TAUP Statement in Opposition to Pennsylvania House Bill 1532

As a union of educators and university professionals, TAUP stands in strong opposition to Pennsylvania House Bill 1532. 

 

On June 7, Pennsylvania State Representative Russ Diamond, of Lebanon County, introduced and referred to the education committee House Bill 1532. The bill currently has 31 co-sponsors. 

Sponsors have given it the moniker “the Teaching Racial and Universal Equality Act.” Yet its implementation would severely impede the ability of educators to do exactly that. 

The vague language of the bill leaves so much up to interpretation that it jeopardizes the freedom of students, researchers, librarians, and educators to even discuss certain concepts; while at the same time compelling them to accept specific ideological perspectives as a given, without any scholarly debate.

The proposed consequences for violating the bill lay the groundwork for an excessive number of potentially expensive civil suits and/or the elimination of public funding for a university, and as such would put the university on the defensive in policing and disciplining educators.

This Bill is Tantamount to Censorship

House Bill 1532 forbids educators from discussing what it deems “racist or sexist” concepts. 

What is key to understanding how this affects educators’ freedom to teach is a provision in Section 4 which states that no instructor, teacher, or professor at a public school district or public postsecondary institution shall “teach … a racist or sexist concept while instructing students” or require students “to read, view or listen to a book, article, video presentation, digital presentation or other learning material that espouses, advocates or promotes a racist or sexist concept.”

The bill purports to define what is meant by such concepts, but instead simply gives nine examples. Several of these examples consist of concepts that are integral to any basic analysis in fields such as sociology and political science, which rely on the ability to study power dynamics in a society. 

For example, the bill states that one example of a racist and sexist concept is the idea that “Meritocracy or merit-based systems are either racist or sexist.” If an educator covered the topic of racial disparities in academia in the United States – especially in terms of Black women and members of the LGBTQ+ community – that instructor would have to let their students assume that the reason for the disparity is a lack of qualified, intelligent Black candidates for the positions. 

House Bill 1532 precludes the possibility of discussing social, systemic, or institutional factors as possible causes for these disparities because higher education is supposedly a system based on merit alone. 

Another topic that would be off limits is unconscious bias and the role it plays in our social interactions and institutions. House Bill 1532 gives as an example of a racist/sexist concept the notion that an individual “by virtue of race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” 

Unconscious bias is a concept that is relevant to several fields, including psychology and other social sciences. While practically speaking the concept as an area of scholarly inquiry is not anywhere near as crude and rudimentary as the bill seems to imply, the language is simple enough that an offended resident of the Commonwealth could call for an investigation or file a civil complaint against a public university where this topic is discussed.

We Need Education, Not Indoctrination

As if censorship were not enough, this bill would essentially require educators to lie to their students or not teach at all. 

The fourth example the bill gives of a “racist or sexist concept” is the idea that an “individual should receive favorable treatment due to the individual’s race or sex.” This would eliminate the possibility of having a debate on the pluses and minuses of affirmative action — the bill leaves educators with no choice but to assume that affirmative action is immoral, racist, and unacceptable. There is no debate. 

If a class is having a discussion on hiring practices in a given context, and a student were to ask about the idea of affirmative action, what should the instructor say about it? According to this bill, the issue cannot even be discussed. Therefore, the bill not only censors educators, it requires them to pretend like these things don’t exist when they are clearly still part of public debate and commonly known. 

As educators and scholars, it is part of our job to study and teach problematic texts and ideas. It is a crucial element of a college education for students to learn how to engage with and analyze such material. We often teach about and discuss ideas we do not agree with in order to draw lessons from them and apply them to other contexts. In the process, students learn how to construct arguments and assess evidence. 

House Bill 1532 forbids educators from teaching certain perspectives, which leaves the alternative perspectives as the only options. If an educator cannot discuss the ways in which certain meritocratic systems are fundamentally racist and sexist, the only alternative is to assume that women and people of color are inherently less able. This is how House Bill 1532 actually seeks to impose a singular ideological orientation as the correct one, rather than allowing teachers and students to discuss and validate different points of view.

