Dr. Emilio Zamora Testimony Against SB 3—Texas' "anti-Critical Race Theory" bill

Before presenting to you Dr. Emilio Zamora's testimony, allow me to provide some context for today's public hearing in the Senate Committee on State Affairs in the second, special legislative session of the 87th Texas State Legislature called by Governor Abbott, that began last Saturday on August 7, 2021.

There were a good number of us who delivered testimony against Senate Bill 3 (SB 3), dubbed an "anti-Critical Race Theory" bill that makes sure white children don't get harmed or that black and brown children don't get victimized by Texas teachers who teach them about race, racism, Anglo supremacy, and the like. 

My friends, these Senators are offering a "solution" to a "problem" that doesn't exist. Except for precious few exceptions, CRT is simply not taught in our state's school system. It's not a curriculum. If anything, it's an approach. I should know. I teach CRT in the college classroom. It's over 40 years old and often preferred to Marxist or class analyses that simply don't tell the whole story of why inequality exists. 

Because life and society are so complex, we use many frameworks in the college classroom and CRT is but one of these.

SB 3 is similar to the initial version laid out in the first-called special legislative session that was hampered by the broken quorum by Texas democrats who fled the state and remain currently in Washington, D.C. While today felt like yet another dress rehearsal, it is worth noting the Rep. Toth letter from the regular legislative session that recently surfaced and about which Dr. Zamora comments. 

Toth's letter is really pathetic and desperate, linking anti-racist pedagogy to youth suicide. You cannot make this stuff up!

Specifically, Toth's letter went out during the regular legislative session to all members of the Texas House on May 7, 2021 (see letter below) to urge House members to support House Bill 3979, SB 3's less ugly twin.  

Passed and signed into law during the regular legislative session by Governor Greg Abbott and scheduled to go into effect on September 1, 2021, the very existence of the twice-filed, Senate Bill 3 makes the point that  HB 3979 doesn't go far enough and that SB 3 is the "fix." 

My husband, University of Texas Historian, and past president of the Texas State Historical Association, Dr. Emilio Zamora, delivered the written testimony provided below. Mine was oral rather than written. Happy to share what Emilio wrote and shared in the two minutes accorded to him. I was able to take these photos in those few minutes we had today on the floor of the Texas Senate.

-Angela Valenzuela  

Testimony Against Senate Bill 3

Second-Called Special Legislative Session of the 87th Texas State Legislature

by

Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.

August 10, 2021

I previously submitted commentary critical of HB 3979 that, among other things, asked for Representative Steve Toth’s statement of enabling intent, that is, his reason for proposing the bill.  The bill did not include such a statement, but I now have his May 7, 2021 letter where he offers overblown and unfounded justifications to obtain co-authors for the bill.  I now wish to comment on his letter in opposition to SB 3, the most recent iteration of HB 3979.  

My immediate response to the bill is that it is irresponsible for Representative Toth to propose policy that is untethered from reality and that builds on imagined exceptions to what actually occurs in classrooms across the state.  His possible exception is the lone publication that some teachers allegedly recommended at some undetermined moment to unidentified students at a school district near Dallas.  

We do not know if one teacher, two or three, recommended the book in question to one, two or three students. Nor do we know if an administrator approved the use of the book or if a teacher or teachers actually used it to teach Anglo supremacy and, at the urging of the author, shamed White students into believing that they carry the burden of all possible dastardly deeds committed by their ancestors. It does not matter that such claims lack evidence or that they only exist in Rep. Toth's imagination as distant, possible exceptions to what is actually occurring in Texas classrooms.

Rep. Toth proceeds to tell us that the onerous publication “has given rise to similarly discriminatory material” like Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project.  This is an utterly unfounded claim of causation that would fail my basic expectation in a history class for undergraduate history majors.  This baseless assertion should also raise concerns among his colleagues who value truth and sound reasoning and detest the dereliction of a moral-bound duty to be truthful and fair in the give and take of policy-making. Rep, Toth goes further.

He states that HB 3979 intends to end the “proscribing”—I believe he means the prescribing—of “hateful classroom activities and a racially discriminatory curriculum,” again without offering any evidence whatsoever that this is actually occurring in our classrooms. There is more.  

 Rep. Toth continues to heap claim after groundless claim.  He announces his rejection of the notion that “an individual’s moral character or culpability are determined on the basis of skin color.” This sounds fine on the surface, but he is falsely purporting that this is occurring far and wide.  

Rep. Toth takes his accusations to an even higher and irresponsible level when he again suggests “race-shaming” as an ongoing teaching practice and predicts that it will contribute to a high suicide rate among our youth.  His gratuitous use of suicidal tragedy among our nation's youth that exploits the grief of those impacted illustrates just how far Rep. Toth will go to convey his legislative intent.

I do not understand how intelligent and well-meaning legislators would accept these unsubstantiated claims, knowing that Rep. Toth purposefully spreads misinformation that implicates the Senate Committee on State Affairs, as well as others who would vote for SB 3. 

I understand that political agendas crisscross the debates over policies and that some people at times choose expediency over good sense and credible arguments. Future generations, however, will judge us all on the character that we exhibit in supporting or rejecting SB 3. 

Rep. Toth’s shameful and unfounded justification for HB 3979 stand as prima facie evidence that he and other supporters of the bills in question have opted to make highly consequential education policy without any obvious foundation in truth or reason.