I personally take issue with that bill and the governor’s tepid critique of it. I’ll side with policy that enables free speech and every tool possible to welcome students. Others debate this, but what gets little attention is the discussion that schools are, as Cox puts it, “politically neutral.”

I imagine most agree that a classroom is not a place for anyone to campaign for a candidate or bill. That would cross an ethical line. Besides, teachers already have enough to do in classrooms that there’s no time to make a pitch for any cause, conservative or progressive.

The very existence of school is political, though. We had to invent and institutionalize it. The federal government has essentially no jurisdiction over how schools are run, though there are federal programs supporting education across the country. It’s local schools and districts determining the curriculum — the “how” of teaching — while standards of learning are approved by our Utah State Board of Education, a state body with representatives for each of us. The Utah Legislature sets the rules for how all these pieces come together, often adding additional features.

One of those is H.B. 77, inserting policy into schools across the state. Similarly, rules for what books can be shelved in school libraries, how teachers’ unions can function, how education is funded, even what general coursework should be required at a university are all steered by our lawmakers. For better or worse, the nature of school is beholden to political process.

Another example, a few years ago I was part of a team of scientists and teachers leading the effort to draft state standards for science learning across all grades, K-12. Those standards contain statements about the premise of science learning and its purpose. Bold declarations were approved in that document, including the idea that all students deserve to learn science in personally meaningful and equitable ways. The board asked me direct questions about Big Bang Theory but glossed over the more revolutionary ideal of welcoming all students into our classrooms.

Besides what is contained within schools, politics determines their structures and funding. At the K-12 level, the past few years have seen changes including allocations of state monies that can be used by families for private services. To me, it’s the equivalent of sponsoring people to build their own rowboats rather than bringing everyone aboard a well-designed and structured ship. The fact that we build and invest in both is a political decision. We put our children and our future in these boats, big and small, though there’s limited resources from which to build them all.

At universities, the legislative euphemism of “reallocations” has been the jarring shift, forcing administrators to demonstrate how they’ll cut positions and programs, real people and fields of study, in order to earn back 10% of cut funds in the future. Devastatingly, this led to the sudden, behind-closed-doors decision to “restructure” our College of Education. While our outstanding teaching programs remain, underlying support has suddenly dissolved.

Holding back funds with mere weeks to figure out how to make such cuts seems, besides political, cruelly abusive. I was bullied to that degree at age eight, pinned down by a bigger kid with the eraser side of a pencil burrowing into my skin until I gave him what he wanted. I still have that scar. Universities will too. A system designed to lift up community is weakened in structure and spirit due to the forced, hurried response.

Schools and schooling are themselves non-neutral acts, testaments to what we value collectively, even if we have to grit our teeth in the face of learning logarithms, the human slave trade, comma placement and sonnets. As schools and teachers at all levels are under duress right now, I see the strain throughout our ranks. The thing is, while my colleagues admit they’re disheartened, I see them walk into classrooms and labs, encouraging conferences with students, effervescing about the shape of the universe or replication of viruses. Our own non-neutral stance brought into schools is one of passion for this act of education, for all, flags or no, for as long as there are programs to teach in.

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.