This is extraordinarily dangerous because it strong-arms teachers into practicing ideological indoctrination rather than education.

Furthermore, the fact that House Bill 1532 lacks an actual definition of “racist or sexist” concepts creates ambiguity that leaves so much up to interpretation that an open and honest discussion on critical issues in American society could potentially be grounds for an investigation or civil complaint. 

For instance, one of the examples given by the bill as a forbidden concept, “The USA is fundamentally racist,” could mean a wide range of things. If “The USA is fundamentally racist” is a concept that educators cannot discuss, does that mean that we cannot discuss the contemporary repercussions of slavery and segregation? Even “The United States of America” is vague – what does it refer to? The government? The people? The founding fathers? The institutions? The land? The 50 states? The media? The culture? 

What is alarming about this ninth and final example of a forbidden concept is that it appears to ban any mention or recognition of the existence of structural or systemic racism or sexism, because that would imply that the US is fundamentally racist or sexist. 

By default, then, neoliberal individualism is the only Truth. This would profoundly limit the ability of educators across the University to teach their subjects. 

Our opposition to these restrictions, of course, is not to suggest that the concepts banned by the bill are the absolute truth, either. But statements like “The USA is fundamentally racist” should be statements that can be discussed and debated in an academic setting. This bill is saying they cannot even be mentioned. 

We as educators and academic professionals must be allowed to debate and discuss these ideas, and we must be able to provide our students with facts and scholarship about the history of our country. Different ideologies may prioritize different sets of facts, but the work of an educator is to help students analyze those facts; not impose one ideology as though it is the one and only Truth.

The reality is that, vague language or not, the intention behind the bill is clear. In the memorandum calling for co-sponsors of the bill, its originators state that the Act “is aimed at curtailing the divisive nature of concepts more commonly known as ‘critical race theory.’” 

In fact, most of the concepts this bill is trying to censure teachers for talking about are not tenets of critical race theory at all.

HB 1532 Violates Temple’s Policies on Academic Freedom

Finally, this bill violates Temple University’s own policies on academic freedom, including the clause in TAUP’s collective bargaining agreement with Temple which states that “The teacher is entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of their results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties.”

The limitations imposed on academic freedom by this bill also go against Temple’s Policies and Procedures Manual, which makes clear on page one that “Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom.”

The manual furthermore states that “As members of the academic community, students should be encouraged to develop the capacity for critical judgment and to engage in a sustained and independent search for the truth,” and “Faculty members in the classroom and in conference should encourage free discussion, inquiry and expression.” 

This bill would prevent educators, and Temple, from following those very policies.

Furthermore, Section 3 provides that no public postsecondary institution shall use any funds to publish any “racist or sexist” concept – which would result in the censorship of university-funded student publications – and Section 4 provides that such an institution shall not “host, pay, or provide a venue for a speaker who espouses, advocates or promotes any racist or sexist concept.” According to the ACLU, such restrictions by a public university “amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution.”

 

Conclusion

This is not the only bill of its kind being proposed. In at least 28 states, lawmakers have begun to introduce restrictions on education about racism and related topics. 

What is more disturbing is that this bill, and others like it across the nation, are not isolated movements. This new attack on academic freedom comes on the heels of several years of legislative efforts to disenfranchise voters of color, on top of the institutionalized disenfranchisement of those in prison or formerly incarcerated. 

In 2013, the Voting Rights Act was gutted, and we have seen the consequences of that. Ever since that ruling, voter suppression and voter laws that disproportionately affect communities of color threaten the integrity of our democracy. Higher education plays a critical role in helping students to grow to become informed citizens, and so Pennsylvania House Bill 1532 is part of a broader attack on efforts to make the United States a more fair and just society.

It is increasingly clear that PA HB 1532 is less about telling teachers what they can’t teach and more about finding a way of ensuring that a specific ideological version of American history and society is taught. Whatever your politics, the effect of this bill will be to stifle debate and critical inquiry – the very heart of higher education.