1| STATE OF OKLAHOMA | | | 2| 1st Session of the 59th Legislature (2023) | | | 3|HOUSE BILL 1397 By: Lepak | | | 4| | | | 5| | | | 6| AS INTRODUCED | | | 7| An Act relating to schools; mandating curriculum | | include a unit on the civil rights movement; | 8| providing description of curriculum; directing the | | State Superintendent of Public Instruction to prepare | 9| and make available materials; providing for | | codification; and providing an effective date. | 10| | | | 11| | | | 12|BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA: | | | 13| SECTION 1. NEW LAW A new section of law to be codified | | | 14|in the Oklahoma Statutes as Section 11-103.15 of Title 70, unless | | | 15|there is created a duplication in numbering, reads as follows: | | | 16| A. Every public elementary school and high school in the State | | | 17|of Oklahoma shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction | | | 18|studying the events of the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1968, | | | 19|the natural law and natural rights principles that the Rev. Dr. | | | 20|Martin Luther King, Jr., drew from that informed his leadership of | | | 21|the civil rights movement, and the tactics and strategies of | | | 22|nonviolent resistance that he championed in response to the Jim Crow | | | 23|laws of that era. This period in American history is known as the | | | 24|civil rights era because during this period reform-minded Americans | | | Req. No. 5079 Page 1 ___________________________________________________________________________
1|organized to press for a rejection of the doctrine of "separate but | | | 2|equal" and to repeal the Jim Crow-era laws in parts of the United | | | 3|States that embodied that doctrine. One of the universal lessons of | | | 4|the civil rights era is that hatred on the basis of immutable | | | 5|characteristics, including not just race or ethnicity, but also | | | 6|characteristics such as nationality, religious belief, disability, | | | 7|or sex, can overtake any nation or society, leading to profound | | | 8|injustice. To reinforce that lesson, such curriculum shall include | | | 9|an additional unit of instruction studying other acts of | | | 10|discriminatory injustice, such as genocide, committed elsewhere | | | 11|around the globe. This unit shall include, but not be limited to, | | | 12|the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, Chinese "Coolie" labor in | | | 13|Cuba, the Uyghurs in China, and the Rohingya of Burma. The study of | | | 14|this material is a reaffirmation of the commitment of the people of | | | 15|this state to reject bigotry, to champion equal protection under the | | | 16|law as a foundational principle of our Republic, and to act in | | | 17|opposition to injustice wherever it may occur. | | | 18| B. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction shall prepare | | | 19|and make available to all state public school boards instructional | | | 20|materials that may be used as guidelines for development of a unit | | | 21|of instruction under this act. | | | 22| SECTION 2. This act shall become effective November 1, 2023. | | | 23| | | | 24| 59-1-5079 MJ 11/16/22 | | | Req. No. 5079 Page 2