When ‘Judeo-Christian’ Means Christian: The Texas State Board of Education and the Politics of Curriculum, by Angela Valenzuel, Ph.D.

When ‘Judeo-Christian’ Means Christian: The Texas State Board of Education and the Politics of Curriculum

by

Angela Valenzuela, PH.D.

June 26, 2026

Please read Ellie Ashby and Chloe Landen’s important Texas Tribune/Religion News Service article, “As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism” posted below. The piece reports on this week’s State Board of Education hearings over proposed changes that would require Texas public school students to read Bible stories and passages as part of a statewide reading list. Supporters repeatedly invoked the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” to defend the proposal, claiming that such readings simply acknowledge the nation’s religious and moral origins.

Yet the testimony from rabbis and Jewish leaders revealed something much more troubling: the term “Judeo-Christian” is doing ideological work. It is not functioning as an inclusive recognition of Judaism. It is functioning as cover.

As Ashby and Landen report, Jewish leaders criticized the proposed biblical selections as overwhelmingly Christian in framing, translation, and interpretation. Rabbi Joshua Fixler of Houston’s Congregation Emanu El captured the problem with painful clarity when he described the use of “Judeo-Christian” as “a fig leaf at inclusion.” In other words, Judaism is being rhetorically invoked in order to make a Christian-centered curriculum appear broader, more ecumenical, and more constitutionally palatable than it actually is.

This is precisely the fiction behind the concept of “Judeo-Christian.” The phrase sounds generous. It sounds like partnership. It sounds like interfaith harmony. But historically and politically, it has often served to absorb Judaism into a Christian civilizational story while excluding Muslims, secular people, Indigenous spiritual traditions, and the many other religious and nonreligious communities that make up our society. It is a phrase that points at pluralism while narrowing the public imagination.

Robert O. Smith, associate professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, usefully reminds us that the term “Judeo-Christian” was popularized during the Cold War as part of a U.S. civilizational narrative that joined Protestants, Catholics, and Jews against supposedly “godless” enemies abroad, while excluding Muslims and others from the nation’s moral imagination (Ashby & Landen, 2026).

In this sense, “Judeo-Christian” is less a neutral description of shared religious heritage than a political construction. If anything, a Protestant or more specifically—Christian nationalist—reading of the Bible often subtracts from Jesus’ Jewishness by lifting him out of the Jewish world that formed him. 

Were this not so, Christians would more fully acknowledge the Jewish festivals, practices, scriptures, and interpretive traditions embedded throughout the New Testament, rather than glossing over them—or treating them as mere background to an otherwise Christian story. The irony is that those who invoke “Judeo-Christian values” often do so in ways that diminish Judaism itself, using Jewishness symbolically while centering a distinctly Christian interpretation of scripture, history, and nationhood.

This is why the Texas debate matters far beyond the reading list itself. What is at stake is not simply whether students should learn about religion. Of course students should learn about religion, history, literature, culture, and the many traditions that have shaped human life. Religious literacy has a legitimate place in public education. But there is a profound difference between teaching about religion and using public schools to advance a particular religious worldview.

The proposed Texas reading list crosses that line. As the article notes, many of the selected passages draw from Christian translations and interpretations, with Jewish texts treated thinly, awkwardly, or in ways that Jewish leaders themselves find troubling. Particularly alarming is the proposed pairing of Lamentations 3 with Holocaust literature, a pairing that rabbis warned could invite students to consider whether the Holocaust was divine punishment for Jews. Whether born of ignorance or intent, such a curricular choice is pedagogically irresponsible and morally dangerous.

This is how Christian nationalism enters the classroom: not always through an explicit declaration that Christianity should rule, but through curricular choices that quietly normalize one religious tradition as the foundation of American identity. It happens when “heritage” becomes a substitute for historical accuracy. It happens when “values” becomes a code word for exclusion. It happens when public schools are asked to carry theological assumptions that belong in families, congregations, seminaries, and houses of worship—not in state-mandated curriculum.

