RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina government personnel laws would prohibit job applicants from being forced to opine on politics and culture in order to get hired and would prohibit employee trainers from promoting certain concepts of Republican legislation heading to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk.
What you need to know
The House voted 72-46 Wednesday to ban state government job applicants from being forced to intervene in politics and culture
The Senate, which has approved a more limited version of the measure, must now decide whether to accept the House’s changes.
Supporter of Senate bill says some UNC school hiring and training plans emphasize social justice and ‘unconscious’ racial bias
Democrats say the bill’s language is unconstitutionally vague and would have a chilling effect on speech
The full House voted 72-46 on Wednesday in favor of a measure that would also block the promotion of beliefs related to race and sex that some lawmakers have compared to “critical race theory.” The Senate passed a more limited version of the bill last month.
Senators must now decide whether to accept the House version, which would also spread the proposed hiring and training limits beyond state agencies and departments to the University of North Carolina and community college systems. Republican Sen. Warren Daniel of Burke County, a sponsor of the Senate bill, said later Wednesday that he anticipated Senate leaders would support the House change.
The UNC Board of Governors already approved a campus policy in February that prohibits “forced speech” in hiring, tenure and admissions decisions.
The measures in the competence of the Chamber and the Senate are not expressly named critical race theory, a complex academic and legal framework that centers on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s institutions, perpetuating inequality.
But GOP lawmakers in other states have largely focused on limiting how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in the classroom. The NC House passed a bill focused on K-12 education in March that bans certain instruction on the subjects. This bill continues in the Senate. Cooper successfully vetoed a similar K-12 measure in 2021, saying that he would insert politics into education. This year, Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
The state workers’ proposal would prevent agency staff from encouraging or requiring job applicants to disclose their political beliefs or affiliations as a condition of employment. Applicants could still voluntarily share their beliefs or respond to items on their resume. And the bans would not apply to workers who are not subject to personnel protections because they have been hired to serve in the administration of an elected office.
“We think you should be hired, fired and promoted in this state based on your merit, not what you believe in some political context,” Republican Sen. Brad Overcash of Gaston County, a Republican, said earlier Wednesday. other sponsor of the bill, to a House committee. .
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The legislation would also prohibit anyone entering a state government workplace from promoting to executive branch employees that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that he believes it should be felt guilty for past actions committed by people of the same race. or sex Other banned concepts would address certain views about the US government, the “rule of law” and character traits.
Overcash described the need for the bill by relaying plans for training and hiring workers at some schools in the UNC system that he said would emphasize social justice and “unconscious” racial bias.
Democrats and their advocates said the bill’s language is unconstitutionally vague, would have a chilling effect on speech and prevent state workers from learning about prejudices they unknowingly hold.
“I’ve learned over the years that when government agencies start making laws about speech, they’re getting into tricky territory,” Wake County Rep. Abe Jones, a former judge, said during the House debate. “I would suggest that this bill needs some serious thought before jumping on that bandwagon.”
A private contractor paid to train state employees could answer related questions from new hires, but should make it clear that the agency does not endorse such ideas.
Former President Donald Trump popularized the idea of expanding these restrictions beyond schools when he issued an executive order in 2020 that prohibited federal agencies and contractors from including concepts in training sessions for their employees that constituted “stereotypes and anti-American and race-sex scapegoats.” Prominent Republicans across the country have successfully turned critical race theory into a political tool to curb discussions of racial issues such as systemic inequality, inherent bias, and white privilege.
