BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – St. Bernard Parish Rep. Ray Garofalo filed House Bill No. 546 which delves into “divisive concepts in education.”
House Bill No. 546 addresses “training with respect to certain concepts related to race and sex in elementary and secondary schools and postsecondary education institutions.”
For almost five hours, the representative from St. Bernard Parish took questions about this bill and made one comment which has gone viral.
Louisiana Democrats posted this tweet with the viral remarks from Rep. Garofalo.
The low point of session undoubtedly came today when Rep. Ray Garofalo said Louisiana schools need to teach the good of slavery. #Lalege pic.twitter.com/OPbRq98ifx
— Louisiana Democrats (@LaDemos) April 27, 2021
Reaction has been swift since Rep. Garofalo made these comments during a House committee meeting.
Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, a New Orleans Republican immediately responds to Rep. Garofalo’s comments by saying, “there’s no good to slavery.”
Rep Gary Carter, Jr. was more direct in his response to House Bill No. 546:
HB564 is a bad bill! https://t.co/UDEVPXAjJO
— Rep. Gary Carter Jr. (@gm_carter) April 27, 2021
Garofalo commented during the session about how this is “about the curriculum in general, the environment for employees, teachers and other employees alike, its dealing with Higher Ed, admin, teachers and employees.”
Rep. Garofalo says with regards to a concept an instructor is trying to teach, “you don’t give a personal opinion, you don’t give a politically based, ideologically based opinion, you teach what occurred what is generally accepted by the historians in the area and what’s prescribed that the curriculum that the district has chosen.”
If you would like to watch the entire House committee meeting, visit Louisiana House of Representatives.