In a guest column, two education scholars assert the Cobb County School District is incorrectly interpreting Georgia’s 2022 ban on divisive concepts to fire a teacher.
Melissa Kurtz is a Georgia educator and doctoral student at the Mary Frances Early College of Education, University of Georgia. Stephanie Jones is the University of Georgia Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor in the college of education.
In this piece, they defend Cobb teacher Katie Rinderle, who was placed on administrative leave after she read her fifth graders a book of rhymes with a message that challenges gender stereotypes. The district recommended firing Rinderle after a parent deemed the book divisive. She faces a termination tribunal next month.
By Stephanie Jones and Melissa Kurtz
Georgia is among 44 states to pass legislation restricting and prohibiting ways that racism and sexism can be discussed in schools since 2021. Many education advocates consider these laws a backlash against critical race theory, something that is much more likely to be taught about in graduate school than in pre-K-12 classrooms.
Most state laws have come in the form of “divisive concepts” bills, including Georgia’s Protect Students First Act (House Bill 1084), which forbids instruction of concepts deemed to be divisive.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Katie Rinderle, a fifth grade teacher who is the first known Georgia teacher to possibly lose her job under this legislation, has asked a simple question that seems very difficult to answer: “What exactly does ‘divisive concepts’ mean?”
There are nine divisive concepts listed in the Georgia law, but they all boil down to a dominant concern: race. Surprisingly, the concepts listed as “divisive” include teaching that “one race is inherently superior to another” or that “an individual should be discriminated against ... because of his or her race.”
In other words, HB 1084 prohibits schools from promoting racism or discrimination against someone because of their race. Most people would agree with these basic assertions and, in fact, they are already prohibited in the classroom by the First and 14th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guarantee students’ rights to equal protection of the laws and prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, age and national origin.
Credit: Courtesy Photo
Credit: Courtesy Photo
A close reading of HB 1084 affirms these rights. The law explicitly mandates that “curricula and training programs provided by the local school system encourage employees and students to practice tolerance and mutual respect.” It further requires that the school curricula “foster learning and workplace environments where all students, employees, and school community members are respected.”
Are you confused yet?
No wonder Rinderle says Cobb County School District officials could not answer her question about what divisive concepts actually mean. Most people familiar with the countrywide backlash and rhetoric against race, gender, and sex diversity, tolerance, and equity would presume that these new laws would prohibit any teaching and learning about racism, gender discrimination and sex discrimination — but they don’t.
Indeed, the law affirms that nothing should “inhibit or violate the rights protected by the Constitutions of Georgia and the United States of America or undermine intellectual freedom and free expression.”
In other words, students have the right to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction as long as there is not discrimination based on race or sex. The law even articulates that “discussion of divisive concepts” is allowed in classrooms as long as it is done in “an objective manner.”
Rinderle was exercising her constitutional rights (affirmed by HB 1084) when her students selected “My Shadow Is Purple” as their class read aloud. The book promotes mutual respect, tolerance and free expression.
In fact, based on available information, Rinderle was not only within the law and affirming the law herself, but she also geared her teaching directly toward the state curricula standards. She read a book that she purchased at her own school’s book fair, her students voted for the title they wanted to read aloud, she taught a lesson about “embracing yourself and the differences in each other” and then she invited students to write poetry in response to the book. The curricular activities, which address the fifth grade Georgia Standards of Excellence, had absolutely nothing to do with the nine divisive concepts listed in the bill.
This is not a case of a teacher breaking the law.
This is a case of a teacher becoming a political target because she read a book about tolerance and respect for gender diversity and someone assumed that doing so is considered a “divisive concept” prohibited by law.
But it’s not.
Even state Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, who wrote the law, stated that anyone who is threatening Rinderle of being in violation of HB 1084 doesn’t “understand what House Bill 1084 does.”
The only thing that prevents HB 1084 from affirming these rights is the intentionally vague language that instills fear and doubt in well-meaning educators like Rinderle.
Teachers are self-censoring content out of their instruction because they fear becoming a political target when they are simply exercising their best judgment as educators already guided by state standards and professional ethics. The political drama around the laws makes teaching seem like a minefield.
This self-censorship reduces and narrows students’ educational exposure and deprives students from receiving instruction that includes multiple points of view, as the principle of “intellectual freedom” requires. Multiple Supreme Court cases, including Brown v. Board, Tinker v. Des Moines and Wisconsin v. Yoder, affirm the value of providing students with education that embraces teaching about different cultures and ideas to strengthen our democracy and prepare our students to participate in a global society.
In Rinderle’s case, the vague language of this law and the fear created in its wake are being applied to a context that simply does not align with any of the enumerated divisive concepts.
As local school communities, we can model the skills of discourse, debate and mutual respect that we seek to cultivate in our classrooms and in society. Rather than firing a highly effective teacher with a decade of positive reviews from administrators and parents, thereby increasing anxiety for teachers across the state, why didn’t a parent or administrator just pick up the phone and talk to her?
Opening up a face-to-face conversation about the highly acclaimed children’s book that was read aloud could have been a remarkable way for the adults involved to model mutual respect and tolerance of difference. Instead, the fire alarms were prematurely set off and polarizing perspectives have dug in their heels for political purposes.
By coming together to voice our concerns, express our doubts, and dialogue about our differences, we can reaffirm and model for our students what true democracy looks like. And we should stand strong in our support for pre-K-12 public educators to do the same.
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