Texas: Republican Senator Defends 'Critical Race Theory' Ban Amid Ongoing Curriculum Revision

Texas Senator Bryan Hughes appeared in front of the State Board of Education to shed more light on teaching racism in classrooms despite the Critical Race Theory ban on the state.

Republican Senator Hughes was the author of Senate Bill 3, a law that limits how Texas teachers could teach racism, slavery, and history in schools.

Currently, the State Board of Education is in the process of revising its own social studies curriculum, also known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), which is updated every eight years.

Texas Senator Bans Teaching Critical Race Theory in Schools

In landmark legislation enacted into law last December 2021, Republican State Senator Bryan Hughes pushed for the passing of a law designed to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the school curriculum in Texas.

The law, according to the filing, does not actually ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools but prohibits teachers from teaching "widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs."

Aside from that, the law also compels each school district to attend a civics training program that teaches educators how to teach race and racism in schools - "free of political bias."

In a recent State Board of Education meeting to revise the current social studies curriculum, Senator Hughes graced the venue to elaborate on his intent to pass the law.

Texas Board of Education Decides on New TEKS Curriculum

Since last week, the Texas Board of Education has been spearheading public fora to gauge how Texas students should learn America's history in schools, The Dallas Morning News reports.

Conversations revolve particularly on how racism, slavery, and sexism emerged - primarily on how they would be embedded in the new Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum, the state's social studies curriculum.

But among the most polarizing topics that conservatives have put a pin on is teaching critical race theory in schools. That is why Senator Bryan Hughes, the lawmaker behind Senate Bill 3, graced the meeting earlier this week.

As reported by The Texas Tribune, Senator Hughes' intent to pass the law was not to sanitize America's history but instead to update how we teach the "progress" that Americans had.

"We still teach that really bad things were done by people of particular races, and it may be that in teaching those things, students may feel guilty about that. What we're saying is you don't say, 'Little Johnny, little Jimmy, you should feel bad because of what your forebears did,'" Hughes said.

Senator Hughes, along with other Republican lawmakers, has scrutinized over the years how Texas has been teaching critical race theory in classrooms.

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Texas is among the nine states in the country that have passed legislation limiting teachers on their respective states on how to teach history and racism, among many other key controversial issues. However, only Idaho and North Dakota have explicitly prohibited the teaching of Critical Race Theory in their legislations. Texas and the six other states have only alluded to it.

As simply defined by The New Press, Critical Race Theory states that institutions like the education system, healthcare, and even the criminal justice system among others are rooted with racism in its laws, regulations, and rules.

Despite the heavy pushback, Intercultural Policy Director Chloe Latham Sikes has affirmed that the current drafts of the TEKS Curriculum are "pretty inclusive" so far.

The drafts for the updated curiculum can be viewed here.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Ivan Korrs

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