Texas Republicans in the State Senate passed a bill that would eliminate the requirement that made public schools teach that the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy were “morally wrong.”
Senate Bill 3 blocks schools from teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, work from United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony’s writings about the women’s suffragists movement and Native American history, HuffPost reported. It also bans the teaching of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 project.
The bill passed 18 to 4 in the Senate but will most likely stall in the GOP-led House because they lack a quorum for a vote. A group of House Democrats left the state in protest to the state’s GOP wanting to pass a restrictive voter law, resulting in a pause to state business.
“Senate Bill 3 will make certain that critical race philosophies, including the debunked 1619 founding myth, are removed from our school curriculums statewide,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. “Parents want their students to learn how to think critically, not be indoctrinated by the ridiculous leftist narrative that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism.”
Lawmakers in majority red states have introduced and passed bills that would ban K-12 students from being taught Critical Race Theory, which says that racism is systemic rather than based on individual bias.