Kent, UA students protest anti-critical race theory bills in Ohio
In Ohio House Bill 327, Kent State University junior Marissa Henley sees a great amount of irony.
The bill is supposed to ban “divisive concepts” like white supremacy or institutional racism, to make sure no one feels uncomfortable in high school or college classrooms.
But as a Black student, Henley notes, she feels uncomfortable all the time.
“What makes me uncomfortable is if I’m missing a headlight it may cost me my life,” Henley wrote in a speech. “What makes me uncomfortable is Black people dying due to racism in the medical field. What makes me uncomfortable is knowing that I will never make as much as the white man.”
The bill, she wrote, “is meant to coddle the feelings of the majority and ignore the uncomfortableness of the minority.”
Henley, the political director of Kent’s chapter of Black United Students, wrote the speech for a protest Wednesday at the school. The event, hosted outside the student center by her organization and the Kent chapter of the Ohio Student Association and student government, drew about 50 people.
The University of Akron’s chapter of the Ohio Student Association held a similar protest on campus Wednesday.
Henley wasn’t feeling well before the speech, so Deanna Baccus, director of academic affairs for BUS, delivered it on her behalf. But Henley said afterward she was glad to see students show up to lend their voice to the pushback against the bills making their way through the Ohio legislature.
HB 327 would outlaw teaching that any race is superior to another, or to say one race of people today is responsible for the actions of their ancestors. It was borne out of a debate about the merits of an academic concept, Critical Race Theory, that is not taught in K-12 education or nearly at all in college until graduate level coursework.
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The debate began in the wake of the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which argued the United States’ true founding was the day in April 1619 that the first slaves reached the territory that would later become the U.S.
Opponents argued the reckoning with America’s past was an effort to turn people against their own country, or to feel guilty for sins of the past.
University of Akron junior Emily Hill said that’s hardly what she has heard in a classroom, in her K-12 days in Mogadore schools or in her classes at Akron, where she is majoring in history.
“My teachers definitely were not telling me that one race was inherently superior than another,” she said.
Hill said her classes are filled with open debate and opinions from a variety of viewpoints. She doesn’t want to see that go away and is afraid it would with a bill dictating what can be said or taught.
“It’s a terrifying bill. It would really work against the education system,” Hill said. “It wouldn’t be providing us with a better education. It would just be damaging our growth as students and young citizens.”
As a white person, Hill said she knows that “history is uncomfortable,” but that it’s important to tell it honestly.
“If I’m uncomfortable, that means I’m learning something,” she said.
Kent junior Erik Gomez said as a political science major, he also believes in teaching a full and honest history.
“I don’t want people to hate America, I don’t want people to feel guilty for being white, but that’s not what teachers are teaching,” he said.
As the Kent student government’s director of government affairs, Gomez said it was his job to help educate other students about the bill and how it could impact their education and their lives even after they graduate.
“Whenever we try to legislate freedom of speech, then we’re undermining the foundation of our own democracy,” he said.
Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at [email protected], at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.
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