When people think there is no other way Republicans in the Arizona State Legislature can demonstrate their devotion to the fringe white nationalist Trump Zone-Fox Island right, along comes Legislative District (LD) 25 State Representative Michelle Udall’s surprise amendment to SB1532 (a bill on government audits) on Cinco De Mayo and Teacher Appreciation Week to impose a $5000 civil fine if instructors “present controversial issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective, if the teacher chooses to discuss controversial issues.”
The vague wording of this measure can have profound consequences for teachers who work under fringe reactionary school boards whose members subscribe to the Trump Zone-Fox Island version of history or scientific truth.
For example, teachers can be fined $5,000 if they do not give equal time when teaching:
- The Holocaust from the Nazi perspective.
- Slavery according to the slaveholder perspective.
- The Civil Rights movement according to the KKK perspective.
- The attempted genocide on Native Americans from the American Manifest Destiny perspective.
- Evolution from the Intelligent Design perspective.
- Astronomy from the Flat Earth Society supporters.
- Environmental Science from climate deniers perspective.
This amendment, which had nothing to do with the original bill (SB1532) was put on the House Floor without any prior notice or hearings on the merits.
Democrat after Democrat on the House Floor condemned the Republican amendment for its:
- Timing on Cinco De Mayo and Teacher Appreciation Week.
- Having nothing to do with the underlying bill.
- Putting it on the floor without any prior debate or consideration.
- Making it a civil offense for instructors who did not give deference, in essence, to the white supremacist perspective on major historical events.
LD 28 Representative Kelli Butler commented that she heard from a teacher friend during the floor debate today who said now may be a good time to retire.
That is all the state’s public schools and children need.
A worse teacher shortage than the one that exists.
How many history and science teachers will want to teach in Arizona if they are forced to give disproportionate learning time to the perspectives of mass murderers, racists, white nationalists, and the scientifically ignorant?
Unfortunately, this amendment has moved forward on the House Floor.
This is a dark day in public education in Arizona.
Remember the people in the Arizona State Legislature that voted to give Nazis more of a voice in our schools on November 8, 2022.
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It appears that possible Michelle has ambitions to run for a statewide office and this grandstanding has to do with that effort. Some lunatic fringe she thinks she needs to support her has to be impressed by this nonsense. Take a pick of which lunatic group.
I guess I could be fined $5000 for teaching that Arizona Republicans are dumber than dog sugar, and MORE fascist than Hitler. Of course you have to slip this in 5 months into an already insane session. And the one thing they absolutely have to do, the budget, is not around.
This is what this is about. “Tennessee lawmaker defends Three-Fifths Compromise: It was actually about ‘ending slavery’
On Tuesday, during a debate on the floor of the Tennessee General Assembly, state Rep. Justin Lafferty, a Republican claimed that the Three-Fifths Compromise was about “ending slavery.”, https://americanindependent.com/tennessee-lawmaker-justin-lafferty-three-fifths-compromise-ending-slavery/
Lafferty argued that not counting enslaved Blacks as a whole person was a praiseworthy achievement.
“By limiting the number of population in the count, they specifically limited the number of representatives that would be available in the slaveholding states, and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery,” he said. “Well before Abraham Lincoln. Well before Civil War.”
[Slaves were chattel property, and considered subhuman. But to increase Southern congressional representation, they were counted as three-fifths of a human being. Lafferty is a complete moron.]
The claim is inaccurate and ahistorical. The Three-Fifths Compromise, in which enslaved Black people were counted as three-fifths of a human being for the purposes of counting the American population, further enshrined the institution of slavery in America.
After the compromise was agreed to in 1787, millions of human beings lived in bondage until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 and the abolition of slavery through the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
Lafferty’s comment came as the Legislature was debating legislation proposed by Tennessee Republicans that would ban public schools from teaching students lessons on systemic racism within the United States.
State Rep. John Ragan (R), who proposed the bill, called for “tak[ing] a stand” against “hucksters, charlatans and useful idiots peddling identity politics.”
Republicans at both the state and national level have lashed out at discussion about the role systemic racism has played in American history and the present.
Sorry not Ugenti, meant Udall. Disgraceful.
Ugenti and the ugly racists are brain dead. And embarrassments to arizona and the human race.
For example, teachers can be fined $5,000 if they do not teach:
The $5,000.00 fine is easily avoidable while teaching the truth (in parenthesis below):
The Holocaust from the Nazi perspective. (We are ubermenschen and are entitled to exterminate those untermenschen we consider our inferiors!)Slavery according to the slaveholder perspective. (Cheap labor! Not to mention a labor pool we can sexually exploit!)
The Civil Rights movement according to the KKK perspective. (See Nazi perspective above.)
The attempted genocide on Native Americans from the American Manifest Destiny perspective. (Get off our land you redskin squatters!)
Evolution from the Intelligent Design perspective. (See below)
Astronomy from the Flat Earth Society supporters. (See below)
Environmental Science from climate deniers perspective. (Crackpot ideas promulgated by insecure individuals wishing to make some kind of mark in their pathetic lives.)
Slightly OT, when Germany was going through post-WWII reconciliation/restitution Austria filed a monetary claim that they were also victims of the Nazi regime. Germany’s initial reply was “If they want payment we’ll send them the bones of Hitler”.