AR: Panel approves bill barring mandatory implicit bias training in schools
The House Education committee on Thursday advanced a proposal to prohibit public schools and state-supported higher education institutions from requiring employees to participate in implicit bias training.
The State Board of Education also could not require the training for obtaining or renewing an educator license or for professional development.
Sponsored by Rep. Mindy McAlindon (R-Centerton), House Bill 1559 prohibits schools from taking “adverse employment action” against an employee who fails to or refuses to participate in implicit bias training.
HB 1559 defines implicit bias training as “a training or educational program designed to expose an individual to biases that the training’s or educational program’s developer or designer presumes the individual to unconsciously or unintentionally possess that predispose the individual to be unfairly prejudiced in favor of or against a thing, person, or group to adjust the individual’s pattern of thinking in order to eliminate the individual’s unconscious or unintentional bias or prejudice.”
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/panel-approves-bill-barring-mandatory-implicit-bias-training-schools