Texas is home to more than 5.5 million public school students. They are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Indigenous, secular, questioning, and more. They come from families with deep faith commitments and from families with none. A public school curriculum worthy of them must not narrow their world. It must broaden it.

Moreover, those adhering to traditional Protestant faiths—that are themselves diverse—should be just as concerned. A state-mandated curriculum that instrumentalizes the Bible for nationalist purposes does not honor Christianity; it distorts it. It reduces scripture to a civic ornament and treats faith as a tool of political formation rather than as a living moral and spiritual tradition. For Christians who take seriously the prophetic tradition and the separation of church and state that protects all faith communities, this should be deeply troubling.

That is why this debate is also about democracy. Public schools belong to the public. They should not be used to launder sectarian politics through the language of tradition. Nor should Jewish communities be conscripted into legitimizing a Christian-centered project that many Jewish leaders explicitly reject.

The phrase “Judeo-Christian” may sound inclusive, but in this context, it conceals more than it reveals. It masks power. It rewrites Jewish experience. It excludes whole communities from the story of Texas and the nation. And it asks public schools to do the work of religious formation under the banner of civic education.

The Texas State Board of Education had already given preliminary approval to the contested mandatory reading list that includes Bible passages, with final adoption scheduled for today, June 26, 2026 (Vertuno & Stengle, 2026). The proposal, if finally approved, would take effect in 2030 and would make Texas a national outlier in requiring a state-mandated reading list that includes biblical passages in public school instruction.

Texas students deserve better. They deserve honest history, constitutional fidelity, and a curriculum that respects the full diversity of our state. They deserve to learn about religion without being taught religion. They deserve schools that cultivate understanding rather than impose belonging on sectarian terms. They should also actually be taught the origins of so-called "Judeo-Christianity."

And above all, they deserve leaders who understand that pluralism is not a slogan. It is a democratic obligation.

References

Ashby, E. & Landen, C. (2026, June 25). As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism. Texas Tribune/Religion News Service. 

Vertuno, J. & Stengle, J. (2026, June 26). Texas school board to vote on required Bible readings in public education, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/texas-curriculum-bible-board-vote-06530403ff91c10462382422003e109f

As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism
A required reading list before the State Board of Education would present a predominantly Christian perspective to public school students, Jewish leaders say.

By Ellie Ashby, The Texas Tribune, and Chloe Landen, Religion News ServiceJune 25, 2026, 5:00 a.m. Central

Rabbi Joshua Fixler speaks at the State Board of Education meeting in Austin on Monday, 

June 22, 2026. Fixler argued that the required reading list is full of Christians texts that are 

inappropriate for public school classrooms. Aiden Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune

"Becoming Mexican American," by Ricardo Romo, Ph.D.

Such a beautiful reflection on what it meant to become "Mexican American" in San Antonio by former University of Texas San Antonio President Ricardo Romo.  It demonstrates a shift in understanding of "Mexican," as a national-origin  identifier to one of "Mexican American," as an ethnic identifier. It is a process. For first-generation immigrants, theirs is an experience of understanding what "Mexicanidad" (or Mexican-ness) means in a U.S. context. In short, although the same term, "Mexican" or "Mexicana/o" gets used, but they mean different things.

Dr. Romo's mention that "Mexican" was a term that entered from outside the lexicon of his community attests to not only the fact that people were primarily Spanish speaking but also that this term was imposed. This brought to mind a statement made by a newly-arrived Mexican student who expressed being troubled about having come to the U.S. to "learn" that "Mexican" is a dirty word.

I shared with her and the rest of the class that there is a long history to this and that the term—even as it represents a source of pride—is nevertheless inflected by vexed Anglo-Mexican relations in the Southwest. 

One sees, for example, people avoiding it altogether, opting for "Hispanic," "Latino," or "Latinx," because the word, "Mexican"—especially when accompanied by pejorative adjectives like "dumb," "greasy," or "dirty"—was intended as a slur. What may further reside at the subterranean, civilizational level, is a negation of Mexico itself, compounded by the fact that the term is of Indigenous origins. That is, the "Mexica" (pronounced me-SHEE-ca) are the Aztec, Nahuatl-speaking people whose very existence threatens the Eurocentric myths of both countries. 

