These claims that the "don't say gay" legislation stifles free speech are dishonest. These are teachers, agents of the state, in a professional setting, not private citizens expressing opinions off the clock. If I'm paying taxes for public education then I should have a say in what gets taught, and that includes culture.
Now, wait a second - either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions, as Graham states in the essay, or it's not and people _should_ get fired for expressing opinions that you don't like. I don't think you can have it both ways. It's not even as if there's a conflict of interest here, as in the case of public officials being banned from certain kinds of political speech; these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil processes, so under what principle is it acceptable to deny them the same freedoms Graham argues for in the case of corporate employees?
The difference is that what the teacher says is the actual service the teacher is providing pursuant to his or her employment. The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools. It’s not a free speech issue at all. Note that the Florida law applies only to “instruction.”
To use a different example: a public bus driver shouldn’t be fired for an offhand comment. But they have to drive the routes the government tells them to drive. That’s not a “freedom of movement” issue.
Part of the reason this is so prickly is that a huge part of what actually happens in the classroom is ancillary to instruction. And always has been. And is for the good of children.
We expect teachers to be robots when we want to chastise them, but we expect teachers to be surrogate parents when they're helping turn students into productive members of society.
> The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools.
An interesting nuance to this particular case is that it is the state government that is imposing the requirement while it is a local (city, town or county) government which hires the teachers.
In most US states, local governments are explicitly given power by the state government. It is not like the relationship between state and federal governments: the local governments are strictly beneath the state government.
They are not only beneath, they are organs of the state government and have no separate sovereignty of their own. They’re like wholly owned subsidiaries.
Would you want to take your kid into a kindergarten where the teacher would be showing (or reading) them porn?
If "no", how do you square that with "teachers can say anything they like"? I mean literally no employment is like that (try publicly saying your employer is evil, see how long you last...). Private speech != employee speech.
Right. The argument being had here is about whether or not telling children that gay people exist is harmful, not over whether or not it's ever okay to tell people what they can and cannot speak about. All I'm saying is that right-wingers in these comments will tend to agree with Graham in the abstract, and because he targets the left in the post, but in practice their politics are not aligned with what he says in this essay.
To your point, though, the law is not about porn; that's already illegal. The law is about literally telling children that gay people exist; unless you believe gay couples are somehow inherently sexual in a way that straight couples aren't, you're off the mark here.
People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some people prefer broccoli over cauliflower."
It doesn't even make sense. Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place. Politics only tarnishes your ability to make this common sense observation because regardless of truth you have discarded half of your audience.
Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them.
> Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place.
It's worth noting that the Florida law, under some readings and I think under its intent, would make it illegal for a teacher to point to a student and her same-sex parents and say "those two women are married and are both raising this child." It's perhaps the most absurd anti-free-speech law I've ever heard of.
> Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them.
My boyfriend was a pineapple pizza person and he is now, no joke, allergic to pineapple. They're an accident waiting to happen.
> People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some people prefer broccoli over cauliflower."
These examples would be relevant if there were factions who vehemently oppose people with sleeveless shirts or who prefer broccoli, and want to make sure they can pass that opposition on to their children.
I'm currently thinking of trying to get legislation put before Congress to have all sleeveless shirts labeled as "bras" or "bros", and therefore classified as underwear but I need to do some polling first to see if I have broad public support.
You're falling for, and perpetuating, left-wing propaganda.
The bill doesn't prohibit "saying gay".
The bill prohibits discussing sexual orientation. Straight and gay alike. Personally I think that at those ages basically all discussion of sex should be off limits (except strictly in a biological sense "this is where you pee" or "naked boys look like this drawing and naked girls like that drawing").
Also your argument is a nasty bait-and-switch. Your original comment was about "limiting freedom of speech of teachers is bad" but then you switched to "of course we should limit freedom of speech for teachers, but not in this specific case".
