Credit Arkansas Senate A bill that would have prohibited public schools and state-supported higher education institutions in Arkansas from requiring educators refer to students by their preferred names or pronouns failed in a legislative committee on Wednesday. The Senate Education Committee, through a voice vote, did not have the support needed to advance House Bill 1749 to the Senate, where if it passed again, would have gone to the governor. Under the bill, an employee of a public school or a state-supported university would not be required to use a "pronoun, title or other word" to identify a student as either male or female when it "is inconsistent" with the student’s sex.