A bill in the Maine legislature would ban public school teachers from practicing "indoctrination" — and contains a provision that could adversely affect science education. House Paper 395 (PDF), introduced in the Maine House of Representatives on February 22, 2021, and referred to the House Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, would, if enacted, require the state board of education to adopt rules to prevent public school teachers in the state from engaging in what it describes as "political, ideological[,] or religious advocacy."
The rules would in particular require teachers to "provide students with materials supporting both sides of a controversial issue being addressed and to present both sides in a fair-minded, nonpartisan manner," where "a controversial issue" is defined as "a point made in an electoral party platform at the local, state[,] or federal level." As Ars Technica (January 29, 2019) observed in discussing a spate of similar measures in 2019, "a large number of state party platforms specifically mention evolution and climate change."
A similar bill, House Paper 433, was introduced in Maine in 2019 but was unanimously rejected by the House Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. Four similar measures, in Arizona, South Dakota, and Virginia, were introduced in the same year; none was adopted. NCSE's Glenn Branch editorialized (March 28, 2019), "Unnecessary, intrusive, and overreaching: there was a lot not to like about these ... measures. But the way in which they threatened to undermine the integrity of science education may have been their worst feature."