-Angela Valenzuela 

Becoming Mexican American

By Ricardo Romo, Ph.D. | Nov. 1, 2020

The United States seemed far away to the families living in the farming communities of Union, Sabinas, and Agujita in northern Coahuila during the early 1900s. Those wishing to make a new life in the United States had to make a 80 mile trip to Eagle Pass, Texas.

There were no automobiles in any of the surrounding Mexican communities and the railroad tracks had not yet reached the rural areas. Coming to the United States meant walking or riding the entire distance in a horse carriage. Prior to the Mexican Revolution, most of the small farmers from these communities considered this to be too dramatic a step.

Francisco “Pancho” Saenz bought his business in 1937--at the height of the Great Depression. Francisco Saenz [on the right]: Auto Parts store on El Paso Street. 1940s. [Romo Family Photo]

Mexicans came to the United States because profound “push” forces dominated their daily lives. The “push” factors of the early 20th century were a result of civil unrest, war, and political oppression in Mexico. A long and harsh dictatorship in Mexico eventually led to a revolution, which resulted in the exodus of thousands of Mexican between the years 1910-1930. In the 1920s thousands from the Central states of Mexico also left because of religious persecution.

I often wondered why my grandparents came to the United States. My conversations with them revealed the obvious: like many other migrants of that time in Mexico, they left a homeland plagued by violence and with hopes of finding work elsewhere. It is not all that clear that they were seeking a new life elsewhere or in pursuit of the American Dream. They were undecided initially about their future. Unlike the immigrants from Europe and Asia,

Mexicans were close enough to the homeland that if work did not materialize or became unsteady, they were prepared to return. Many actually came to the United States thinking they would earn money and then return to Mexico after the armed conflict ended to buy a small property or start a business.

Maria Saenz Romo, sister of Francisco Saenz, and well known Midwife. Photo taken at her El Paso Street home only five houses away from Kerr Hill Auto Parts. [R.Romo family photos]

My four grandparents were born in Mexico. Two came from the Sabinas region of the northern state of Coahuila. Both of my parents grew up in the Westside of San Antonio, a Mexican barrio where everyone, it seemed, had a connection to Mexico. No one had a television, so our only music and news came from two local Spanish language radio stations.

Mexican barrios like ours and those in other U.S. cities were often called “Little Mexico.” In Dallas, for example, so many Mexican moved into the “Little Jerusalem,” a Jewish neighborhood, that after 1910 it soon became known as “Little Mexico.” But there was nothing little about our barrio in San Antonio, which the US Census estimated as the second largest Mexican American community in the United States after Los Angeles in 1960. Those from outside our barrio called us Mexican, and we referred to ourselves as “La Raza.”

There is much about what I saw and learned in my early years in San Antonio that reveals the extent of our Mexicanism. I grew up surrounded by a large extended family, and they influenced much of my early understanding of Latino culture and society. My “Tio Pancho” was one such influencer.

Kerr Hill Auto Parts owned by Francisco Saenz. 1940s. [R. Romo Family photos]

My uncle, [Tio] Francisco “Pancho” Saenz, came to the United States at the age of 18 with his sister, Maria Romo, and his brother in law, Benito Romo, from the Sabinas region of Coahuila. The three immigrated in 1913 crossing into the United States at the Eagle Pass international border.

Tio Pancho initially worked as a farm laborer, but found a job in a garage as a young man when the family moved to San Antonio. With his savings, Tio Pancho bought his own garage and auto parts store in 1937. Tio Pancho was a frequent “guest DJ” with KCOR. On the radio he told stories about serving in the Mexican Revolution, catching huge fish in the Gulf of Mexico, and knowing the latest juicy stories about Mexican movie stars and popular singers.

