A bill to ban state-run affirmative action programs has advanced through another legislative hurdle. Senate Bill 3 received approval from the House Thursday with a vote of 64-27.
The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro and Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville. It now returns to the Senate to approve an amendment before heading to the governor’s desk.
Bentley discussed a brief history of affirmative action as she presented the bill on the House floor. She referenced a 1965 executive order from then-President Lyndon B. Johnson which required the government to expand hiring practices and prevent discrimination in government jobs.
Bentley said the order “was the right move at the time.”
“Now, 60 years later, we are dramatically different,” Bentley told the House. “While we do have pockets of racism remaining in our nation, the notion that America is a racist country is simply false.”
She then read from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January which revoked the 1965 order, promising to “protect the civil rights of all Americans.” Bentley said it is time for Arkansas to catch up with the federal law.
“No-one discredits the horror of segregation and the harm it did to the people in that time period,” Bentley continued, “but it is time for us to move forward.”
Rep. Lincoln Barnett, D-Forrest City, voted against the bill. Speaking on the House floor, he said the legislation ignores racial disparities.
“It disregards the reality of bias, and it falsely perpetuates itself as a bill that seeks to do good, rather than harm. This bill will reduce and remove needed mandates that were put into place to level the uneven ground that continues to exist in today’s society at large.”
Barnett used Arkansas’ high rates of Black maternal mortality as an example of such disparities, noting Black women are twice as likely as white women to die during childbirth.
Bentley said she’s working on other bills to support maternal health and will continue to work for all women in the state.
“I want Arkansas to be the best place for women and children to have babies, and I’m working hard to make that happen. That’s why I’ve been working on the midwife bill that I’ve been doing, because that helps Black women more than any others.”
Rep. Wayne Long, R-Bradford, spoke in favor of the bill. He noted a similar version of the legislation came before the House in 2023, but failed to pass the floor. He then pointed to the 2023 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirmative action admissions to colleges and universities unconstitutional.
“I think we have no choice but to pass this bill because to go on as we are now, our current laws are unconstitutional.”
Senate Bill 3 also strikes language establishing scholarships and retention programs for minority students and teachers. The bill's sponsors say the scholarship programs will continue to exist, but will be open to all Arkansans.
Rep. Tara Shephard, D-Little Rock, urged fellow lawmakers to vote against the bill saying its passage would disadvantage generations of Arkansans.
“What this legislation does is it ties our hands, it takes our power away,” Shephard said. “When disparities exist, when farmers and other businesses can’t get loans or contracts, when communities begin to fall farther behind, when women are paid less for the same amount of work, this legislation puts a target on the backs of decent hard-working Arkansans."
