On March 23, 2023, the NC House of Representatives passed NC House Bill 187, misleadingly titled the “Equality in Education Act”. This bill is designed to withhold accurate, necessary information about American history and society from North Carolina’s public school students. Specifically, the bill requires educators to teach a white supremacist vision of the United States in which BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, and other American peoples’ testaments to systemic oppression are untrue. The bill attacks the lived experiences of millions of Americans by prohibiting accurate instruction about the systems within which America was founded and still operates: racism, sexism, enslavement and territorial dispossession of Black and Indigenous Peoples, and the myth of white men’s inherent supremacy. The bill does this by equating an education about systems of oppression with an endorsement of oppression itself, legislating that “Public schools shall not promote that…one race or sex in inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that “an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive,” for example. Though the bill appears to denounce oppression, its actual impact will be to limit critical discussions about the constructions of race, sex, and the oppressions that those concepts have been used to justify. The bill will prevent students from learning why inequality exists in the United States, and importantly, how to combat inequality and foster equity going forward.

If this bill passes into law, we must ensure that our local school system is fortified against its censorship. Hate Out of Winston outlines three key demands of the Winston Salem Forsyth County School System (WSFCS), which we believe will strengthen its defenses against NC HB 187.

1. The WSFCS lobbyist should lobby against NC HB 187 to the NC Senate. This is an immediate action which WSFCS must take to demonstrate local opposition to the bill, and potentially, to prevent its approval by the Senate.
2. WSFCS should pass a resolution to mandate the annual History Day, during which students present projects about the content they’ve learned in history classes, and to collect artifacts from this event in order to assess whether students are accurately learning about BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ American experiences.
3. The school board and superintendents should work together to develop a Resolution against NC HB 187 that implements federal protections for BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ students, instead of the white supremacist curriculum standards set by NC HB 187. Board Member Alex Bohannon has verbally confirmed that WSFCS will follow federal regulations to ensure accurate education; we need to see Bohannon’s promise realized in a resolution that complements the Strategic Plan for AAI.