Texas School Bill Hinders Education

On September 2, 2021, the Texas state senate passed SB 3, ”An Act Relating to the Social Studies Curriculum in Public Schools.”  The bill purports to provide “an understanding of the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government.” What emerges from closer inspection is an act of censorship. Earlier, the Texas House submitted a draft (HB 3979) for the Senate to ratify. But the Senate gutted that more inclusive text. It could be argued that removal of a topic from a list of readings is not outright censorship. But teachers need guidance and eliminating useful suggestions is a denial of help — sabotage. The bill considers two areas: the subjects to be covered (or avoided) and how to discuss them (or not). Comparison of the two texts reveals the hidden purpose of this senatorial subversion. Please download Senate Bill 3 as a PDF from the link I have attached at the end of this post. It shows how the Senate added to and deleted from the text of the House bill.

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PART I. SUBJECT MATTER.

First, in Section D comes what MUST be taught: “the history, qualities, traditions, and features of civic engagement in the United States; the history of Native Americans; the structure, function, and processes of government institutions at the federal, state, and local levels; the founding documents of the United States, including:

• the Declaration of Independence;
• the United States Constitution;
• the Federalist Papers including Essays 10 and 51;
• excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville ’s Democracy in America;
• the transcript of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

So far, so good, but then we find modifications in the treatment of our country’s Founders. The next item includes the writings of the founding fathers but not material about them (e.g. their slave owning?) and not about the “mothers and other founding persons” of the United States.

Section E also seems inclusive. Schools shall teach “the history and importance of:

• the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964
• the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments
• the complexity of the historic relationship between Texas and Mexico; and
• the diversity of the Hispanic population in Texas.”

Who could complain about treating “complexity” and “diversity” in a state’s schools? But this section also omits some fundamental topics. Section E includes the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 but not the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Why does this section name the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments but not the Fifteenth, which affirms the right to vote to citizens of any “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”? And why does it imply that these amendments are separate from the Constitution, already included in Section D? The Constitution’s provision for its own amendment is part of its genius. Omission of the Fifteenth Amendment explains why the Texas Senate also skipped the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. Although the legislators of Texas pretend to treat “complexity” and “diversity,” they suppress the connection between race and voting rights.

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PART II. MANNER OF DISCUSSION.

Second comes what MUST NOT be taught. The bill professes great sensitivity to the feelings of all students. “A teacher . . . may not require, or make part of a course, concepts that serve to inculcate . . . the concept that:

• one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;
• an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
• an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex;
• meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race;
• the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States;
• with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”

Although it’s hard to imagine how legislators can require teachers to do more than show common consideration for all students regardless of the aspects of identity they mention, there are ways identity can be pursued: namely, by studying important explorations in history, literature, music, and art.

That, however, is the problem with this bill. So as to appear to advance their stated goal (that students should learn to “actively listen and engage in civil discourse, including discourse with those with different viewpoints”), they stipulate precisely how to achieve their unstated goal: to prevent such activity. The most prominent portion of SB 3 is the long list of primary sources and important topics the Texas House suggested but the Senate deleted. This amazing list of excluded works includes Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. For full disclosure, I am not familiar with all of the named documents, but the Jefferson letter contains his famous analogy comparing the First Amendment’s distinction between religious establishment and religious freedom to “a wall of separation between Church & State.” The exclusion of this fundamental statement reveals the Senate’s desire to destroy that wall and exposes the pretense that the legislators wish to foster engagement “in discourse with those with different viewpoints.”

The Senate’s version then deletes from the earlier draft mention of 44 different authors, writings, or topics. For a full list, please see the PDF of the act available from the Texas Education Agency website and attached below. A sense of how the senators eviscerated the House version appears from this sample of the subjects they deleted.

• George Washington and Ona Judge (the enslaved woman who escaped from him.)
• Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (his enslaved companion).
• Writings from Frederick Douglass’s newspaper, the North Star;
• The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850;
• The Indian Removal Act;
• William Still’s Underground Railroad Records.

Also deleted are “historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations, including documents related to:

• the Chicano movement;
• women’s suffrage and equal rights;
• the civil rights movement;
• the Snyder Act of 1924 (by which Indigenous peoples won the vote);
• the American labor movement;
• the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.”

On the last point, the idea is not that the senators assert that white supremacy is correct, only that “the ways in which it is morally wrong” should be stricken from the list of topics taught.

The list goes on. Although the role of slavery and civil rights receive the most attention —or seem to require the most repression— the Senate version also deletes:

• The life and work of Cesar Chavez;
• The life and work of Dolores Huerta;
• The history and importance of the women ’s suffrage movement.

All these are crossed out, silenced, canceled.

I draw two conclusions from SB 3. First, it intends the reverse of what it claims. With a feint towards initiating students into a life of civic engagement and mutual understanding, it hobbles them by withholding crucial information. Second, amidst many complaints about political correctness, cancel culture, postmodernism, and the evils of Critical Race Theory (often misconstrued), the Texas Senate’s SB 3 demonstrates that there is excess at both extremes of our present cultural confrontation. The problem is not so much that each faction thinks the other is wrong, but that extreme positions, presented absolutely, prevent either from seeing the potentially legitimate perceptions of the other. Unless anyone is omniscient, we should each listen to those on the other side.

ATTACHMENT:

Texas SB 3. Rules for school boards-2021