By Cassandra Fairbanks
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill into law banning schools from lessons that may cause a student to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”
There has been increasing concerns from parents across the nation about what is being taught in schools, particularly when it comes to race and the teaching of “Critical Race Theory.”
The Daily Caller pointed out that “the term Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not used in the House Bill 3979, but it addresses many concerns that GOP leaders have expressed about the curriculum. It prohibits teachings that assert individuals bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the individual’s same race or sex or that an individual is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive by virtue of their race or sex, the bill says.”
CRT has faced criticism due to the fact that it teaches people to view every situation or person through a racial lens. Critics believe that it is divisive because it scapegoats white people, particularly men and boys, for all of society’s ills.
The bill does ban the teaching of the extremely controversial 1619 Project, instead supporting the teaching of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech.
The 1619 Project has been panned by historians, five of whom wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times pointing out what they called “factual errors” in the essays.
Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, Sean Wilentz, and James Oakes wrote, “the project asserts the founders declared the colonies’ independence of Britain ‘in order to ensure slavery would continue.’ This is not true. If supportable, the allegation would be astounding—yet every statement offered by the project to validate it is false.”
“The project criticizes Abraham Lincoln’s views on racial equality but ignores his conviction that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal equality, for blacks as well as whites, a view he upheld repeatedly against powerful white supremacists who opposed him. The project also ignores Lincoln’s agreement with Frederick Douglass that the Constitution was, in Douglass’s words, ‘a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.’ Instead, the project asserts that the United States was founded on racial slavery, an argument rejected by a majority of abolitionists and proclaimed by champions of slavery like John C. Calhoun,” their letter continued.
The legislation will go into effect on September 1, just in time for the new school year.
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