Dear Governor Cooper: as an educator with more than 40 years experience teaching at Duke University, I am offended by HB 324, and I am writing to you to ask for your veto of this scornful and unwise legislation. The proponents of the bill say that it would protect students from being shamed. Nobody would wish for this outcome. But the state cannot and should not restrict the truth from being told in our classrooms, as failure to probe will diminish the fullness, the excitement, and the responsibility of learning. Moreover, no teacher should be required to restrict their curriculum to fit the needs of the state under penalty of judicial sanction. The purpose of education is to foster well-informed citizens, who can be engaged in our democracy. Perhaps Senators Berger and Tillis will gain greater campaign contributions from talk about such legislation in the NC and US Senate. The students and teachers of North Carolina will be correspondingly impoverished should such bills be passed into law. Please veto HB 324. Thank you for your decency, and thank you for the wonderful work your office is doing on many fronts.
Stephen Jaffe
