Editorial: Political expediency gets legislative win over common sense

Tuesday, March 28, 2023 -- Anyone who might still wonder if the North Carolina General Assembly has abandoned common sense and consistency to reflexive political expedience need only look at two pieces of legislation the state House of Representatives passed last week for proof.

Posted 7:02 p.m. Mar 27, 2023 — Updated 7:29 p.m. Mar 27, 2023

CBC Editorial: Tuesday, March 28, 2023; editorial #8836

The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

Anyone who might still wonder if the North Carolina General Assembly has abandoned common sense and consistency to reflexive political expedience need only look at two pieces of legislation the state House of Representatives passed last week for proof.

On the same days, the House passed legislation:

Requiring students pass a three-hour course showing they understand how United States government works, other principles of American democracy along with the nation’s successes and failures.
Prohibiting teachers from lesson plans that might make students feel uncomfortable and limits how schools can teach about the nation’s history on race and similar topics.

On nearly identical party-line votes, House Republicans passed:

HOUSE BILL 96: An act that requires at least three credit hours of instruction in American history or American government in order to graduate from a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina or a community college.
HOUSE BILL 187: An act that prohibits public schools from promoting certain concepts.

So, it will be OK to teach that from 1619 through 1865 – 246 years – slavery existed in America. But don’t dare engage students on anything about what it meant, how those slaves were treated, its relationship to the Civil War, the impact on the nation’s future or on generations of African Americans.

“This great education state must have an educational system that unites and teaches our children, not divides and indoctrinates them. … Learning should be fun and exciting," said Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, House Bill 187’s sponsor.

“We want to have citizens who can engage, regardless of their political persuasions,” said state Rep. John Hardister, R-Guilford one of the sponsors of House Bill 96.. The other key sponsor is Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, who is a member of the Oath Keepers – the anti-government militia organization.

“When I asked a young person at the polls one day what the Gettysburg Address was and he said, ‘Who’s Mr. Gettysburg? I don’t know him,’” said Kidwell. It should be noted in 2019 Kidwell and Hardister voted for legislation that required the elimination one of the two required US history courses students needed to pass for graduation.

It is OK thing to parrot what Lincoln said on Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. But as to the content and context of the 272-word address -- about “a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” – that discussion is off limits in our state’s schools.

The debate and passage of these two pieces of legislation last week was, regretfully, more about the waging of a cynical culture war to divide and confuse citizens. They will, despite the bills’ sponsors hypocritical contentions, make people less engaged citizens and less informed about the truth and facts of our nation’s history and government.

The lesson for those paying attention to the General Assembly last week is that our elected representatives care little for the real education of our children and more for vacuous debates and perpetuation of their majority at any cost – even the truth.

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