Texas’ 15-member State Board of Education has approved a controversial overhaul of the state’s high school social studies curriculum that Muslim Texans and civil liberties advocates say presents Islam in a discriminatory and historically distorted way.
The new standards require students to learn that “radical Islam” motivated the 9/11 attacks. They also describe the Prophet Muhammad as a “brutal” warrior whose military campaigns involved violence, slavery, and the taking of female captives.
A last-minute effort to remove the word “brutal” failed. Board member Brandon Hall argued that removing it would be a “grave mistake” and called describing Muhammad’s actions that way a “moral imperative.”
“We’re whitewashing and watering down a part of history that I think is very consequential to understanding world events throughout history,” Hall said.
Some view Hall’s comments and the board’s actions as a sign of white Christian nationalism—described by many theologians as a white supremacist perversion of Christianity—winning the day regarding the shaping of K-12 lessons approved by the state.
Other lessons emphasize Christianity’s positive influence on Western society. However, Christianity’s role regarding endorsing American slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, lynching, land theft, white domestic terrorism, and various other atrocities against Black people and others are absent from the Texas social studies curriculum.
Muslims push back
Muslim Texans who testified before the board urged members to teach Islam with the same historical balance afforded to other religions.
“Uphold Islam to the same standard as other religions by teaching students its core principles and contributions,” Bahia Amawi told the board.
She also urged members to remove standards that reduce Islam to violence.
The board previously removed a proposed standard that would have taught students about Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy. Amawi questioned whether the curriculum could lead students to distrust Muslim classmates and neighbors.
That concern comes as Texas has already approved new statewide reading requirements that include Bible passages and Christian texts. Those changes are scheduled to take effect beginning with the 2030-31 school year.
The advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the curriculum “extol[s] Christianity’s historical influence while treating Islam with hostility.”
“The board should not be imposing a curriculum on students that favors one faith and disparages another,” said President and CEO Rachel Laser.
Fight likely continues
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Texas chapter said they will work to overturn the curriculum before it takes effect and protect teachers and students who refuse to teach it.
The groups argued that the curriculum presents a distorted picture of Islam and said even experts appointed by the board raised concerns about whether portions of the standards withstand historical scrutiny.
The board also approved updated standards covering U.S. history, world history, world geography, U.S. government, and portions of financial literacy.
For Black Texans, the debate is about more than Islam. It raises a larger question about who gets to shape the history Texas children learn—and whether public schools will teach the complicated histories of race, religion, power, and oppression with the same scrutiny applied to every group.
And for Texas students, those lessons will help shape how they understand not only the past, but the increasingly diverse state in which they live.