Tio Pancho--”El Gavilan Pescador,” loved fishing and hunting and enjoyed telling his fishing stories on the local Spanish-language radio. [R.Romo family photos]

“Tio Pancho” was a popular fellow in our Westside barrio. From the mid 1930s to the time of his death in 1965, he had one of the few Mexican-owned auto parts sales and repair shops in the city. He had radio time on the only Mexican station in town. His sister Maria was one of the most respected midwives in the barrio. His brother Cruz owned a popular night club “El Gaucho” across the street from Tio Pancho’s auto shop on El Paso Street and his younger brother Martin owned several fried chicken drive-inns.

If my grandmother and her brothers believed in the American Dream, they didn’t say. If the American Dream meant being financially successful, creating their own businesses, buying a home, and raising children who attended school, they more than lived this dream.

Although they gave up on returning to Mexico, they never gave up on their idea that family was the Mexican way. My grandmother and her two brothers helped bring my great grandmother, Estefana Cardenas, to the United States. She lived next door to her son’s auto parts store, five houses from her daughter’s home, and across the street from her younger son’s night club.

Today, the auto parts store, Kerr Hill Auto Parts, continues in its 83rd year with the help of Tio Pancho’s son Frank, his wife Vicki, and their son Frankie, They moved the store one block south to Guadalupe Street where they have a larger lot for the garage and auto repair business. These are tough times for small family businesses, and the fourth generation has no interest in keeping the business active after the son, wife and grandson of Tio Pancho retire.

Frank Saenz, Jr., [center] son of Francisco Saenz, with cousins Robert Romo, left— and Ricardo Romo [R] . [R.Romo family photos 2015]

Tio Pancho’s family story is one of many from this Westside barrio. This family did not have strong long-term ties to Mexico, but managed to bring some Mexicanism to San Antonio via their radio experience and interaction with other Mexican customers and family members. All continued to speak Spanish, and Maria Romo, the midwife, learned very little English as nearly all of her clients spoke Spanish.

Tio Pancho’s family contributed to the Mexican American experience, as did thousands of other first generation Mexicanos in the United States. They passed on Mexican values of strong family ties, a respect for hard work and entrepreneurship, an appreciation for being bilingual in Spanish and English, and the importance of higher education.

This post is a really good followup to my earlier post today titled, "Today It’s Critical Race Theory. 200 Years Ago It Was Abolitionist Literature. The common denominator? Fear of Black liberation." As University of Texas UT History Professor Monica Muñoz Martinez notes, curricular censorship has a deep history in our state that attaches closely to the legacy struggle for the teaching of Mexican American Studies in our schools.

Dr. Muñoz Martinez also explicates House Bill 3979 that passed during the regular legislative session. She also weighs in on its "cleaned up" version Senate Bill 3 (HB 178) from our Special Legislative Session that wraps up soon.  This version removes helpful amendments put forward by democrats in the regular session.

It's possible that Gov. Abbott will call another special session in hopes that democrats make their way back to Texas from Washington so that he and conservative legislators can move forward with their nefarious agenda to disenfranchise the students through curricular censorship and residents of our state through voter suppression.  

White supremacy is the through line, the thread that connects the past to the present. White legislators say that they're not racist. However their rhetoric is empty since they are not anti-racist, opposing racist policies and practices. There is no neutral ground here because policies are inescapably reflective of power relations and imbalances of society, imbalances that find expression in the race and gender makeup of a legislature that allows one race-gender group to rule over the others.

Yes, it all connects, and the solution is always more diversity and inclusion and most especially, more democracy. Not less.

Great job, Dr. Muñoz Martinez! 

We need all our historians to speak up!

-Angela Valenzuela

The Push for Lesson-Burning in Texas Classrooms Comes as No Shock to Those in the Long Fight for Mexican American Studies

by Monica Muñoz Martinez |  Education, Race/Ethnicity - Women's Media Center 7/20/21

When a right-wing policy group recently tweeted last month a list of 21 phrases for detecting Critical Race Theory (CRT), the backlash was so strong that it was soon removed. The tweet, however, is part of a long campaign to preserve the myths of white supremacy and to squash truth, accuracy, and the right to a quality education.