Are you ok with teaching creationism in public schools? Being government run schools, the government decides what gets taught. It cannot be teachers teach whatever they want - they must adhere to the curriculum, which is decided by the government.
They might as well teach that Earth is flat - kids are smart, and truth will make its way into their heads regardless. In this day and age, it is hard for it not to.
Why teach them anything at all if the truth will seep in anyway?
Besides, I bet I can think of a looong list of human beliefs once held dear by many people you'd strongly object to being taught in public schools. It's not a free speech issue, because it's paid for by taxpayers, and kids are forced to attend it.
Teach them reading, writing, and arithmetics. Everything else can be learned independently (which is too easy these days) or in vocational schools (which surely do not care about the origins of the universe).
In general, there is nothing wrong with the government legislating what its employees may say when acting as agents of the government, just as there is nothing wrong with a corporation telling its employees what they may say when acting as agents of the corporation. Free speech does not mean, "Your employer cannot fire you for publicly contradicting company policy while on the clock." Note that there are limits to what the government can mandate with regard to its employees' communications, and the Florida bill may run up against them.
According to the Florida bill, it's when the students are 3rd grade or lower. The bifurcation point between "OK to talk about" and "not OK to talk about" is between 3rd & 4th grade.
> either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions
They're not merely "expressing opinions", they're teaching children "facts" of disputed veracity and appropriateness.
>these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil processes
That's the crux of the whole debate, isn't it? By teaching these topics inappropriately or inappropriately early, they are potentially harming children, if, say, transgenderism is a social contagion.
So - again - it's okay to ban people from talking about certain things, in certain circumstances, especially if you believe those things might cause harm, yes? The debate is not over the thing Graham is talking about, but over whether it's worse to tell young cishet children that queer people exist, or to not tell young queer children that other queer people exist. You don't seem to agree with the essay you're defending.
It says nothing whatever about "banning people from talking about certain things". It says (pp. 4-5):
"3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
In other words, it's the government making clear what the standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools run by the government. Exactly the same as the government has always done for schools run by the government. Teachers in public schools are always required to conduct their classroom instruction in accordance with the rules that the government sets down.
Now, let's consider a couple of examples. Suppose a teacher of a 3rd grade class happens to mention the fact that one of the students has a gay couple as parents. Is that violating the law? Of course not. The teacher is not conducting "classroom instruction" about sexual orientation or gender identity. The teacher is just stating a fact.
But suppose the teacher says: "There should be more couples like the parents of student A." Is that violating the law? It might be. If the teacher was very careful to explicitly state that this statement was just the teacher's opinion and was not part of classroom instruction, and if no student's grade on anything depended on whether or not they agreed with the teacher, then it would not be violating the law. But if the teacher made such a statement part of classroom instruction, and gave students assignments based on it, and graded them based on whether they agreed with it, then that would be violating the law.
Note that this is no different from any other area of instruction.
> Note that this is no different from any other area of instruction.
Allowing parents to sue for DJ, or request a special magistrate be appointed, with reimbursement of attorneys' fees, is pretty different.
> If the teacher was very careful to explicitly state that this statement was just the teacher's opinion and was not part of classroom instruction, and if no student's grade on anything depended on whether or not they agreed with the teacher, then it would not be violating the law.
I think this is a very curious and unlikely distinction.
A 1st grade teacher who wants to read "Heather Has Two Mommies" to the class because there's been questions about April's two moms shouldn't face litigation and censure.
Look, there's a lot of benefits to students to mention that not all families look the same and to seek to use inclusive language. The kids who have an absent dad or a parent that has died benefit as much as anyone from kids understanding that families may look different ways and it's OK.
Another key point is that the law affects other situations. Some high school students are experimenting with other pronouns at school, and feel they would be unsafe at home if this was reported to their parents. This law outlaws this practice of teachers respecting students' preference of what they're called and not telling Dad, unless we meet a relatively high bar of being able to prove that it is likely dangerous.
