House Bill 1804 by Galveston state Rep. Terri Leo-Wilson, which was left pending in committee last week, would let the State Board of Education veto certain textbooks that discuss gender identity, as well as sexual orientation and activity, according to The Texas Tribune.
Anything deemed to “encourage lifestyles that deviate from generally accepted standards of society” could be rejected. Officials could also spurn textbooks that don't frame U.S. history in a positive way.
Historians and literary advocates are decrying the bill as the latest attack on academic freedom. Michael Phillips, a North Texas-based historian and author, blasted the bill as “dangerous.”
Phillips and other critics fear that a clampdown on true history could have catastrophic consequences for the state’s youth.
Erasure of LGBTQ+ Identities
The potential “erasure” of LGBTQ+ people in textbooks could increase suicidal behavior for an already at-risk group, Phillips said. It may magnify the feelings of young LGBTQ+ and nonbinary students that they don’t fit in.
Phillips pointed out that the effort to restrict textbooks has precedent: Starting in the late 1800s, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy began pushing to vet textbooks to ensure that there weren’t any claims that slavery led to the Civil War, he said. Many books indeed minimized slavery, whitewashing it as a matter of “states’ rights.”
“They wanted to make sure that Reconstruction was depicted as a misguided tragedy in which white Southerners were stripped of their rights, and the freedmen who were unprepared for citizenship were given control … and that Reconstruction was a time of lawlessness,” he said. “They didn't want the textbooks to say anything positive about the enfranchisement of Black people.”
While conducting research for his book White Metropolis, Phillips said he read 100 years’ worth of Dallas-approved textbooks that “legitimized popular prejudices.” He believes that there’s a direct line from what was taught back then to the city’s resistance to racial justice.
He worries about what the teaching of events like the civil rights movement would look like if the bill were to become law.
“There's so many things that will not make any sense,” he said. “We will leave kids not able to comprehend the world they live in, and it will create a vacuum of knowledge — and into that vacuum of knowledge is poured all the prejudices, biases, hatreds that society provides. I mean, it's a dangerous thing.”
The bill would require books to “present both sides of political or social movements throughout history,” according to the Tribune. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico expressed concern during a hearing last week that the bill could allow for the introduction of textbooks offering two perspectives on slavery, the Civil War or the Holocaust.“The public schools will produce children who are going to be ignorant of so much of what they need to know in order to thrive in this society and make it better.” – Dr. Michael Phillips
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In a statement to the Observer, Leo-Wilson said that the state’s standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, are required to be taught and are “quite extensive in the coverage” of topics like slavery.
“What HB 1804 requires is that when acts of civil disobedience are covered in materials it is noted when those movements have used illegal means to accomplish their purpose. Kidnapping and burning down innocents [sic] private property are covered as such,” the statement continued. “HB 1804 allows an elected body, by majority vote, to determine suitability. Currently, publishers have free reign and parents/teachers have no recourse or way to object.”
Texas Leading the Nation in Book Bans
The 2022 fall semester marked an “escalation” in censorship and book bans throughout the United States, both in school libraries and in classrooms, according to the literary and free speech organization PEN America. Unsurprisingly, Texas led the way.
PEN America found that from July to December of last year, Texas had the greatest number with 438 bans. Florida came in second, clocking 357 bans.
Texas and Florida were also at the front of the pack when it came to banning books during the 2021 – 2022 school year, noted Kasey Meehan, Freedom to Read project director at PEN America. The advocacy group has tracked Texas’ legislative cycle, and there are several bills that represent a ramping up of the state’s efforts to suppress content, ideas and identities in public schools, she said.
“There are many ways that we see a coordinated effort to restrict the freedom to read, the freedom to learn and the freedom to express,” Meehan said.
For his part, Phillips is “terrified” that, if ultimately signed into law, HB 1804 would lead to a widespread “brain drain” and affect Texans for decades to come. “The university system is going to become a joke, and we will not draw the top researchers here,” he said. “The public schools will produce children who are going to be ignorant of so much of what they need to know in order to thrive in this society and make it better. It's an absolute tragedy.”
