CIVIL RIGHTS EDUCATION.

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View NCGA Bill Details2023-2024 Session
House Bill 686 (Public) Filed Tuesday, April 18, 2023
AN ACT TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE CIVIL RIGHTS EDUCATION TO EVERY STUDENT IN THE STATE.
Intro. by Hardister, Blackwell, Quick.

Status: Re-ref Com On Appropriations (House action) (Jun 21 2023)
H 686

Bill Summaries:

  • Summary date: Jun 21 2023 - View Summary

    House committee substitute to the 1st edition makes the following changes.

    Instead of enacting new GS 115C-81.58 requiring coverage of the civil rights movement (1954-1968) in the standard course of study for students in elementary through high school, amends GS 115C-81.45 instead to require that a unit on civil rights be included as part of the middle school civic and citizenship education standard course of study and high school course in Founding Principles of the United States of America and North Carolina: Civil Literacy. Requires that the unit include the topics listed in the previous edition, with the following changes. Specifies that the topic of the civil rights movement that occurred in the US from 1954 through 1968 includes the natural law and natural rights principles that informed the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the tactics and strategies of nonviolent resistance that Dr. King championed in response to the Jim Crow laws of that era; and the repeal of the Jim Crow laws of that era and the passage of civil rights legislation in the United States. Requires instruction on other acts of discriminatory injustice elsewhere around the globe to reinforce the lesson that hatred on the basis of immutable characteristics can overtake any society, removing the previously stated examples of such discriminatory injustice. 


  • Summary date: Apr 18 2023 - View Summary

    Enacts new GS 115C-81.58 requiring coverage of the civil rights movement (1954-1968) in the standard course of study for students in elementary through high school. Includes list of topics required to be covered: the natural law and natural rights principles that informed the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the tactics and strategies of nonviolent resistance that Dr. King championed in response to the Jim Crow laws of that era; the repeal of the Jim Crow laws of that era and the passage of civil rights legislation in the United States; the philosophy that hatred on the basis of immutable characteristics leads to profound injustice; and instruction on other acts of discriminatory injustice, such as genocide, elsewhere around the globe to reinforce the lesson that hatred on the basis of immutable characteristics can overtake any society. Gives examples of acts of discriminatory injustice, including the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust, Chinese Collie labor in Cuba, Uighurs in China, and Rohingya in Myanmar.

    Appropriates $250,000 in nonrecurring funds from the General Fund to the Department of Public Instruction for 2023-24 to implement this act.

    Effective July 1, 2023. Applies to courses taught beginning with the 2024-25 school year.