PEN America Reports On Rise In Teacher Intimidation Legislation
At Forbes. com, a look at a new report from PEN America out this morning.
PEN America was founded in 1922 “to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” For the past several years they have been tracking the rise of book bans and teacher gag laws in the U.S. In a new report released today, they look at the spread of legislation “creating the conditions to intimidate educators into self-censorship in school.”
The study finds that nearly 400 bills have been introduced that are designed to push self-censorship by teachers, creating a chilling effect in classroom across America. “Fear,” says the reports introduction, “is the new watchword in public education.”
Increasingly, bills that exert direct censorship on public educational institutions by prohibiting specific topics or content are being complemented by a different kind of bill—one whose provisions do not censor schools directly but rather cast a chilling effect that creates the conditions for censorship indirectly, threatening the freedoms to teach and learn with death by a thousand cuts.
The report lists twelve features of “intimidation legislation,” most of which focus on requiring school classrooms, libraries and programs be open to a high level of surveillance and inspection. These bills often operate in tandem with gag laws; the gag law makes a list of illegal items (often vaguely enumerated e.g. “divisive concepts”), and then other laws are aimed at making it easier for individuals to “catch” schools violating the law.
A typical intimidation law might require schools to post online full text versions of all curricula, textbooks, source materials, syllabi, and even worksheets and daily lesson plans. The report quotes Missouri Senator Andrew Koenig who sponsored this type of bill: “The people that are concerned about [critical race theory] are concerned about having access to what’s being taught. So to me, [the bill] was a perfect fit.”