> In other words, it's the government making clear what the standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools run by the government.
Yes, and this is clearly a state power that needs to be used responsibly. The moment we start prohibiting the discussion of certain political and social views, or e.g. evolution, we've lost.
> Allowing parents to sue for DJ, or request a special magistrate be appointed, with reimbursement of attorneys' fees, is pretty different.
First, the parents have to work through the school district first. The district has 30 days to address their concerns.
Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel to pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of. One of the biggest problems with our legal system in general is that it is unaffordable unless you're a corporation or a wealthy individual.
> A 1st grade teacher who wants to read "Heather Has Two Mommies" to the class because there's been questions about April's two moms shouldn't face litigation and censure.
First, the teacher won't; the school district will. Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the liability is on the school district.
Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a voice.
> This law outlaws this practice of teachers respecting students' preference of what they're called and not telling Dad, unless we meet a relatively high bar of being able to prove that it is likely dangerous.
Where does the law say that?
More generally, whether the student likes it or not, their parents are their parents and are responsible for raising them. The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the student directly in that discussion, not to help the student to go behind the parent's back.
> The district has 30 days to address their concerns.
Of which the parents are the sole judge of whether their concerns were adequately addressed before pursuing litigation.
> Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel to pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of.
Or, alternatively, giving nuisance litigators a way to make money if they find a plaintiff, which is what laws that provide injunctive-relief-plus-legal-costs tend to do.
> First, the teacher won't; the school district will. Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the liability is on the school district.
The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used. They won't have any monetary liability.
> Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a voice.
You're free to argue that with your local school district's elected body, etc, instead of putting in place legislation which will cow all of these districts into preventing any such discussion.
It's funny how people love to move things to more local levels of government, until those bodies are not doing what they like. Then, it's time for legislative bodies to set standards for the whole state, country, etc.
> The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the student directly in that discussion, not to help the student to go behind the parent's back.
Sorry-- disagree. Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed, unless there is an actual acute danger to the students in question. If a student wants to talk to me about not wanting to pursue the career path their parents have in mind, I'm allowed to talk to them, provide information on this, and I'm not expected to "snitch". But if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different? Spare me the pearl clutching.
Look, social mores about gender are fundamentally changing, and this is something that is going to happen. You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.
This law is intended to provide a small number of parents with an implicit veto over what is taught within their local school districts. It does so by placing the judgement over whether a conflict is "resolved" with the parents, and then empowering those parents to initiate a legal procedure that must be paid for by the school district (in the case of a special magistrate) or specifically contemplates "damages", attorney's fees, etc, being awarded to the parent who complains.
As there are no particular limits declared in the law, no school board can withstand a large enough number of attacks being conducted "in parallel", each of which must be paid for by the board.
What I find at least a little interesting is that there doesn't appear to be any contemplation of what happens when a parent sues in the opposite direction -- specifically saying that X and Y are age- and developmentally-appropriate topics for classroom instruction, and to avoid teaching them is inappropriate.
Maybe that's a stretch. But it doesn't really matter, because it's up to the parent to decide if their issue has been "resolved"...and the parent can just go straight to court if they don't like the answer.
> The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used.
Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
Censure? By whom? By the parents? Well, yes, if the teacher is doing something that the parents strongly disagree with, they should expect to be censured by the parents.
Censure by someone else? Who? And on what basis? If it's because other people also think what the teacher did is wrong, isn't that, again, just what should be expected? And if other people don't think what the teacher did is wrong, why would they censure the teacher?
> Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed
I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence. The law says teachers should encourage the student to talk to the parents, but it doesn't require the teachers themselves to talk to the parents. (I agree that this means the teacher is not required to do what I suggested in my previous post, to bring the parents into the discussion themselves. I still think it's a good idea if it can be done, but it's not required by the law.) Nor does the law require teachers to reveal something that isn't part of the student's school record--which a confidential conversation wouldn't be. And the school district can't prohibit a teacher from talking to the parents, but it can't require them to either.
