Oklahoma Politics: May 2021 Archives

House Bill 1775 (2021), signed into law earlier this week by Gov. Kevin Stitt, takes up a grand total of four sheets of paper. The substance of the bill occupies a mere page and a third, 282 words by my count. So it's frustrating, if not surprising, that the Tulsa Whirled and broadcast media outlets should mischaracterize the bill, when they could easily quote the entire text. (Here's all the info on HB 1775, including earlier versions, amendments, and legislative votes.)

Although HB 1775 targets the infiltration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) into our taxpayer-funded schools and universities, it does not use that phrase. Instead, it prohibits specific racist and sexist ideas from being taught. There are two subsections of what will become 70 O. S. 24-157. Subsection A deals with state universities, requiring the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to promulgate rules, subject to legislative approval, to enforce the following law:

No enrolled student of an institution of higher education within The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education shall be required to engage in any form of mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling; provided, voluntary counseling shall not be prohibited. Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex shall be prohibited.

Subsection B deals with K-12 schools, and the State Board of Education is assigned to enforce it:

The provisions of this subsection shall not prohibit the teaching of concepts that align to the Oklahoma Academic Standards.

1. No teacher, administrator or other employee of a school district, charter school or virtual charter school shall require or make part of a course the following concepts:

1. one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,
2. an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,
3. an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex,
4. members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex,
5. an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex,
6. an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,
7. any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex, or
8. meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race.

Who would defend any of the ideas listed above? And yet these very ideas are being incorporated into school curricula (as well as corporate training) across America and throughout the Anglosphere. If we had a mainstream media worthy of our attention, they would be asking critics of HB 1775 to read the above list and indicate which of the ideas they endorse teaching to school children.

(Christopher Rufo has been tireless in documenting the spread of "woke" education and now is turning his attention to "woke" corporate indoctrination with an exposé of Disney's racist diversity and inclusion program. Rufo's coverage of CRT in the Federal Government led to President Trump's executive order banning racist dogma.)

Many critics of HB 1775 selectively quote subparagraph B.1.g. as prohibiting the teaching of any historical event that might make a student feel uncomfortable, for example, the Trail of Tears, the Tulsa Race Massacre, lynching, or Jim Crow laws. A change in wording ("ought to feel" or "is obliged to feel" instead of "should feel") might have avoided the easy distortion, but the language is clear enough to the careful reader. The bill bans teaching that "any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex" (emphasis added). That last phrase has been utterly ignored by the mainstream media. A student ought to feel sad or angry when learning that a mob of white people descended on a black community, shot people and looted and burned their homes and businesses, but a person in academic authority over them, funded by Oklahoma taxpayers, should not tell the student that he should feel personally guilty because he has skin color in common with those responsible for these evil deeds.

Note the reference to Oklahoma Academic Standards, which I have hyperlinked above. The current Social Studies standards, last updated in 2019. HB 1775 explicitly allows the topics in these standards to be taught, notwithstanding anything else in the bill. All of the historical subjects that critics have claimed will be suppressed are in fact included, for example:

OKH.1.3 Compare the goals and significance of early Spanish, French, and American interactions with American Indians, including trade,the impact of disease, the arrival of the horse,and new technologies.

OKH.1.4 Compare cultural perspectives of American Indians and European Americans regarding land ownership, structure of self-government, religion, and trading practices.

OKH.2.3 Analyze the motivations for removal of American Indians and the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830; trace the forced removal of American Indian nations, including the impact on the tribal nations removed to present-day Oklahoma and tribal resistance to the forced relocation

OKH.3.1 Summarize the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction Treaties on American Indian peoples, territories, and tribal sovereignty including:

1. required enrollment of the Freedmen
2. Second Indian Removal
3. significance of the Massacre at the Washita
4. reasons for the reservation system and the controversy regarding the reservation system as opposed to tribal lands.
5. establishment of the western military posts including the role of the Buffalo Soldiers
6. construction of railroads through Indian Territory

OKH.3.4 Compare multiple points of view to evaluate the impact of the Dawes Act (General Allotment Act) which resulted in the loss of tribal communal lands through a transfer to individual property and the redistribution of lands, including the Unassigned Lands and the Cherokee Outlet, by various means.

OKH.3.5 Explain how American Indian nations lost control over tribal identity and citizenship through congressional action, including the Indian Reorganization Act.

OKH.5.1 Examine the policies of the United States and their effects on American Indian identity, culture, economy, tribal government and sovereignty including:

1. passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
2. effects of the federal policy of assimilation including Indian boarding schools (1880s-1940s)
3. authority to select tribal leaders as opposed to appointment by the federal government
4. exploitation of American Indian resources, lands, trust accounts, head rights, and guardianship as required by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

OKH.5.2 Examine multiple points of view regarding the evolution of race relations in Oklahoma, including:

1. growth of all-black towns (1865-1920)
2. passage of Senate Bill 1 establishing Jim Crow Laws
3. rise of the Ku Klux Klan
4. emergence of "Black Wall Street" in the Greenwood District
5. causes of the Tulsa Race Riot and its continued social and economic impact
6. the role labels play in understanding historic events, for example "riot" versus "massacre"

Those are just the Oklahoma History standards. The standards for U. S. History demand more depth and nationwide scope on slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Indian removal, and other topics that don't paint the United States in a positive light. (In fact, the U. S. History standards as a whole seem unbalanced to the negative; the State Board of Education ought to undertake a review.)

The hair-on-fire reactions to HB 1775 from educrats and leftist politicians fail to engage the substance of the bill, setting up strawmen that are easily demolished.

Now Phil Armstrong, the Project Director for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, has sent a letter to Governor Kevin Stitt claiming that his signing of HB 1775 amounts to submitting his resignation from the commission. (Gov. Mary Fallin was given an ex officio seat when the commission was created, as was Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb; these were handed down to the present incumbents when Fallin and Lamb left office in January 2019.) Despite the official sounding name, I can't find any statute or ordinance creating the commission, which appears, from the cast of characters, to be a cog in what Michael Mason has dubbed "the Kaiser System" -- the network of organizations and initiatives tied to billionaire philanthropist George Kaiser.

The Governor's office responded:

Governor Stitt and the First Lady both strongly support reconciliation, healing and the rebirth of Tulsa's Greenwood District, and have worked with the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission on multiple productive events.

While it has become clear that Mr. Armstrong does not speak for the entire Centennial Commission, it is disappointing that some commission members feel that a common-sense law preventing students from being taught that one race or sex is superior to another is contrary to the mission of reconciliation and restoration.

Governor Stitt issued Executive Order 2021-12 as a signing statement to expressly direct that the Tulsa Race Massacre, and all historical events included in the Oklahoma Academic Standards, must still be taught in our schools. The governor believes that any other interpretation of this legislation is misguided and fundamentally inaccurate, and that position was expressed to the Centennial Commission before the bill was signed into law.

America has made great progress over the last century toward an America in which a person's race and sex are no impediment to the full enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever racism or sexism may lurk in stony human hearts, laws and regulations enforcing racism and sexism have been swept away. And yet the Left continues to seek access to our children to sow mutual suspicion and division. Despite massive Republican supermajorities in the legislature, Leftists claim the right to run our taxpayer-funded schools and universities. HB 1775 is a welcome first step in ordinary Oklahomans reasserting democratic control of state institutions of cultural formation.

MORE: Don't miss BatesLine's collection of stories, maps, and images on the history of Tulsa's Greenwood District, Black Wall Street, after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.