This Groundhog Day, North Carolina Senate Republicans are once again fast-tracking discriminatory legislation that would harm some of our school’s most vulnerable students and open our state to economic disaster. Even as “North Carolina was ranked last in a nationwide recent report about K-12 public school funding,” Republicans are prioritizing damaging legislation over improving education access to our students.

“As a former educator, I witnessed firsthand the needs of our students and worked to engage parents in their success, but this is exactly the opposite of getting parents involved in their child’s education, and Republicans know that,” said NCDP Chair Bobbie Richardson. “Its lopsided priorities put culture wars ahead of addressing the abysmal underfunding of our public schools and is a dangerous threat not only to our LGBTQ+ youth but to economic opportunities in our state.”

The bill has support from North Carolina’s top Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson who has used his time in office to wage his party’s latest culture wars. In 2021, he launched a project that reports called a “super-secret indoctrination task force” and “details were scarce.” Later that year, when pressed on his support for curtailing curriculum about race, he “stormed out” of a committee room.

It’s clear this bill is the latest effort by top Republicans in North Carolina to further their extreme and dangerous agenda, and take North Carolina down the wrong path.