DALLAS — Education and civil rights groups are forming a coalition to beat back censorship in Texas public schools and oppose book bans.
The Teach the Truth campaign aims to educate community members on how to testify at school board meetings, pressure state representatives and organize against attempts to limit what’s taught in classrooms.
“We come to you with a renewed sense of urgency,” Texas Freedom Network director Val Benavidez said during a launch event Tuesday morning. “At this very moment in Texas, the stories of diverse communities are being taken from the shelves of school libraries, and the truthful history of our state and nation is being erased from public school lesson plans.”
Lessons about LGBT people and the United States’ history of racism have been in the crosshairs of Republican state leaders. The Legislature passed two bills targeting critical race theory, an academic framework that probes the way policies and laws uphold systemic racism.
Conservative pundits have conflated it with a wide swath of schools’ diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. They argue that it makes children feel bad about their race and is divisive. But educators have long pushed back, insisting it is not taught in K-12 schools.
Equality Texas director Ricardo Martinez said opponents of critical race theory have fabricated a moral panic.
Republican state leaders have also labeled some books with LGBT characters as “pornographic” and pressured districts to scrutinize their libraries for such titles as well as many that deal with race. Conservative parents have flooded districts with requests to remove such books — with some success.
Gov. Greg Abbott wrote letters late last year to state education officials directing them to develop new standards for library books.
“A growing number of parents of Texas students are rightfully outraged about highly inappropriate books and other content in public school libraries,” he wrote. “The most disturbing cases include material that is clearly pornographic, which has absolutely no place in the Texas public education system.”
The groups involved in the new coalition — which includes the Children’s Defense Fund, Human Rights Campaign and Texas AFT — say books with diverse characters are necessary to reflect students’ experiences back to them while also exposing children to different realities.
“A book in this moment is not only a friend to children, it’s a lifeline,” said Michelle Castillo, deputy director of advocacy at the Intercultural Development Research Association. “It’s a liberation manual. It’s a reminder that we are not alone in these bleak times.”
A middle school student was also featured on the panel, saying that children deserve to have a voice in their education.
“This generation is the future of our nation,” said Avital, an 11-year-old. “We deserve to hear the truth about our history so we aren’t doomed to repeat it.”
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