A New Hampshire teachers union is suing the state in order to end a ban on teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools.
The Daily Wire reported the New Hampshire chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a federal lawsuit Monday that argued the ban violates the First Amendment rights of teachers.
“This law has created fear among teachers who are not actually violating any New Hampshire law, but fear they could be targeted without evidence by people with a political agenda,” Deb Howes, president of AFT-NH, wrote in a statement. “Educators are terrified of losing their teaching license over simply trying to teach. This is something I never thought would happen in America.”
AFT President Randi Weingarten called the CRT ban “chilling and untenable,” and stated, “either teachers attempt to follow a law so defectively vague and broad that they can’t fulfill their instructional duties to adequately educate their students, or they choose to teach as they have and as the state law has long required, and risk career-ending repercussions.
“We must teach both our triumphs and our mistakes, whether it’s enslavement, Japanese internment, or the treatment of those with disabilities,” her statement added.
New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu defended the law, which was passed and signed into law in June. Sununu told Fox News in a statement, “nothing in this language prevents schools from teaching any aspect of American history, such as teaching about racism, sexism, or slavery — it simply ensures that children will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, or religion.”
Critical race theory is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the concept in which race is a socially constructed category ingrained in American law intended to maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. It holds that the U.S. society is inherently or systemically racist.
