside much of what we’ve committed to stand for in order to perpetuate their own groups’ superiority – placing tribe over democracy, power over constitutive principle. Saying, without seeming embarrassment, that some people count, and others don’t, or at least some count more than others do. Even some folks’ feelings count more than others’.

Some of us are full members, the real tribe, the full Americans, the owners. The rest are more like tenants, or passers-through; they’re here at the main folks’ sufferance. The real tribe may tolerate them to a degree, but that’s the most that can be asked. If our creeds and constitutions demand more – like equal dignity and value and participation, full membership – then those creeds and constitutions will have to give way. If we’ve spoken solemnly of democracy and equality before, we didn’t mean it. It was mere pretense. We believe in democracy only as long as we win; we believe in equality only if we’re allowed to perpetually prevail. Equality, for North Carolina, seemingly carries this damning, disqualifying asterisk.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2023

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