Dan alluded to this earlier, but the New York Times piece by our friend David French and others leans heavily on selective quotation and misleading paraphrase. It says the Tennessee law bans “any teaching” that makes students feel distress. This isn’t true. The Tennessee law prohibits schools from including or promoting the concept that students should feel distress because of their race or sex. Here is the law.
The same is true of Texas. It bans requiring or making part of a course the concept that students should feel distress because of their race or sex. Here is the statute (which is going to get a scrub in the Texas special session). Both laws clearly intend to keep schools from teaching kids that they should feel ashamed because of their race. It’s totally legitimate to worry about the wording of the laws, but to not accurately quote the laws or make a nod toward the clear intent is misleading and a disservice to readers.
This isn’t as bad as the blatant falsehoods in the big Timothy Snyder New York Times magazine piece, but needless to say, the Times doesn’t have a history of accuracy on this topic.