Thread by @TJStiles_Author

Texas HB 3979 blocks Critical Race Theory in public schools. It's hard to imagine any prosecutions resulting. But it makes teachers vulnerable to parents' complaints—especially of the hot-take variety. And it could have unintended consequences.

Let's take a look, shall we?

1/10

Some of Texas HB 3979 is fine. It requires that students learn about founding documents, the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments, Native American history, etc. Correct me if an amendment changes this. But it's got some wacky & dangerous language. It's a mess.
2/10
capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/se…

The wording of Texas HB 3979 clearly shows its main motivation is to protect white children from any sense of the moral weight of history. But it's also aimed at a non-existent threat: teachers who are telling kids they are to blame as individuals for racism writ large.
3/10

Texas HB 3979 specifically bans the 1619 Project. Not only is that censorship, it's counterproductive. "An understanding of The 1619 Project," I note, is required if you want to argue against it, or to know why some historians disagree with parts. The law mandates ignorance.
4/10

HB 3979 bans teaching "slavery and racism are anything other than...betrayals of...the authentic founding principles." This forces teachers to say the Constitution's framers betrayed our founding principles. They have to call the slaveholding Texas Republic anti-American.
5/10

I don't think HB 3979 is meant to call our founders betrayers. But it's not a fine point. From the 3/5ths clause to free states that barred free Black people, from Washington hunting escapees to Texas's ban on anyone freeing enslaved people, slavery & racism was everywhere.
6/10

Note that I am not attacking the framers or the founding of the United States. To have any real understanding of history, you have to see contradictions. People commit evil with one hand & do good with the other. Some made a better world possible—yet we see the evil.

7/10

And then there's this: HB 3979's authors are very concerned that teachers should feel free to avoid any controversy. If they do, they must teach all sides "without giving deference to any one perspective." Equal time for mass murderers of Sand Creek? Or the Holocaust? Nuts.
8/10

Reversing HB 3979 would require a very brave teacher to treat it literally. Teach that all the Founders, Abraham Lincoln, etc., deviated from & betrayed our founding principles. Discuss the Weather Underground or Al Qaeda with an all-sides-deserve-fairness approach. Crazy.
9/10

My point: Censoring teachers, especially for political reasons, sets a bad tone & has vile unintended consequences.

If I've made a mistake in the foregoing discussion of Texas HB 3979, I regret the errors. I looked at the legislature's website here.
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capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Tex…