After about an hour of debate, West Virginia’s Senate passed an “Anti-Racism Act” in response to the national dialogue about the role of race in society.
This was the last day to pass bills from their chamber of origin to the other, so the bill was up against deadline. A similarly-themed bill expired on a committee deadline in the House of Delegates last week.
Senate Bill 498 passed on a 21-12 vote, sending the cultural hot potato to the House.
The Senate vote was largely along party lines, with the Republican supermajority voting in favor. One Republican, Bill Hamilton of Randolph County, voted against the bill. “This is wrong, and I’ll be voting no,” Hamilton said in a floor speech.
The bill would forbid instruction that one race, ethnic group or sex is superior to another. It also would prohibit instruction that some groups are inherently racist, sexist or oppressive based on their race, ethnicity or sex. And it prohibits instruction that moral character is determined by those factors.
And the bill prohibits instruction that an individual should feel discomfort, guilt or anguish because of their race, ethnicity or sex.
The culmination is a complaint procedure for kindergarten to 12th grade for instances of noncompliance. There is a reporting procedure for higher education.
Senators who supported the bill said it would provide a procedure for people who are concerned about school instruction that veers into indoctrination. They said the bill would not prohibit complicated classroom discussions of how race, ethnicity and sex have played a role in history.
“They can now say this is not going to be allowed to happen, and if I do hear of an instance I now know what to do,” said Senate Education Chairwoman Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, the sponsor of the bill.
Other senators said that might be true on the surface but that in practice the bill could result in unfounded complaints against teachers and a chilling effect in classrooms. They also questioned whether the kind of indoctrination the bill attempts to address is present in West Virginia schools.
“They’d be in fear of having a complaint filed against them. That’s what a chilling effect is,” said Senator Mike Romano, D-Harrison.
Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, said he had worried about his vote before coming to the floor session and agreed that indoctrination is largely absent from classrooms. Weld described himself as a student of history, aware of its chronicle of society’s progress and sins.
“History is messy. What this bill doesn’t believe is, it doesn’t prohibit the teaching of our messy history,” he said. Weld said he would vote for the bill, concluding “It does not prevent us from teaching the messy instances, the horrible instances of racism in our country.”
Senator Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, is a fourth grade teacher who said her students enjoy the stories of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. “It’s important to teach history because we want to learn from history,” Grady said.
Grady also described many of her students as coming from low-income families. She said it’s not right to describe them as “privileged.”
“Some come from doublewide trailers with holes in the floor. To tell those kids they have a leg up in society because of their race is doing them a disservice,” Grady said.
Senator Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha, said those sentiments just aren’t present in the classroom, though. “The boogeyman has come out today. No one teaches history to disparage another group,” he said. “No one teaches history to make someone feel discomfort.”
Lindsay concluded, “This bill comes from weakness. It’s a snowflake bill, and I urge a no vote.”
Senator Owens Brown, D-Ohio, was the president of the West Virginia NAACP before joining the Legislature this year. He argued against the bill, describing it as overreach and citing West Virginia’s 93 percent White population.
“Actually, we need more diversity in the classroom and issues in the classroom,” he said. “Every time we send one of these children out into the world, they become an ambassador to West Virginia. The classroom should be preparing them. I truly believe this bill, here, is a step backwards.”
Rucker, who grew up in Venezuela, talked about her family’s history, saying she married into a family that had owned slaves generations ago. She asked whether she should be blamed for that. “Diversity is beautiful. I completely agree. I believe in my heart we need to have these discussions,” she said.
But she concluded, “It is important we learn from history and you absolutely can teach what is learned from history, good and bad, without making an individual feel they are personally responsible for history.”