"Anti-indoctrination" bill dies in Iowa

Iowa's House File 2184 died in the House Education Committee on February 21, 2020, when a deadline for bills to be reported out of committee passed. If enacted, HF 2184 would have required the state board of education to adopt a code of ethics to prevent public school teachers in the state from engaging in what it described as "political or ideological indoctrination."

As Ars Technica (January 29, 2019) explained with reference to a spate of similar measures in 2019, "the bills would call for teachers not to advocate on any topics that have appeared in the platform of a state political party. ... Which is problematic, given that a large number of state party platforms specifically mention evolution and climate change."

Two of the sponsors of HF 2184, Sandy Salmon (R-District 63) and Skyler Wheeler (R-District 4), previously introduced legislation attempting to block or rescind the adoption in Iowa of the Next Generation Science Standards, in part due to concerns about the NGSS's inclusion of evolution and climate change, as NCSE previously reported.