Social Studies

Texas Board Adopts Measure on Religious Bias in Textbooks

By Erik W. Robelen — September 27, 2010 1 min read
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After a heated debate, the Texas state board of education on Friday narrowly approved a nonbinding resolution warning textbook publishers against producing classroom materials that provide an “anti-Christian/pro-Islamic” bias.

The final vote was 7-6, with support coming from the board’s bloc of social conservatives. In the end, three Republicans joined Democrats in voting no. (Two other Democrats were absent.) Here’s our story from Friday. Meanwhile, you can also check out more from the Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman.

The resolution says that a “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias has tainted some past Texas Social Studies textbooks” and that the state board will “reject future prejudicial Social Studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world’s major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and/or by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others.”

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.