(The Center Square) — New Hampshire lawmakers are considering a proposal named after the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk that would restrict the teaching of “leftist indoctrination” in the state’s public schools.
The Republican-backed Countering Hate And Revolutionary Leftist Indoctrination in Education, or CHARLIE Act, cleared the House of Representatives Thursday on a 184-164 vote with the chamber’s Democratic minority joining a handful of GOP lawmakers in opposing it.
The bill is named after Kirk, a conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder who often criticized colleges for indoctrinating students in “woke” left-wing viewpoints and encouraged students to question those teachings. He was killed by a lone gunman in September during a speaking event at Utah University.
The Charlie Act, which is now headed to the state Senate for consideration, would prohibit schools from engaging in “indoctrination” of students with “critical theories or related practices that promote division, dialectical world-views, critical consciousness or anti-constitutional indoctrination.” Teachers and schools would face fines and sanctions for violating the proposed rules.
“Education should cultivate a neutral or patriotic disposition, including respect for the U.S. Constitution, American history, civic responsibilities, and national symbols, without compelling total ideological allegiance,” the bill reads. “Education should never cultivate a hostile or revolutionary disposition against the founding of America or the constitutions of the United States or New Hampshire.”
The bill’s author’s go onto list a litany of subjects that should be banned, including, Marxism, critical race theory, LGBTQ+ “ideology” and “anti-constitutional narratives” that “indoctrinate students by compelling adherence to these world-views, undermining objective learning and unity, and undermining the ultimate right of parents to direct their children’s upbringing.”
Republicans who proposed the legislation claimed that schools are using “leftist” ideologies to indoctrinate students and said the state needs to intervene to halt the teachings.
House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, an Auburn Republican, said testimony from parents who support the plan show that students in New Hampshire “are being subjected to critical race theory and radical gender ideology, not as mere topics of discussion, but as doctrine, as gospel, as the very price of admission to participation in public education.”
He said the legislation won’t prevent teachers from discussing sensitive topics in the classroom.
“This bill won’t ban a single book from a shelf, or prevent a teacher from teaching the full ungarnished history of this country, including slavery, including the civil rights movement and every hard truth that we want our children to learn about,” Osborne said in remarks Thursday. “But what it does do is draw a bright line. You cannot use a public school classroom to tell a child that they are inherently racist because of the color of their skin … or push sexual ideology on children, whose parents do not consent to it.”
Democrats who opposed the measure said public students in New Hampshire are not being indoctrinated, and argued that the proposal would result in costly legal challenges for the state.
“Laws should be clear and workable. This one is neither,” state Rep. Loren Selig, D-Durham said in remarks Thursday. “Let me be plain: Teachers in New Hampshire are not indoctrinating students into Marxism or any other political ideology. As a former teacher, if I could indoctrinate my students, it would have been to shower and show up with their homework.”
Debate over the bill comes two years after a federal judge struck down New Hampshire’s “divisive concepts” law that prohibited teaching about systemic racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination in public schools and state-funded programs. The state has appealed that ruling, the outcome of which is still pending.
