House Bill 2002 — A Love Hate Relationship
An Op-Ed from a Public School Student in Arizona
In December of 2018, state representative Mark Finchem (Republican- Oro Valley) proposed House Bill 2002. The goal of this bill is to further enhance the “educator code of ethics and professional responsibility” by “prohibit[ing] teachers in a taxpayer-supported school from engaging in political, ideological, or religious advocacy in their classroom.” It prohibits teachers from endorsing, supporting, or opposing any political candidates, legislation, court case, or executed executive action. Furthermore, the bill bans teachers from discussing any controversial issues that do not pertain to their class subject or blame one student’s racial group for being responsible for inequities experienced by other student’s races. The penalty for violation of this bill (assuming it is passed) is termination. Additionally, the bill could increase law enforcement and military access to students.
Honestly, I am conflicted about this. There are aspects of the bill that I support and aspects that I hate. I somewhat agree with the idea that teachers should not be allowed to support political, ideological, or religious beliefs. I have found that when teachers believe in the same beliefs as myself, it strengthens my relationship with them and makes me more receptive to their teachings. But, I have also found the inverse to be true: when I disagree with teachers, I become less likely to learn in that class as my ability to listen to them decreases along with my respect for them. So, I guess I like the idea that teachers shouldn’t be allowed to support certain beliefs as I have found it to interfere with my education, but I also disagree with it as it has improved my education.
Another conflicting aspect of this bill is the idea that teachers are not allowed to discuss controversial issues that do not pertain to their course. This would be extremely hard to enforce as determining what relates to a course is highly subjective. How would you determine this? Would it depend on each specific situation? Would there be a concrete list of topics that teachers can and can not discuss? These questions need to be answered in order to enforce this. Additionally, I do not know if this rule should be enforced or not. I have had many teachers lead class discussions about topics that do not inherently pertain to their course in order to reinforce topics. I do not think I will ever forgot learning how to use rhetoric through a class discussion about capital punishment in my freshman English class. But, I do not think I will ever forget those with opposing opinion to mine and how it made me less receptive to their future ideas. So once again, I do not know if some aspects of this bill are great or horrible.
But, I do know that some of the rules that the bill would enforce are vile. If this bill is passed, teachers would be unable to blame one racial group for the inequities of an other racial group. I do not know how Finchem expects teachers to teach about slavery, the Jim Crow Laws, Japanese Internment Camps, and many other horrible historical precedents without blaming one racial group. The only way to do this would be to deny history.
Furthermore, the punishment for breaking any of the bill’s decrees is termination. That is far too harsh of a punishment for one mistake and would likely result in teachers being overly cautious out of fear of expulsion.
The final aspect of this bill that I hate is the reasoning behind it. Finchem purposely introduced this bill in retaliation of the RedForEd Movement that occurred in April of 2018, when teachers across Arizona went on strike in order to gain better pay and more funding. Finchem purposely created this bill out of fear that teachers would discuss ideas similar to those that the RedForEd Movement supported and would attempt to execute another strike . If this bill is passed, then teachers would not be able to discuss such ideas and therefore, a similar walkout would not be able to occur.
Overall, I do not like this bill. While there would be some benefits to the passing of this bill, the consequences far outweigh the benefits. The idea that teachers could be fired for only mentioning controversial topics in order to further their students’ educations is atrocious. Additionally, this bill strips teachers of their voices and individualities. This can not be allowed to occur and is a clear violation of teachers’ first amendment right to the freedom of speech. Luckily, similar bills to this have been stricken down by federal judges and ruled unconstitutional, so even if this bill is passed, it will most likely be ruled unconstitutional.
