New Hampshire Attorney General Sean Locke has publicly come out against new legislation aiming to ban “divisive concepts,” such as critical race theory and ‘LGBTQ ideologies,’ from K–12 classrooms in the Granite State. The bill would also “prevent teachers from requiring students to affirm others’ LGBTQ+ identities or advocate that being LGBTQ+ is ‘ethical or normative,'” according to a report in The Conway Daily Sun.
Reports the Daily Sun:
House Bill 1792 “presents constitutional concerns and risks conflicts with other laws,” Assistant Attorney General Sean Locke, the head of the department’s civil rights unit, told senators last week.
“The litigation risk and conflict of laws lead us to oppose this legislation as written,” Locke said in sharply worded comments to the Senate Education Committee.
Locke’s comments were the first time the department has taken a position against the bill — a rare move for the Attorney General’s Office. They come as the department is defending a similar 2021 state law restricting public school teaching from a multi-year lawsuit brought by teachers unions.
A federal judge overturned that law, known as the “divisive concepts” law, in 2024, ruling it was unconstitutionally vague. The state has appealed that decision to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, but parties to the lawsuit are still waiting on a decision.
The CHARLIE Act is designed to better withstand lawsuits than the 2021 law, argues Rep. Mike Belcher, a Wakefield Republican and the bill’s architect.
“This bill is simple and targeted, and it looks to be what the prior legislation that these bodies both passed should have been from the beginning,” Belcher told the committee.
But Locke said similar issues of vagueness could plague the new bill if passed into law.
Named after Charlie Kirk, the right-wing figure assassinated at a public event in Utah last September, the CHARLIE Act is an acronym for “Countering Hate and Revolutionary Leftist Indoctrination in Education.”
The bill seeks to stop K-12 teachers from advocating for “identity-based” ideologies or pedagogical frameworks — teaching philosophies — that cater to certain concepts.
Read the complete Daily Sun story here.
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