Teachers worry over new bill banning DEI in NC public schools

Senate Bill 227 is NC Republican’s latest attack on the state’s public education.

Sarah Hill remembers the moment vividly. At Banks Road Elementary in Wake County, it was late November, and one of her first-grade students had shared with the class that his family celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Instead of moving on, Hill saw a moment to add to her lesson plan.

“We study culture as part of our first-grade standards,” she said. “It was a great opportunity, not only to talk about the celebrations, but we could talk about how individual people in our classroom celebrated those celebrations. It made it a lot more real for the students, because it really brought what you would normally be learning through a book to life when you can talk about how people you actually know celebrate these things.”

For Hill, who has spent over two decades teaching first graders and special education for preschoolers, this was a natural extension of her philosophy: Every child deserves to feel seen. But as North Carolina lawmakers push Senate Bill 227—a measure aimed at eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in K-12 public schools—she wonders whether these lessons could put her career at risk.

The bill that could change everything

Titled “Eliminating DEI from Public Education,” SB 227 passed the state Senate 28-18 earlier this month. Pushed by Republican Senators Brad Overcash, Michael V. Lee, Phil Berger, and more, SB 227 is part of a larger conservative push to reshape public education and censorship in North Carolina, following similar efforts in red states like Florida and Texas, as well as in the Trump administration.

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This movement also includes Senate Bill 49, known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” a law restricting discussions on LGBTQ+ topics in early grades and requiring teachers to notify parents if a student wishes to use a different name or pronouns. Senate Bill 49 was passed by the Republican-led legislature in 2023 and vetoed by former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper before being overridden.

Senate Bill 227 targets 12 so-called “divisive concepts,” barring teachers from suggesting that systemic oppression has shaped American institutions or that individuals should feel responsible for past injustices based on their race or gender. It also restricts schools from conducting professional development on DEI and eliminates school positions dedicated to inclusion.

RELATED: Republicans Override Cooper’s Vetoes of Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills

For teachers like Hill, the bill’s vague language presents a dilemma: How do you teach history, identity, and culture without crossing an invisible line?

Teachers left guessing, what can they say?

That uncertainty is exactly what legal experts say makes bills like SB 227 so challenging. Evan Ringel, a First Amendment scholar and media law professor at Appalachian State University, said the bill puts public school teachers further at the whim of the state.

“As First Amendment scholars, we talk about the chilling effect, where laws are potentially written in a way where they lead people to not engage in speech—even speech that still remains protected or that is legal,” Ringel said. “We don’t know exactly how the law would be interpreted if SB 227 is signed into law, what the interpretation of that would look like, or what exactly the enforcement mechanisms are for each school district.” 

Ringel said even as this law is proposed, teachers and others are becoming broadly more worried about potential ramifications for this speech.

“Teachers have spoken in other states, and there have been some constitutional challenges based on the vagueness in these laws,” he said. “How is a teacher supposed to address racism without making people feel uncomfortable based on their race or sex? That can be really challenging, and kind of places teachers in particular in a really tough spot.”

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For educators and school staff, that chilling effect is already setting in. Elliot Brody, the school counselor at Banks Road Elementary, sees the effects playing out not just among teachers, but also among the students he supports.

His role revolves around making sure that every child feels seen, valued, and safe in school. But with SB 227’s broad language, he worries that the kind of individualized support he provides—especially for students dealing with identity and mental health struggles—could be called into question.

“Wake County Public Schools’ strategic plan is based on excellence through equity, which means that our whole framework for our work is specific to identifying what helps kids feel [a sense of] belonging, what engages them in the learning, making sure they’re seen in the classroom, heard and have a voice, so that they have that personal power within their own education that, historically, has been overlooked,” he said.

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Brody said the efforts to limit what educators can say or do in the classroom is just one part of several such fights, all while ignoring the real challenges facing public schools—teacher shortages, underfunded classrooms, and declining student mental health.

“We need support from everyone to speak towards the beauty and the dream of a public school for every child in every community,” Brody said. “Because in America, there’s a promise that every kid gets a quality education, and if we don’t have fully funded public schools that are for everybody, then that promise will never be lived out.”

Teacher turnover, mental health, and student challenges

North Carolina’s public education system is already under strain, with teacher turnover reaching unprecedented levels. In the 2022-23 school year, more than 10,000 teachers left their positions, marking the highest attrition rate in decades. This alarming trend has resulted in over 6,000 teaching vacancies statewide, leaving numerous classrooms without fully licensed educators.

Recent data backs these concerns. While the 2023 NC Youth Risk Behavior Survey indicates a decline in suicidal behaviors among high school students, mental health challenges persist.

Notably, 60% of LGBTQ+ youth and 70% of transgender and nonbinary teenagers in North Carolina have experienced symptoms of depression. Additionally, 58% of LGBTQ+ youth who sought mental health care in the past year were unable to access it.

RELATED: The reason North Carolina students’ mental health is finally on the rise

“As it’s become more well known that there’s a crisis for mental health with our adolescents, and it’s trickled down all the way to the younger childhood level, where kids aren’t getting access to supportive adults,” Brody said. “Maybe their family is overwhelmed with their own issues, and so when they come to school, that lives out through maybe withdrawal or acting out. And they need a support person, like a counselor or social worker or school psychologist to help them through it.”

DEI: ‘Purposely misunderstood for political purposes’

Tamika Walker Kelly, Cumberland County music teacher and president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said diversity, equity, and inclusion is important to the foundational work that public schools do, and that the phrase is “purposely misunderstood for political purposes.”

“And ultimately it harms the academic progress of our students here in North Carolina,” she said. “We continue to want to teach our students how to think critically in our classrooms, how to be able to ask questions about history and all of the different nuances around history, but an educator might second guess whether or not they can or cannot teach something in their classroom.”

With children as curious as they are in Sarah Hill’s class, the veteran teacher knows exactly what’s at stake. That’s why the moment when her student shared his Diwali traditions during classroom conversations is so special.

“As adults, we come with so much baggage and so much luggage that we’ve carried throughout our lives, and children don’t have all that baggage yet,” Hill said. “This bill will take away that safe space for us to discuss these issues and talk about how we are all different, but we bring so many beautiful things together. Part of how I get us to become a school family is that I teach them, ‘We might not look alike, but we all bring something together to make this beautiful family while we’re here at school.’”

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