The post by the Texas Public Policy Foundation was on the heels of Republican legislators passing in the Lone Star State a bill known as HB 3979. Signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, HB 3979 includes provisions to rewrite social studies requirements, undermines diversity and inclusion trainings, dictates how teachers can talk about the history of racism and slavery, and prohibits schools from accepting private funding for professional or curriculum development.

When HB 3979 was being debated this past spring, more than 200 historians, myself included, released an open letter, warning that the bill would leave students in Texas without an understanding of how race and gender have shaped U.S. laws and policies. Therefore, they would be deliberately misinformed and academically disadvantaged.

HB 3979 dictates that “with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.” On principle, most people would agree that slavery and racism are moral failures in U.S. history. But what this provision does is dictate how history can be interpreted. It prohibits teachers from discussing topics such as how white supremacy has impacted U.S. history, systemic racism, or the long legacies of slavery and xenophobia. The law also bans teaching the award-winning 1619 project , making it clear that legislators aim to censor factually-based interpretations of history. Instead, teachers will be forced to discuss slavery and racism as marginal to U.S. history.

These restrictions are a muzzle. They make it impossible to truthfully teach about the Texas Declaration of Independence, the Texas Constitution, and the writings and speeches of founding figures, like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, who were guided by their racial antipathy towards Indigenous, Mexican, and Black people.

In Texas, this campaign to further obscure the roots of slavery and racism was evident in a special legislative session earlier this month. Republican legislators doubled down by proposing HB 178 ( SB3 in the Senate ). This bill would remove amendments added to HB 3979 by Texas House Democrats that mandated students learn the centuries-old history of white supremacy and, unequivocally, that white supremacy is “morally wrong.” HB 178 also struck through mandates for students to learn about federal legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Indian Removal Act , and landmark civil rights cases like Mendez v Westminster and Hernandez v Texas.

These efforts to gag teachers reflect a long agenda of fostering inequity through public schools. In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny, the belief that white Americans were ordained by God to dominate North America, became the basis for violently displacing Indigenous, Mexican, and Chinese people in the U.S. west. This embrace of racial superiority was used to justify wars, craft laws, and shape institutions like public education. The history of how white Americans conquered the West and of events like the Alamo were whitewashed and taught to students as a narrative of progress that erased or celebrated genocidal violence, colonization, and slavery. It depicted white men as noble heroes and all others as enemies of Anglo civilization .

Public schools in the late 19th and early 20th century were a tool of colonization and conquest. Indigenous children were ripped from their parents and placed in boarding schools, an act of violence we have yet to remedy. In Texas, laws forbid Black students from benefiting from school funds there and lawmakers targeted Mexican escuelitas, local community schools that were both bilingual and bicultural. Lawmakers passed “English Only” laws to prohibit teaching in Spanish, and they segregated schools.

Texas-Mexican journalists criticized Anglo politicians and landowners for denying civil rights and for relegating Mexican Americans to cheap labor. One article in 1910 charged that Anglos were excluding Mexican children from schools and trying to create an ignorant class. Journalists also warned that Anglo vigilantes and law enforcement were using violence to try to “condemn the Mexicans to a condition of beasts of burden.”

Laredo journalist, suffragist, and teacher Jovita Idar , in particular, took personal risks advocating for racial justice . In 1914, when El Progreso newspaper caught the attention of Texas governor Oscar Branch Colquitt for its criticism of him, he ordered the Texas Rangers to shut it down. In defiance, Idar refused to allow the Rangers into the offices of the paper. The Rangers returned the next day and destroyed El Progreso’s printing press.

