Better not even think it. Someone could be watching.
“Live free or die” has given way to “shut up or else.” New Hampshire has set up a system for letting the public turn in public school teachers for violation of its new anti-divisive subject matter law, and Moms for Liberty have offered a cash reward to parents who use it.
New Hampshire’s GOP-controlled legislature inserted its “anti” language into this year’s budget as the “Right to Freedom From Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education.”, and as many critics have noted, the language is particularly vague, forbidding the teaching “divisive concepts” related to race and gender is exceptionally vague. The Department of Education has offered some clarification, but it focuses on the “discrimination” portion of the law, not the “divisive concepts” portion. And if the department’s guidance really is the whole story, the “anti-critical race theory” law doesn’t actually prohibit critical race theory at all. After Governor Chris Sununu signed the bill into law, more than half of his diversity council quit.
While many states have anti laws that are also vague, New Hampshire has added another layer guaranteed to chill classroom speech; teachers who violate the law can be brought before state authorities and lose their license if it is found they have “discriminated against an individual or identified group.”
To further up the ante, the state has now set up a website to let parents and students to turn in teachers that they believe have violated the law. Students and parents may fill out this form, a questionnaire that can be submitted to the state. There’s a space to describe “what action was taken against you that you believe to be discriminatory” which can include any differentiation in privileges, discipline, harassment, or retaliation. It asks the parent if they have filed a complaint with the court of the Department of Education, and gives the option of giving race and national origin of the complainant.
If State Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut’s encouragement to turn in a teachers is not enough, Moms for Liberty’s New Hampshire chapter has also gotten involved. Moms for Liberty, the national group that started out advocating for reopened schools and an end to masking policies and then moved on to agitating against CRT, has decided to put a price on the head of New Hampshire teachers.
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On Friday, the group tweeted “We’ve got $500 for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law. Students, parents, teachers, school staff…We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want.” End someone’s career, and collect a bounty.
New Hampshire AFT president Deb Howes was clear in her response to the state’s new initiative.
It was bad enough that the law tried to find a problem that doesn’t exist—no teacher in New Hampshire teaches that any group is inherently superior or inferior to another. That false flag has now been made worse with Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut launching a webpage to encourage parents to file complaints against teachers who allegedly teach so-called divisive concepts…Edelblut has declared a war on teachers, a war that the overwhelming majority of N.H. parents will find repulsive.
New Hampshire is already having trouble recruiting and retaining teachers. Threatening them with career termination for teaching something divisive and offering parents money to turn them in will probably not help.
