The Arkansas House on Monday advanced a bill limiting when teachers can call students by a preferred name.
The “Given Name Act” would prohibit teachers from calling a student by their preferred name or pronouns without written permission from the child's parents. It would also allow teachers to opt out of using a student’s preferred name or pronoun.
If passed, parents could sue teachers who use a name other than the one the student was assigned at birth. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Wayne Long, R-Bradford, said this would keep parents involved in their children's choices.
“Some educational professionals are being compelled to use pronouns or names that are inconsistent with a student's biological sex,” he said. Long said he was concerned about teachers being forced to use a student's preferred name and pronouns when it went against their own moral beliefs, and that the bill was about “religious liberty.”
During the question and answer portion of the bill presentation, Democratic House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough asked if Long could name a case where a teacher was forced to call a student by a pronoun they did not agree with. He said one teacher from Northwest Arkansas said they were concerned that this could happen.
Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, said she worried the bill could affect teachers who called students by a nickname. She said a physical education teacher at her daughter's school intentionally gives students nicknames that “build class morale.”
“It's terms of endearment for these kids,” Clowney said, saying she worried her daughter's teacher could be opened up to a lawsuit for calling a student by a nickname.
Long reiterated the goal of the bill, saying a parent would have to give written permission for a child to be called something other than their birth name.
“The ramifications of this are potentially huge,” Clowney said. “Every nickname that our teachers come up with to be loving and fun and kind and create a warm classroom environment, now those teachers are living under a very real threat of a lawsuit by any parent who chooses that maybe they would like to make a little bit of money.”
“Pronouns shouldn't be hurtful,” McCullough said, speaking against the bill. “This bill is presented as protecting school employees against compelled speech, but it only protects students who don’t want to affirm a student's gender identity, while limiting the speech of employees who do... This bill claims that an individual's gender identity is a matter of public concern.”
She said the bill was likely a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Rep. Cindy Crawford, R-Fort Smith, spoke in favor of the bill.
“Let the parents decide,” she said. “A child may come in one day, they may want to be called one thing. They may want to be called he, she, it, cat, dog. And then they come in the next day and they want to be called something else.”
The bill passed on a vote of 65 to 18 and now goes to the Senate. Another bill passed the House later in the day allowing teachers to opt out of implicit bias training.