During the Civil Rights movement—over 50 years after Idar stood up to the Rangers—Mexican American students in cities from Los Angeles to Houston and rural towns like Crystal City and Uvalde walked out of schools calling for desegregation, an end to corporal punishment for speaking Spanish in schools, more representation in faculty and administrations, and for their history to be reflected in curriculum. Now, at a time when more accurate accounts of history are becoming mainstream, supporters of HB 3979 and other “lesson-burning” bills are wildly claiming that students are being taught “ a souped-up version of Marxism,” or lessons that shame white people . Teachers who follow guidelines that have been outlined by professional organizations and the Texas State Board of Education are being dangerously misrepresented as “indoctrinating” students. This right-wing agenda to control how history is taught in public schools is predictably stoking fear. Some groups are making it alarmingly easy for parents to “report” teachers or schools that might be teaching Critical Race Theory. They are not encouraging parents to share concerns with school administrators, but to, instead, submit reports to the same groups that are fear-baiting and stirring misguided anger around CRT and so much more.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation listed a sweeping set of “buzz” terms for CRT that included colonization, ally, identity, social justice, and equity, diversity, and inclusion. The graphic it posted made it abundantly transparent that the agenda here is to target diversity and inclusion programs , stifle conversation about social justice, white privilege, and systemic racism, and track even the mention of Black Lives Matter in schools. Any professional historian would know that it is impossible to teach topics like the American Revolution, slavery, westward expansion, Jim Crow, women’s suffrage, World War II, or the history of Civil Rights movement without using at least one of the falsely flagged terms.

We’ve seen this playbook before. Opponents of CRT are parroting the hysteria of politicians in 2010 that accused Mexican American studies courses of encouraging students to “hate” America and of promoting racism against white Americans. This was followed by Arizona politicians outlawing Mexican American studies, only to have a federal judge rule that the law violated students constitutional rights because both “ enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus.” The frenzy now is around trying to keep these histories out of any classroom, not just ethnic studies.

While the damage of HB 3979 will be far-reaching, we cannot overlook the threat to Mexican American and African American studies in Texas and elsewhere. Since the 1960s , students, parents, and historians have demanded that school districts offer ethnic studies courses in K-12 grades, in large part because the contributions of Mexican American, African Americans, Asian American, and Indigenous peoples in Texas were made absent in school lessons. The benefits have gone far beyond historical accuracy. Research has shown that students who take Mexican American studies courses are more likely to graduate and pass standardized tests , are more civically engaged, and even develop more self-confidence.

In Texas, Mexican American Studies and African American studies courses are approved by the State Board of Education. And that’s the way it should have remained, instead of state lawmakers passing legislation to revise curriculum standards .

When HB 3979 becomes law on Sept 1st, students in Texas will lose out on a quality education and teachers and school administrators will most likely feel the wrath of parents that have been intentionally misled. They will also carry the unjust burden of having to defend the basic principle of teaching the truth, as we are already seeing .

As University of North Texas Professor Amanda Vickery states about House Bill 2497 that establishes the "Texas 1836 Project" when Texas became a republic—an act leading to the 1848 War—“It’s about reasserting whiteness and focusing on when white people ‘founded’ this state,” she said. 

Not only "founded," I might add, but "waged war against," "settled," and "occupied" Texas, illustrating well how "occupation" is an on-going imperialist political project. 

Like anti-CRT bill HB 3979, this is what scared settler colonialism looks and acts like. It's an ongoing attempt at historical erasure of Native Americans, on the one hand, and the crafting of a national myth of origins, by asserting a "beginning" that represents the shortest part of our history. 

Please call whoever represents you and ask them to not support either bill.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas lawmaker pushes for creation of 1836 Project to promote ‘patriotic education’

A Dallas-area representative wants to establish a committee to ‘increase awareness of the Texas values.’

Rep. Tan Parker filed a bill to establish the 1836 Project, a committee that would promote "patriotic education" across the state.(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)

By Talia Richman

6:22 AM on Mar 3, 2021

A Texas lawmaker wants to promote “patriotic education” across the state.

So Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) filed legislation Monday that would establish the 1836 Project, a committee “to promote patriotic education and increase awareness of the Texas values that continue to stimulate boundless prosperity across this state.”

The effort evokes the 1776 Commission pitched by former President Donald Trump, who called for a “pro-American curriculum” during his unsuccessful reelection bid.

Trump pushed for the 1776 Commission after The New York Times’ 1619 Project — named for the year in which the first enslaved Africans were brought to the Virginia colony — that sought to reframe American history around slavery’s consequences and the contributions of Black people. It’s been incorporated into some schools’ social studies lessons as educators help students grapple with the country’s legacy of racism.