> if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different?
Nothing in the law singles out this kind of discussion between a student and a teacher. But note that asking the teacher to call them "they/them" in public is not a confidential request. (If it's just in private between the student and teacher and not in the public classroom, that's different.)
> social mores about gender are fundamentally changing
And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents. If a teacher believes that any parent who objects to their child wanting to be called "they/them" is automatically abusing that child, that teacher has a personal agenda that should not be allowed to intrude into the school environment.
> You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.
I certainly agree that having adults in their lives who strongly disagree about basic aspects of life sucks for kids. But that strong disagreement is not just the fault of parents who are unwilling to consider change and let their kids explore new things. Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
> Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
The teacher will not have to deal with the litigation? They're not going to have to show up to depositions, have their actions scrutinized and mocked by opposing counsel, etc?
In practice, this gives every parent a veto right: they can say they're not satisfied with what the district did, and tie educators up in litigation and cost the district a bunch of money.
> I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence.
If Thomas says that he'd like to be called "Tom", this is a longstanding request that we'd have always complied with. We'd also typically ask how he'd like to be referred to on his report card and if this is something his parents know.
If Thomas says that they would prefer the pronoun 'she' and like to be called "Tammy"-- we're going to have to create a record of it. If Tammy then says she does not want her parents to know this, we still cannot withhold the information.
> And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents.
In general, when it comes to the courtesy of names, and now pronouns: we do what students request. With information that students indicate their parents would not approve of, we keep confidences. If they say they don't want to be a nurse like Mom and Dad want, and are thinking of an alternative path, we advise them as best as we can. If they say they want to be referred to be 'she' and their parents will freak out, we keep it in confidence.
> Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
I don't favor "pushing agendas" on kids. But the kids are talking about gender and sexuality among themselves in terms largely unfamiliar to you and me, and there's major social change underfoot. Kids deserve teachers that will A) respect reasonable requests made by students for how they are addressed, B) keep confidences, and C) help them navigate this new world as best as we can. Pushing these concerns into the dark or being a conduit directly to parents is not beneficial for student safety or mental health. If you think these changes are largely driven by school staff I think you are highly confused.
> More generally, whether the student likes it or not, their parents are their parents and are responsible for raising them. The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the student directly in that discussion, not to help the student to go behind the parent's back.
I heavily disagree with this idea that the parent should be brought into a discussion involving their child when the parent is a danger to their children. This goes against how abuse should be handled in any other circumstance. A teacher should absolutely be going behind the parents' backs when they suspect the child is in danger or is being abused such that they can assist the child in getting out of the dangerous/abusive situation.
> I heavily disagree with this idea that the parent should be brought into a discussion involving their child when the parent is a danger to their children.
How do you know when a parent is a danger to their children? Who gets to decide? On what basis?
The answer for this law is that the state already has criteria for that, and those criteria are to be used. Which means the teacher's personal opinion, by itself, is not enough. And that's as it should be. If the teacher really believes the parent is a danger to their children, they have a process they can follow to get that judgment checked by others, and if necessary acted on. But they can't just cut the parent out of the process based on their personal opinion. That's what this law says, and it's correct.
> If the teacher really believes the parent is a danger to their children, they have a process they can follow to get that judgment checked by others, and if necessary acted on.
Surely there's some kind of continuum between "needs to be immediately removed from the home by the state, with all evidence in hand to demonstrate this" and "will be supportive and react reasonably to something the student is expressing at school."
Teachers routinely keep confidences for their kids. We hear about doubts in parents politics, doubts in the choices that have been made for their future, etc. We are expected to help kids express their own opinions and keep those confidences.
Outing some trans kids is going to get them thrown out on the street by their parents, beaten, or worse. That's a guaranteed consequence of this law. I think you know that, deep down.
> You seem to believe your views preempt those of your students’ parents.
I'm a parent too. I believe that my kids should be able to be their own people at school. I don't know everything that happens with them there.
