The Texas State Board of Education has adopted a revised social studies curriculum that highlights the role of radical Islam in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and discusses Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes” while stressing the role of Christianity in shaping American and world history.
At a Friday meeting, the Texas State Board of Education voted 8-3 to approve revisions to the high school social studies curriculum, including several references to the roles of both Christianity and Islam in American and world history classes. The new curriculum is slated to take effect at the beginning of the 2033–34 school year.
Under the new curriculum, students in world history are expected to “explain early Islam in terms of the Prophet Mohammed’s brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.” Students will also be expected to "describe conflicts involving Europe, including Christian efforts to reclaim lands conquered by Muslim powers through the Christians' Crusades and The Reconquista." The new world history curriculum expects students to “explain the rise of radical Islam, including Iranian proxies, terrorism, Al Qaeda, September 11, 2001, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” In a joint statement Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Texas chapter, as well as CAIR Action Texas, condemned the new curriculum as an “affront to our system of education and the First Amendment.” Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott designated CAIR a terrorist group last November and accused it of supporting global terrorism, a label the organization is fighting in court. “Texas students of every background deserve an education that tells the truth about their history and their neighbors’ history, not propaganda that teaches them to see each other as threats or erases them from the story