STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

West Virginia’s Republican Majority Senate Misses Deadline to Pass School Race Bill

The state legislature lumbered on towards the midnight deadline, failing to pass a bill that would dictate how race is taught in public schools.

West Virginia’s Republican majority state legislature missed a crucial deadline to pass a race bill early Sunday morning, meaning the act will not be part of the next school year. The Associated Press reports that state lawmakers spent weeks debating the bill, which mirrored the “Anti-Racism Act of 2022,” but chose to vote on it with only minutes to spare before the midnight deadline for the legislative session. The bill had passed the state’s Senate and House, and the Saturday night vote was only meant to be a formality. “We took the vote, but essentially that didn’t matter because it didn’t make deadline,” Senate spokesperson Jacque Bland told The Associated Press early Sunday morning. The bill—which would bar instructors from teaching that one race “is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”—will not not become a law in the state. The law also would’ve prevented teachers from saying that any person “bears responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race.”