> You are exactly the type of educator this law is intended to target
I don't work for a government entity. But nice try at being vaguely menacing.
> You should not be keeping secrets from students’ parents in the first place.
I'm just curious if this is what you really think. Anything that happens at school-- anything kids express-- should be rolled up in journal form and provided to the parent? Or is there any role for discretion?
> Actual abuse is illegal. Report it through proper channels.
Waiting for actual harm sounds bad. And there's plenty of harm that's legal or nearly so: if they want to force the kid to leave home on their 18th birthday because of what I told them, that still sucks.
The law says the teacher can cut the parent out of the process when it comes to reporting abusive parenting. The current discussion is that a new, additional law guarantees additional child abuse occurring. Using the guise of "cutting out" the parents from the child's identity navigation is ignoring the fact the child is requesting confidence because of the parent's abusive behavior. There would be no need for confidence except for the knowledge the parent is dangerous to their child.
Before one points out there is already child protective services- functionally, child protective services is overwhelmed, underfunded, and overworked. They are shockingly ineffective through little fault of their own.
For what it's worth, I think that the critical position on this bill is basically extreme skepticism about what the parties initiating legal proceedings are going to consider "instruction ... on sexual orientation and gender identity". Because that's a very vague passage, and I'm not confident that bigots won't cause a large chilling effect on schools by suing over teachers mentioning that gay/trans people exist, even if these lawsuits are eventually lost by said bigots.
> Of course not. ... The teacher is just stating a fact.
A lot of "classroom instruction" is stating facts. You're instructing the children about what these facts are. The law seems very vague on where this line is going to fall.
(The other issue is the extreme lack of consideration of the possibility that parental-abuse is the problem you're now required to inform the parents their child has complained about in the other sections of the bill...)
>or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards
This could easily, under the US legislative framework, be interpreted as extending beyond the 3rd grade. The law does not, actually, strictly, limit this to 3rd grade or lower. This line, as I understand it, makes it so the law can be applied to other grade levels as well, because they can simply say its not "age appropriate" or "developmentally appropriate" at any level.
I don't think its an accident this line is worded in a way that would allow this.
> This could easily, under the US legislative framework, be interpreted as extending beyond the 3rd grade.
The or makes it quite clear this is the intent:
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
in kindergarten through grade 3
So, no instruction in K-3 is permitted.
> or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
And in 4-12, it may only be age appropriate / developmentally appropriate as determined by state standards. (E.g. it's not an independent finding of fact by the court as to whether what you said to a bunch of 11th graders was age appropriate.)
Right, which is, from all suggested evidence so far, is intended to allow the state to suppress educators from talking about sexual orientation, gender identity et. al.
Hence, the layman’s one liner of “Don’t Say Gay”
Why on earth the Republican Party and it’s voter base is so concerned with non heteronormative information making it’s way into classrooms, where what is suppose to be the fundamental place where our youth are suppose to learn about the world and what things are, has always baffled me.
It’s a disservice to children and adults frankly. It’s not like these things just disappear because people disagree with them.
Personally, I'm amused by the interpretation that the best way to comply with this law is to avoid all mention of gender and sexuality in classrooms. All children shall be "they"; books mentioning heterosexual romance will be forbidden from reading. It's the only way to avoid conveying some sort of instruction about the concept of gender identity...
When teachers are agents of the state, they are bound by the restrictions on what the state is allowed to do, being required to afford equal protections to all people.
While I agree that the people should have a say in what gets taught, and that includes culture, in certain cases that say is (and needs to be) inherently limited. For example, if 90% of people would vote that some 10% minority should have limited rights, they should not (and do not) get a say about that, that minority deserves equal protection from state action no matter what the taxpayers or voters want.
And arguably (though the exact details matter) "don't say gay" legislation violates that by having state agents (i.e. teachers and administrators) apply unequal discriminatory treatment to those employees and students who are gay.
