Boston, Massachusetts, skyline at night. Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash.
The Joint Committee on Education favorably reported House Bill 589 on November 17, 2025. If enacted, the bill would require that Massachusetts's state science standards "include only peer-reviewed and age-appropriate subject matter," where "peer-reviewed subject matter" is defined as "conducted in compliance with accepted scientific methods." House Bill 589 is now with the House Committee on Ways and Means. The current legislative session ends on July 31, 2026.
The bill’s sponsor, Kenneth I. Gordon (D-21st Middlesex), previously introduced identical bills: House Bill 491 in 2023, House Bill 607 in 2021, and House Bill 471 in 2019. During a 2019 hearing in the Joint Committee on Education, as NCSE previously reported, Gordon explained that his bill would keep climate change denial out of the science classroom, and a science journalist testifying in favor of the bill cited the threat of other types of "science denialism" as reasons to pass the bill. None of the previous bills passed.
