Every year, hundreds of state officials and politically active Georgians pack into the State Capitol building for crossover day — the deadline in Georgia’s legislature where bills must “cross over” one chamber to the other to move forward and become law.
The deadline spurs a lot of activity among different political and activist groups advocating for and against legislation on the chopping block. But some groups, like the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, spend a lot more time in the Capitol Building.
On Feb. 29, a group of coalition members set up for a full day of advocacy: speaking to legislators, handing out informational cards on target legislation and “making their voices heard.”
The Georgia Youth Justice Coalition is a grassroots collective of “Black, brown, LGBTQ+, working class and allied students” advocating for youth justice in Georgia. The group spans primarily high school and college students but works on issues that impact all young people.
A legislative team composed of college students heads up the policy side of the coalition. Part of that is logistics — Narrative Director and University of Georgia student Isabelle Phillip said it’s hard for high schoolers to make it to Atlanta for legislative sessions.
Advocacy Manager Myah Dixon, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, said the group is focusing on education-oriented policy for the 2024 session.
“There’s the concern of, like, why are we making education unsafe, and why are we criminalizing education?” Dixon asked.
Several education-related bills have hit the legislative floor, with SB 390 on the roster for Feb. 29. The bill would ban the use of public or private funds in buying materials for national nonprofit the American Library Association, citing the organization’s certification process as a way to “promote ideology.”
The bill also said the president of the association “declared herself to be a Marxist.” The ALA said in a public statement they “strongly oppose the proposed legislation.”
Dixon worries that the bill, among other library-oriented bills, will impact the state of education in Georgia.
“Banning the ALA outright is concerning because it’s solely for a politicized reason,” Dixon said.
SB 390 passed through the Senate and into the House of Representatives in the late afternoon on Feb. 29. But it’s not the only bill the coalition is worried about, Dixon said.
The legislative advocate named a host of other bills they’re working against, including SB 394 or the “Restricting Explicit and Adult-designated Educational Resources (READER) Act,” which would create the Georgia Council of Library Material Standards to decide what books are “harmful to minors” or “sexually explicit” and ban them.
“It’s actually more of, like, a council to expand censorship in the culture,” Dixon said.
The bills are only a few of the state’s recent actions in schools. Following a nationwide trend, some politicians are pushing for “parents’ rights,” book bans, and further limitations on educators. Those policy decisions keep coalition members busy fighting back.
On Feb. 27, days before Crossover Day, a larger group of students spent the day participating in the Youth at the Capitol Day of Action. Again, the advocates zeroed in on education policies, particularly as they pertain to LGBTQ+ teachers and students.
Narrative Strategist and Dalton State College student Rox Moffett spent their first day at the Capitol fighting against bills that could “transform education.” To remember all of the policies, they scribbled nicknames and details of each bill in a notebook, ready to keep track of anything the legislation moved on.
Moffett focused on bills about sexually explicit material like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that bans curriculum addressing gender identity, queer theory, gender ideology and gender transition without parent permission. The bill passed through the Senate in February with opposition from LGBTQIA+ groups.
“For students being unable to express who they are, in what is supposed to be a safe space, if school is no longer a safe environment, then that’s going to have a negative learning outcome,” Moffett said.
Moffett originally wanted to pursue education and become a teacher, but in light of recent education legislation, they said they weren’t going to pursue the field.
“As a trans and nonbinary person, I was wondering how that would work, just with how hostile the state is, and then it’s only gotten worse,” Moffett said. “If these bills pass, I’m definitely not going to attempt becoming a public school teacher.
It’s a tough topic for young organizers like Moffett to work on, especially since many of the members could be directly impacted by any new laws. But the coalition sees political engagement as essential.
“It’s important that we make sure young people have the ability to have their voice heard and are giving legislators a full picture of what living in Georgia is like,’ Dixon said. “And that involves going to school.”
Dixon said without outside voices, the Capitol can often become an “echo chamber.” Despite challenges like school schedules, confusing buildings, and often changing meetings, the young people stick it out.
“We’re not allowing the fact that it’s not structurally built for us to deny us access,” Dixon said.
Narrative Director Phillip said the work is about “creating a pathway for young people who are directly affected by all these decisions and all this legislation to come here and feel powerful.”
It’s a big task, but the coalition stays grounded by remembering victories. They pointed out certain bills the coalition supports, like HB 1131, which is aimed at updating suicide awareness and training programs, or HB 1124, which supports need-based grants in higher education.
“We have a lot of wins; they’re just really small or, like, we stop a lot of things before they happen,” Dixon said. “There tends to be a Republican majority in a lot of the policy spaces, and we lose those, but there are a lot of people here and a lot of people working to stop these things.”
