Proposals to ban diversity-focused trainings or lessons in public schools — and to ban the state’s attorney general from being allowed to sue the president — passed the state Senate on Tuesday.
Both bills passed along party lines in the Republican-controlled Senate, with Democrats opposing the measures. Each bill goes now to the state House, which also has a GOP majority.
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Republicans still control a veto-proof supermajority in the Senate. But they lost their supermajority in the state House in the 2024 elections, giving new Democratic Gov. Josh Stein more hope that his veto threat will carry weight this session against politically controversial bills such as these.
Senate Bill 227 would ban schools from teaching what the bill calls "divisive concepts" about race, gender or the founding of America. It would also ban professional training courses for teachers or other school employees that focus on topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Democrats objected Tuesday, saying it will pressure schools to avoid teaching about slavery, racism, the fight for women's rights or other parts of American history that might make some people uncomfortable.
Republicans said they aren't trying to change what schools can teach — only how certain lessons should be taught.
Any discussion of issues about race, gender or similar topics must be impartial, the bill says, and teachers much avoid telling students that they should feel a certain way about themselves because of their race or gender. GOP lawmakers say it's intended in large part to make sure teachers don't tell white children to feel guilty about racist actions by white Americans in the past.
Senate Bill 58, meanwhile, would ban Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson from suing Republican President Donald Trump.
Jackson and other Democratic attorneys general have so far succeeded in blocking Trump's efforts to undo birthright citizenship and to slash federal funding for scientific research.
No Republican senators spoke in favor of the bill before voting to pass it Tuesday. Previously, some Republicans have said Jackson shouldn't be allowed to use taxpayer funds to sue Trump. They've also accused him of using the lawsuits to advance his own political career.
Democrats say Jackson's lawsuits have had a real impact — including by protecting thousands of jobs at North Carolina universities and businesses that were threatened by the proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which sends billions of dollars in research funding to North Carolina.
'A check on the federal government'
Sen. Graig Meyer, D-Orange, noted that when a federal judge blocked Trump’s efforts to cut grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, his order applied only to the Democratic-led state that sued.
If Jackson hadn’t joined in that lawsuit, Meyer said Tuesday, North Carolina would’ve lost billions of dollars in federal grants that support thousands of jobs at local universities, nonprofits and private companies engaged in medical and scientific research.
“We are in a better position because of our Attorney General's proactive action to stand up for North Carolina,” he said.
Sen. Terrence Everitt, D-Wake, unsuccessfully proposed amending the bill to have it start in 2029, when there could be a new president as well as a new attorney general. Applying it now, he said, makes it seem like Republicans are just sore losers for having failed to win the 2024 election for attorney general.
“I did not make it to a lot of the Trump rallies — I don't know exactly what he was running on,” Everitt said. “But I did hear Jeff Jackson talk about defending North Carolina and its interests, and that's what folks voted for. For him to be a check on the federal government. Senate Bill 58 is essentially changing the ballot after the election has been done, and it's unfair to North Carolina voters.”
DEI debate
The anti-DEI bill was led by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, who is the only Republican senator who's not fully white — a heritage he referenced during Tuesday's debate to counter critics who said his bill was aimed at downplaying racism. Lee said that's absolutely not the case, referencing his own history of growing up with a white mother and a Taiwanese father.
He and his parents were subjected to many racial slurs and insults after they moved to Harnett County when he was a child, Lee said Tuesday. Interracial marriage was still illegal in North Carolina when his already-married parents moved here in the 1960s, Lee said, and the local newspaper wrote an article about their move to town, which led to harassment.
"Growing up in Dunn North Carolina — especially when you're on the front page of paper when you move to town — people aren't the nicest in the world," he said.
With that in mind, Lee said, he does not want to ban schools from teaching about topics like the Chinese Exclusion Act, or the racist coup in his current home of Wilmington in 1898 when a white supremacist mob overthrew the Reconstruction-era city council and murdered Black residents.
"What is prohibited by this bill," Lee added, "is for a teacher tomorrow to teach 1898 and tell a white child that they should feel anguish over that. Or that a white child should feel psychological distress."
But some Black lawmakers bristled at the idea that America's history of racial violence and slavery should be taught impartially, or watered down to the point where no white students could possibly end up feeling uncomfortable with that history.
"We want our children to know the truth about this country while striving to build a more perfect union? They have a heavy lift ahead of them," said Sen. Val Applewhite, D-Cumberland. "Because we have messed this up. But we cannot — we should not — deprive them of the truth just because it makes them uncomfortable."
Applewhite went on to speak about abuses against Black people during slavery and the Jim Crow period. Eventually, Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, interrupted her speech to ask that she either directly address the bill or stop talking.
Applewhite retorted that Hanig's interruption was proof that it's hard to know when even a simple recitation of historical facts might make someone feel uncomfortable.
"History is taught in schools," she said. "My focus is, who gets to decide what makes people uncomfortable? And clearly this must make him uncomfortable."
Hanig said he didn't feel uncomfortable, and Applewhite was allowed to finish her speech opposing the bill.
"This bill seeks to erase fundamental truths about our nation's history simply because they may cause discomfort," Applewhite said. "I ask my colleagues: Who gets to decide what is uncomfortable? Are we now prioritizing feelings over facts?"
Lee said his intent is not to ban any discussion of anything that might make someone uncomfortable — he simply wants to ban teachers from telling students they ought to feel uncomfortable about aspects of American history.
There are similar reasons behind his push to ban DEI trainings for public school employees, Lee said.
"I'm not opposed to these concepts," Lee said of diversity, equity and inclusion. "I’m opposed to what has happened to these trainings — gone way beyond what we originally intended.”