NC Senate advances bill to eliminate DEI in K-12 schools, agencies citing fairness and merit

A North Carolina Senate committee moved through a bill on Wednesday that would eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion concepts in K-12 public schools and agencies.

Senate Bill 227 — filed by Republicans Senate leader Phil Berger of Randolph County, Sen. Michael Lee of New Hanover County, and Sen. Brad Overcash of Gaston County — aims to remove DEI offices, staff, and divisive concepts from schools, ensuring education focuses on core curriculum without promoting ideologies deemed inconsistent with equality.

The legislation outlines 12 divisive concepts, such as the belief that one race or sex is inherently superior to another, the idea that meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist, and the belief that the US was founded to oppress certain groups.

“There’s nothing wrong with diversity. There’s nothing wrong with equity. There’s certainly nothing wrong with inclusion. I think that the goals of DEI are laudable,” said Lee during the committee meeting. “But that’s not what has been going on in practice. Unfortunately, a lot of these policies haven’t really opened doors for people to compete fairly, but have forced artificial outcomes at the expense of fairness and competency.”

Democrats on the committee raised concerns about the implications of the bill.

“What I don’t see is a specific carve out for who gets to adjudicate this,” said Sen. Woodson Bradley, D-Mecklenburg. “Is it going to be up to educators and families? What are we talking about? Because people are going to perceive that we are going straight down the path to politicizing public education.”

As reported by Carolina Journal on March 4, the bill drops amid new policies from the Trump administration policies abandoning DEI efforts at the federal level.

Republicans in the Legislature began a push to ban DEI and Critical Race Theory from classrooms in 2021, but those efforts fell prey to then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto pen. In 2023, the House passed an anti-CRT Bill and sent it over to the Senate, but that chamber didn’t take up the measure.

The post NC Senate advances bill to eliminate DEI in K-12 schools, agencies citing fairness and merit first appeared on Carolina Journal.