bonnie bruno

HB 1792 (CHARLIE Act) — Why I Oppose This is state-mandated censorship masquerading as “neutrality.” The bill bans entire frameworks of history, identity, and lived experience while claiming to protect free thought. It is a textbook chilling effect on educators. By inviting lawsuits against individual teachers, it intimidates educators into silence and self-censorship. It distorts American history by legislative decree. Prohibiting discussions of systemic racism, LGBTQ+ history, and power structures does not make education “patriotic”—it makes it dishonest. It weaponizes parents against public schools. Creating a private right of action turns classrooms into legal minefields and undermines trust between families and educators. It is ideologically selective and deeply hypocritical. The bill bans “identity-based ideologies” while enforcing a right-wing ideological framework as the default. It advances an extremist Free State agenda, not educational excellence. This is about controlling narrative and erasing dissent, not improving literacy, STEM outcomes, or civic understanding. Public education should prepare students to think, not obey. HB 1792 replaces inquiry with compliance and substitutes propaganda for education. HB 1792 is an authoritarian censorship bill that rewrites history, targets teachers, and uses fear and lawsuits to enforce a narrow ideological worldview in public schools.