But it triggered a firestorm among conservatives, including Trump, who said it taught children that America was “founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.”

Parker insists his legislation is unrelated and is “exclusively about celebrating Texas.”

His project is named in commemoration of the year Texas gained its independence from Mexico and was filed just before the state’s Independence Day.

“Throughout recent years, we have witnessed the destruction of historical monuments as many attempt to rewrite the past,” Parker said in a news release. “Many of our children are taught to denounce Texas history and do not understand what it means to be a virtuous citizen.”

Asked to elaborate on such instances in an interview, Parker said the bill was more about being “proactive” and protecting Texas history.

Many jurisdictions across the country have taken steps to remove statues honoring Confederate figures, slave owners and those who upheld racist policies. After George Floyd’s death in police custody sparked a national movement, that issue took on new urgency for many people.

The 1836 Project would seek to raise awareness about key events in the state’s history, including the Texas War for Independence, the annexation of Texas by the United States and Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 that federal troops landed in Galveston to inform enslaved people of their freedom.

The committee would create a pamphlet — to be handed out along with a driver’s license — describing that history and the way Texas fosters “liberty and freedom for businesses and families.”

The committee would also be empowered to craft other reports, which Parker would want published on the Texas Education Agency’s website.

Amanda Vickery, a social studies and race in education professor at the University of North Texas, questioned the decision to zero in on 1836, which she said erases the Indigenous communities who were already in the state.

“It’s about reasserting whiteness and focusing on when white people ‘founded’ this state,” she said.

She also questioned who would serve on such a commission and whether they would have appropriate credentials. Parker’s bill states that the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House would each appoint three members.

“It’s clearly going to be a political commission,” Vickery said.

Parker said his bill was not about politics but “is about making certain we protect our history and share it with future generations.”

Richard McCaslin, a University of North Texas professor of Texas history, said the three men selecting committee members are “from one party, one political perspective and one demographic.” That makes him question what principles they will choose to focus on for the commission.

Texas history already is baked into the social studies standards set by the state education board.

In elementary school, students are expected to learn about patriotic symbols and customs. They are supposed to be able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States and the Pledge to the Texas Flag. In fourth grade, their history classes delve into “the history of Texas from the early beginnings to the present,” according to state standards.

They return to the subject with more depth in seventh grade, diving into major historical events that shaped Texas.

Parker said his bill goes a step further. It calls for the committee to advise state agencies on how to ensure “patriotic education is provided to the public” at state parks, museums and landmarks.

“Civic education should not be limited to the classroom,” he said.

While Gov. Greg Abbott was not involved with crafting this bill, he made bolstering civics curriculum a legislative priority for the session

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.

This is a Proud Moment for the MALC, Our Community, and Democracy

I'm really impressed with our Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) members that have gracefully and righteously weathered the hateful and violent vitriol that Rep. Matt Rinaldi spewed out with his threatening words.  If you have any doubts about this, check out the MALC press conference video and listen to them speak, one by one.  They share not just what happened, but also how disgusted they were with Rinaldi as, in effect, characterizing all Mexicans as illegal and engaged in illegal activity when all we, as protesters were doing, was exercising our First Amendment right to protest.

So yes, several MALC members reacted strongly, but never to the actual point of violence or fisticuffs.  What do you expect when Rinaldi is one of the reasons why the legislative session lacked civility and decorum?  A reporter even asked if this means whether the system is "broken."  Legislators unflinchingly, if generously, responded that Rinaldi is the one that's "broken" and that most members get along even if they don't always agree.  

A better question may be how they exercise such incredible restraint in environments like the legislature where deep-seated racism, sexism, and homophobia permeate with such license and entitlement.  It sure isn't easy...

I heard a great NPR interview of Minnesota Senator Al Franken this afternoon where he shared his version of the "Serenity Prayer":

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot legislate, the courage to legislate the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, and the patience to explain that difference to my donors. ... It is exactly true.

