Is Texas Really Banning Schools From Teaching About Slavery and Racism?

The media's reporting on "critical race theory" legislation has been wildly misleading.

If you were relying solely on reporting from major national media outlets, you’d think something very disturbing and draconian was happening in Texas right now.

The New York Times:

MSNBC:

HuffPost:

Jennifer Bendery @jbendery

Morning! ☕️ In the dead of night, the Texas Senate passed a bill that will effectively ban public school teachers from talking about racism, white supremacy or current events. It already passed the House. On its way to be signed into law now.

huffpost.comTexas GOP Passes Bill To Stop Teachers From Talking About Racism“It’s going to have a chilling effect on social studies and civics teachers across the state,” said Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

Slavery and racism have both been staples of history and social studies curricula in American classrooms for decades, and are widely accepted as crucial subjects for educating students on both the past and present of the United States. If it were true that an entire state had moved to ban the teaching of these subjects, it would deservedly be the subject of national outrage. But that’s not at all what happened in Texas.

This is an excerpt from today’s subscriber-only post. To read the entire article and get full access to INQUIRE, you can subscribe for $6 a month or $60 a year.