#3031: Frank Hoffmann

  

This is an older one, but Frank Hoffmann is apparently still around, and his successors are unfortunately not unlikely to take up his legacy, so he still deserves an entry. Hoffmann represented House District 15 in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008 to 2020 and was vice chairman of the House Education Committee, a position he used to try to undermine public education in Louisiana as much as possible – ad that he previously worked as a teacher and superintendent himsels makes his antics all the more disconcerting.

 

Hoffmann was, as sponsor of House Bill 1168, one of the architects behind the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act, which sought to promote science denialism concerning “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” in Louisiana public schools using teach-the-controversy-style language. As superintendent, Hoffmann had already succeeded in getting the Ouachita Parish School Board to adopt similar policies. And it is worth noting that Hoffmann subsequently voted against adopting biology textbooks that presented the theory of evolution as well-supported by evidence.

 

Indeed, even the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act wasn’t sufficient for Hoffmann, who in 2011 also sponsored HOUSE BILL NO. 580 (a stealth creationism measure colloquially known as the Flat-Earth Option bill), which would allow local public schools to decide on their own to use state money for purchasing any textbooks they want without state supervision (the state senate counterpart was sponsored by Mike Walsworth). That one died, but not without hard fight. And it wasn’t Hoffmann’s last attempt.

 

Diagnosis: Hopefully out of power for good. But Hoffmann being out probably doesn’t lead to much improvement, unfortunately.