Bill Summary – FastDemocracy

H.B. 686
                         GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
                                                                                          Apr 18, 2023
                                     SESSION 2023                                    HOUSE PRINCIPAL CLERK
     H                                                                                             D
                                  HOUSE BILL DRH10315-NGa-63
     Short Title:   Civil Rights Education.                                                   (Public)
     Sponsors:      Representative Hardister.
     Referred to:
                                     A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 AN ACT TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE CIVIL RIGHTS EDUCATION TO EVERY
     STUDENT IN THE STATE.
 The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
             SECTION 1. Part 1 of Article 8 of Chapter 115C of the General Statutes is amended
 by adding a new section to read:
 "§ 115C-81.58. Civil rights education.
     The standard course of study shall include the requirement that courses from elementary
 school through high school include units on the civil rights movement that occurred in the United
 States from 1954 through 1968. The units shall include at least the following topics:
             (1)    The natural law and natural rights principles that informed the leadership of
                    Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
             (2)    The tactics and strategies of nonviolent resistance that Dr. King championed
                    in response to the Jim Crow laws of that era.
             (3)    The repeal of the Jim Crow laws of that era and the passage of civil rights
                    legislation in the United States.
             (4)    The philosophy that hatred on the basis of immutable characteristics leads to
                    profound injustice.
             (5)    Instruction on other acts of discriminatory injustice, such as genocide,
                    elsewhere around the globe to reinforce the lesson that hatred on the basis of
                    immutable characteristics can overtake any society. Examples of such acts
                    include, but are not limited to, the following:
                    a.      The Armenian Genocide.
                    b.      The Holocaust.
                    c.      Chinese Coolie labor in Cuba.
                    d.      The Uighurs in China.
                    e.      The Rohingya in Myanmar."
             SECTION 2. There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of
 Public Instruction the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) in nonrecurring
 funds for the 2023-2024 fiscal year for the implementation of this act.
             SECTION 3. This act becomes effective July 1, 2023, and applies to courses taught
 beginning with the 2024-2025 school year.
                                  *DRH10315-NGa-63*
Statutes affected: 
Edition 2: 115C-81.45