In the final days of Georgia’s 2025 legislative session, senate Republicans passed a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools and colleges through a committee by stripping out another bill expanding paid leave for teachers.
House bill 127 is the revival of senate bill 120, which did not pass the Senate by a key legislative deadline and would otherwise be dead for the year. The original bill by Dawsonville Republican Brent Cox expanded the number of sick days teachers could use to be absent for personal or professional reasons from three to five.
The version that passed the Senate Education and Youth Committee on Thursday instead builds on language by Tyrone Republican Sen. Marty Harbin that bars schools and colleges from practices like promoting the different treatment of or provides benefits to people based on their race, color, sex, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.
Committee Chair Billy Hickman, a Statesboro Republican, read the names of about a dozen people who came to speak at the hearing but said they would not be heard because there was not enough time.
Under the bill, postsecondary institutions would also be barred from promoting ideas such as “unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, gender ideology or theory, microaggressions, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neopronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, racial privilege, sexual privilege or any similar or related formulation of these concepts” as their official opinions.