Jennifer Given sought out legal advice this fall before teaching world history to 10th-graders in New Hampshire to avoid running afoul of a new state law that restricts what she can teach. Violating the law could end her teaching career.
Ms. Given said she worries that materials for lessons about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, or Christopher Columbus and his role in Native American deaths, could violate the law if someone believes that she is saying one group is superior to another. This month, when a student said laws in ancient China reminded him of the U.S. today, she ended the discussion.