In just the first three weeks of 2022, more than 70 bills have been filed in 27 states seeking to regulate how and what educators may teach about race, history and sexuality in schools, according to an analysis a free speech advocacy group published this week.
Advocates say the sheer number of bills – as well as how severe many of them would be – is part of a robust effort by conservative lawmakers in GOP-controlled state legislatures to censor lessons surrounding race and sexuality.
The analysis, conducted by PEN America, a nonprofit group that promotes freedom of expression, found that at least 71 bills have already been introduced or pre-filed in state legislatures across the country in 2022. PEN America, which labels itself nonpartisan but sued then-President Donald Trump in 2018, alleging that his administration engaged in attempted media censorship, described the bills as “educational gag orders.”
It has been an “incredible escalation in just both the number and also the intensity and scope of these bills coming out of state legislatures,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a PEN researcher and political science professor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.
