Three North Carolina state senators have introduced a bill to ban participation trophies for children, but some say the move is more performative than substantive.
The bill, proposed by three Republican lawmakers, says awards should be based on "identified performance achievements" and not solely on children’s participation in sports or other activities.
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld argued the bill was a "waste of time."
"I think it's a lousy statement. It's a waste of time. You know, it's obvious that… it's a thumb in the eye," he explained this week on "The Five."
Gutfeld joked that removing the awards would be a bad thing because then people like him wouldn’t receive anything. "Don't get rid of the participation trophies because then what do you give to kids like me?" he asked. "I mean, they used to... actually, back then it was called ‘most-spirited.’ Do you remember that?"
He shared that he won a "most-spirited" award because he couldn’t shoot a single basket in a three-day-long basketball tournament.
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Co-host Dana Perino agreed that the bill was a waste of time, adding that it was "nonsense and ridiculous." "You don't actually need to legislate anything. Let parents make this decision or their schools make the decision or the teachers, whoever," she said.
"If it's 5-year-olds and you're trying to get everybody to participate in a team sport, I get it. Everybody gets a participation trophy. But I think when we make fun of participation trophies or actually say there's concern about it is when there's no room for competition and merit and winning that way, which is what helps drive innovation. And that's where we get into a problem," Perino explained.
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"The Five" co-hosts also discussed resurfaced comments from Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson about his disdain for giving students a lot of homework and assigning "F" grades. "To be quite frank with you, I didn't issue a lot of homework for students. That was my own way of sort of rebelling against the structure. I don't think I ever gave a kid an F. I just I don't I don't know how a student sits in front of you and fails," he said in an interview in 2018.
Co-host Katie Pavlich said failing kids is "actually a good thing." She shared that when she was in 8th grade, her history teacher failed her because she took a test and forgot to turn it over to answer the questions on the back.
"So, that taught me a big [lesson]," she added. "But the point is that throughout the next, you know, test, I flipped the page over, and he helped me succeed by teaching me a lesson with my own failure."
