Legislation that would have prohibited Tennessee schools from requiring teachers to complete or participate in “implicit bias training” was “placed behind the budget” in a House Committee this week.
House Bill 0158 (HB0158) brought by Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville-District 14), defined “implicit bias training” as “a training or other 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, subconsciously, 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 patterns of thinking in order to eliminate the individual’s unconscious bias or prejudice.”
State educators, local education agency employees, and those employed by a public institution of higher education would have been given the choice to opt out of this training and would have been further protected from adverse licensure and employment actions taken as a result of refusing to participate in it.
On Wednesday, Rep. Zachary explained his reasoning for the bill in front of the House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee.