Such great wisdom and humor.  He has written a book and it's titled, "Al Franken: Giant of the Senate" (Twelve Books). Sounds like a fun read.  It's already a New York Times best seller.

My friends, this is a moment to step back and recommit, with intention, to light and faith, rather than to fretting, fear, or fear-mongering.  This is a proud moment for the MALC, our community, and democracy.  Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

Do listen to the MALC press conference video to gain a better sense of what I mean.

We all owe ourselves an applause, a break from the extended, unrelenting beat of harmful, racist rhetoric and behavior, as well as a hard-earned right to a lot of self care.😊

Paz y bendiciones, peace and blessings everyone.  

P'alante!  Onward!

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

Heated immigration debate led to Texas lawmakers' scuffle

PAUL J. WEBER

Associated PressMay 30, 2017

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Texas House Rep. Poncho Nevarez of district 74 speaks about the altercation that he was involved on the house floor during the last day of session at the state Capitol in Austin Monday, May 29, 2017. A raucous end to a divisive Texas legislative session erupted Monday when a large protest over a “sanctuary cities” crackdown provoked a heated scuffle between lawmakers on the House floor. (Ricardo Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Hispanic Texas lawmaker who a Republican colleague threatened to shoot "in self-defense" after the Democrat pushed him said Tuesday that the altercation was a boiling point in a session where minority members were powerless to stop conservative legislation they say is discriminatory.Tensions erupted on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives on Monday when Republican state Rep. Matt Rinaldi told Democrats he called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents about demonstrators in the gallery holding signs that read "I am illegal and here to stay."

Hundreds of immigrant-rights activists — many of whom were Hispanic — had jammed the state Capitol on the final day before the Texas Legislature adjourned until 2019. Some came from as far as Arizona to protest a "sanctuary city" crackdown that will allow police starting September to ask people during routine stops whether they're in the U.S. legally.

Democratic state Rep. Poncho Nevarez did not deny pushing Rinaldi, who wrote on Facebook that he told Nevarez after being threatened that "I would shoot him in self-defense." Nevarez said he was "sick of" the attitudes toward Hispanics in the Legislature and was taking a stand.

"Another legislator sidled up to me yesterday and said, 'Those aren't Americans up there.'" said Nevarez, referring to the protesters in the gallery.
"I think there are some people in some moments that bring out racism. They want to believe that they're not racist because when they deal with me I'm one of the 'good' ones. But I'm just one of the folks up there," he said of the protesters.
A phone message left at Rinaldi's office was not returned Tuesday but GOP colleagues rebuked accusations of racism. Rinaldi wrote on Facebook that he was under the protection of state troopers.
"I think yesterday was the symptom of what's been a difficult, challenging and emotional session. No one has totally clean hands but what happened on the floor with the physical attack on Matt was beyond the pale," Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach said.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed the "sanctuary ban" known as SB4 this month, has stayed quiet over the skirmish and a spokesman did not return messages Tuesday. Nevarez said he wanted Abbott to come out and publicly say that Rinaldi calling immigration authorities was wrong.
A Democrat hasn't won a statewide office since 1994 — the nation's longest such political losing streak — frustrating a party that has seen the state's Hispanic population boom but hasn't had its electoral fortunes change. About 43 percent of Texas residents are white, while whites make up the majority of legislators.
The tensions flared at the end of the divisive session in Texas in which race was invoked in debates over immigration, voting rights, border security and policing. Among the bills sent to Abbott's desk are changes to a voter ID law that a federal judge has ruled was intentionally discriminatory. Another was the "Sandra Bland Act," named for a black woman who died in a Texas jail in 2015 following a confrontational traffic stop with a white state trooper. Bland's family were disappointed after police accountability measures were removed.
Democrat state Rep. Helen Giddings, who was first elected in 1992 and heads Texas' black legislative caucus, blamed politics, not race, for the tone of the session.
 "In my years in the Texas House I have never seen the kind of disrespect, intolerance, incivility that we are seeing in the Texas Legislature," Giddings said. "Intolerable, became acceptable. Behavior we had never thought of as acceptable became acceptable."___
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