Texas Board of Education approves controversial new high school curriculum tying radical Islam to 9/11 attacks

The Texas Board of Education gave final approval to changes to the state’s high school social studies curriculum, a controversial move that will impact how students are taught about Islam and Christianity.The amended social studies curriculum, which covers US history, government and world geography, comes after dozens of people gave public testimony, with most expressing their opposition to the finalized version.The board approved language asserting that “radical Islam” motivated the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks rather than taking a more narrow focus on the terrorist groups involved in the attack.The material also requires students to study early Islam through Prophet Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes,” the “normalization of slavery” and the taking of female captives as “harem slaves.”Several Democratic State Board of Education members pushed back against the wording, but the Republican-majority board still approved that section and the other changes on Friday.Muslim groups and students, as well as multiple curriculum experts, also spoke out against the new changes.“I feel attacked, as if my religion doesn’t belong,” Habiiba Quresh, a 15-year-old Muslim student, told the board, according to The Texas Tribune.

“I shouldn’t have to defend my religion in the middle of history class because of one sentence someone on this board wrote.”At least three of the board-appointed curriculum experts also warned against the new language.Andrea Hutchison, a social studies curriculum coordinator for Prosper ISD, argued the material did not “hold up to close historical scrutiny,” according to the outlet.Robert Koons, a philosophy professor at UT-Austin, said most nonreligious scholars find the source of the claims “not very reliable,” adding that he would warn against including material that is “not based on well-established secular sources.”The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Isla...