On Wednesday, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill requiring all public schools to specifically teach Asian-American history lessons, according to The Hill.
HB376, known as the Teaching Equitable Asian-American History Act (TEAACH), mandates that “a unit of instruction studying the events of Asian-American history” be incorporated into public school curriculum starting in the 2022-2023 school year. The curriculum is ostensibly set to focus on Asian-Americans’ contributions and civil rights “from the 19th century onward.”
The bill passed by an overwhelming majority, with 98 in favor and only 13 against. The bill must now be taken up in the State Senate before it can head to the governor’s desk. If signed into law, Illinois would become the first state in the nation to mandate history lessons about Asian-Americans in public schools.
The bill’s passage comes amidst the Left’s broader push of a narrative called “Stop Asian Hate,” which began earlier this year. According to proponents of this widely-discredited conspiracy theory, there has been a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States, allegedly due to anger against the Chinese government for creating the coronavirus pandemic, as well as America supposedly having a history of “anti-Asian racism.”
Proponents point to a recent mass shooting in Atlanta at a spa that killed six Asian women, along with two white victims, even though the perpetrator and local authorities have concluded that racism was not a motivation in the shooting. In addition, the vast majority of recorded violent crimes against Asians in the United States in 2021 have been carried out by non-White perpetrators, and particularly by black Americans.