The Arkansas House of Representatives passed on Friday House Bill 1749 protecting teachers who refuse to call transgender students by their preferred pronouns.
In a tweet on April 9, the Arkansas House passed Bill 1749 with a 62-21 vote and a link to the PDF copy of the legislation. The bill, as per the Arkansas House Representative website, was one among the 600 bills signed into law by the end of the 13th week of the Arkansas House of Representatives' Regular Session.
The Blaze said voting was mostly partisan except for two Republicans who joined the Democrats against the bill.
According to the draft, House Bill 1749 is "an act to prohibit requiring public school and state-supported institution of higher education employees from addressing a student by a pronoun, title, or other word that is used to identify the student as male or female and that is inconsistent with the student's biological sex; and for other purposes."
The bill actually amends the Arkansas Code Title 6, Chapter 18, Subchapter 1 and Chapter 63, Subchapter 1 with an additional section in the identification of students.
"An employee of a state-supported institution of higher education shall not be required to use a pronoun, title, or other word to identify a student of the state-supported institution of higher education as male or female that is inconsistent with the state-supported institution of higher education student's biological sex," the bill stated.
"An employee of a state-supported institution of higher education 11 who faces adverse action as a result of a violation of subsection (a) of this 12 section may bring a claim and shall be eligible for remedies afforded under § 13 16-123-105 of the Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993, § 16-123-101 et seq," it added.
The bill is sponsored by Republican Representative Mary Bentley and supported by Senator Gary Stubblefield who will then present it to the senate for approval. Bentley, on her fourth term as representative, serves in the Arkansas House of Representatives House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative & Military Affairs Committee.
The Blaze said that Bentley explained during the session last week that the protection of teachers afraid of litigation for their refusal to use the preferred name or pronoun of a transgender student was the sole purpose of enacting the bill.
"It's not compelling anyone's speech, it's not prohibiting anyone's speech. It's helping those professors and teachers in our schools that do not want to be used for not using a certain person's pronoun," The Blaze quoted Bentley in saying.
"Districts definitely need to look at this and do more. This bill is a simple bill. It has already been affirmed by the appeals court and the sixth district," she added. "All this is, is protecting our teachers, and they do feel threatened."
Democrats, as per The Blaze, argued that the bill was promoting a lack of respect to transgender students on how they wished to be addressed while "emboldening teachers who are intentionally misgendering students."
