Alabama Gov. On Wednesday, Kay Ivey signed a comprehensive anti-diversity bill into law that includes an anti-transgender bath restrictions on university campuses.
Senate Bill 129 prohibits any state agency or educational institution from sponsoring or mandating diversity, equity and inclusion ( DEI ) programs. The bill faintly defines a La function or program as one “where attendance is based on an individual’s race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, or physical orientation”, and classifies its portrayal of La as “divisive concepts” that cannot be part of an educator’s lessons. A school or government department is only permitted to continue DEI work if” no state resources are used to partner these programs.”
The bill also makes an obvious exemption to its alleged anti-discrimination provisions, which are transgender people in college bathrooms. The law mandates that” [e]ach public institution of higher education may ensure that every multiple ownership room be designated for use by people based on their natural sex,” properly forbidding transgender students and staff from using single-occupant services or using them exclusively.
In a statement opposing SB 129 final month, free speech advocacy group Brush America called the costs” the most pernicious educational joke order” since Florida’s” Stop WOK E” Act, noting that its concept of “divisive ideas” appears to be drawn from a 2020 executive order by next- President Donald Trump.
Students from 10 universities in Alabama gathered at the Montgomery State House on March 6 to protest the bill, alleging that Republican legislators had refused to speak with them. ” They say that we’re their futures, and yet they are technically trying to take our futures away from us, which does n’t make any sense”, said Neph Irvin, a sophomore at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in comments to the student newspaper The Crimson White. ” We should n’t have to go back in history”.
In a committee hearing in February, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin, a Democrat, attacked the bill, telling Republicans that if supporting inclusion became prohibited, “hell, you might as well stand in front of the school door like Governor Wallace,” making reference to infamous Alabama segregationist George Wallace.
