Governor Youngkin Issues Executive Orders Banning CRT, Ending Mask Mandate Shortly After Taking Office

Governor Glenn Youngkin signed nine executive orders and two executive directives on Saturday shortly after the inauguration. Three of the orders focus specifically on school policy, banning the use of “divisive concepts,” allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask policies, and requesting Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate the Loudoun County Public Schools.

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Commentary: Teacher Codes of Conduct Offer Alternative to Critical Race Theory Bans

The firing of Matthew Hawn, a high school teacher in Sullivan County, Tennessee, recently made national news and seemed to confirm fears that newly-enacted state bans on critical race theory (CRT) would have a chilling effect on teacher speech. Hawn, a 16-year veteran tenured teacher and baseball coach, had assigned students in his contemporary issues class Ta-Nehisi Coates’s essay, “The First White President,” and a spoken word poem from Kyla Jenée Lacey called “White Privilege.” One headline declared, “A Tennessee teacher taught a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay and a poem about white privilege. He was fired for it.” A Georgetown professor tweeted, “This really seems extreme and a harbinger of what is to come.”

But contrary to news coverage and social media chatter, Hawn wasn’t fired for violating the state’s newly passed CRT ban. Really, he was dismissed for failing to adhere to the Tennessee “Teacher Code of Ethics,” a seldom-invoked but sensible state requirement for teachers to provide students access to varying points of view on controversial topics. Not only did Hawn fail to follow this code when he assigned the contentious poem and Coates’ essay from The Atlantic, which contains claims such as, “With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness,” he also later asserted that “there is no credible source for a differing point of view.” (Hawn recently denied making such a claim, though he declined to explain why the district attributed this statement to him.)

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Sewanee: University of the South To Offer Alternative Spanish/English Commencement Bulletin

Tennessee Star

  The University of the South in Sewanee will offer an alternative Spanish/English bulletin at commencement this year, even though only 5 percent of the student body is Hispanic. The bulletin is part of an effort at the private liberal arts school to promote “diversity, inclusion and cohesion,” according to a message from the provost’s office on the school website. The elite university, founded in 1857 by the Episcopal Church, is located between Nashville and Chattanooga. The majority of the student body is white. The Sewanee Purple student newspaper reported that graduating senior Nora Viñas led the effort to create the alternative bulletin and make Hispanic students “feel included, safe, and important” on campus. “Following the presidential election, Viñas was left frustrated and scared,” the article said, quoting her as saying, “A blindfold came off, and I had to confront the Latino experience uniquely.” As part of is diversity push, the school also this year made African-American journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me the orientation book for freshmen. “The politically charged text provides an account of the realities of racism and inequality that African Americans face in the United States,” reported The Sewanee Purple. “This encouraged meaningful, relevant conversation amongst students…

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