The Illinois House on April 15, 2026 passed* HB 4372, by a vote of 74 to 34—a bill mandating changes to the Illinois School Code to require “Latine studies” (not Latin).
Every public elementary and high school in Illinois must include in its curriculum the study of contributions made by Latin Americans to the economic, cultural, social, and political development of the United States. The mandate has a very ambitious effective date August 1, 2026, if the Illinois Senate passes the legislation and it is signed promptly by Gov. JB Pritzker.
Regional superintendents would be required to monitor compliance during annual visits and make recommendations and issue warnings for lack of compliance. The State Superintendent of Education would be required to prepare and make available instructional materials and professional development opportunities that school boards can use as guidelines.
If you are keeping count, this legislation would make Latin Americans the 9th group mandated by our betters in Springfield. In case you have forgotten the other eight, here they are: African Americans/Black History, Women, Asian Americans, LGBT individuals, those with disabilities, 14 ethnic groups packed together, holocaust and genocide victims, and everyone’s favorite, labor unions – apparently a most important group identity in the eyes of the General Assembly. An optional unit is the Irish Famine of the mid-19th century.
To be clear, it is not a bad thing that students learn about a variety of people including those that we disagree with. But let’s consider the serious problems with this legislation.
First, this legislation is oddly racist. It only emphasizes the leftist idea that race is the most important thing and that every American has to add a hyphen to be truly included. This legislation is also problematic in that it turns Latin Americans into a monolithic category that erases the beautiful diversity in the population.
Second, it should be clear that this legislation is driven more by agenda. An honest study of American history would certainly include the early Spanish explorers, the implications good and bad of the Spanish American War. A more detailed study might even include names that are not very familiar like David Farragut, Loreta Velázquez, and Juan Seguín. Good history teaching is not the checking off of mandates but the organic incorporation of the many different groups that have shaped our nation.
Third, we should ask this question. Is the main goal to see what nationality did things? To study Thomas Edison, do we have to ascribe an ethnicity to him? Is the most important thing about Enrico Fermi that he was Italian? What category do we give for someone like Elon Musk? Great Americans should be studied for what they accomplished not sorted by their ethnic category.
My own ancestry is Swedish. I noticed in my research that there is nothing mandating the achievements of Scandinavian people or Welsh people. Should I demand a mandate for this? Obviously not!
On a more serious note, I find it significant that although there are mandates about the holocaust and other serious atrocities, certainly good things for students to study, there is nothing about the countless millions killed under the terror of communism in Red China and the Soviet Union.
Where does this end? Must we have at least one unit on the contribution of left-handed people or blue-eyed people?
Rather than piling on legislation like this, much better legislation would be that which facilitates and encourages more independent reading of history by students and the inclusion of conservative viewpoints in the teaching of history. How about some Thomas Sowell books like Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? Sowell’s writings accomplish in a superior way what this legislation tries to accomplish, and this is what is desperately needed in our very divided culture.
When it comes to education in the state of Illinois, two truths stand out.
1] More money does not equal improved academic performance. Billions of dollars spent to try to promote the dream of equity have produced failure.
2] Springfield mandates do not equal learning reflected in dismal testing results across our great state.
HB 4372 is certainly not the worst legislation brewing in Springfield. I mean no offense to State Representative Eva-Dina Delgado (D-Chicago) or State Senator Celina Villanueva (D-Chicago), but I would strongly urge other state senators to reject this legislation.
President Abraham Lincoln quoted Matthew 12:25 in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Illinois.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Our nation and the teaching of U.S. History are strongest when taught as a shared story in which people from all backgrounds participate rather than the proposed model which almost turns history into a checklist of identity-based modules.
May our sovereign God have mercy on our state and nation.
*Watch the House Floor debate and vote:
