{"id":431691,"date":"2026-09-10T12:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431691\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:20:17","slug":"texas-u-s-history-curriculum-will-only-mention-islam-in-relation-to-terrorism-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431691\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas U.S. History Curriculum Will Only Mention Islam in Relation to Terrorism \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hanifa Nayeemuddin, a high school sophomore, told the Texas State Board of Education about her experience as a Muslim student growing up in Texas during a public hearing on the new public high school history curriculum standards on Monday, Aug. 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cA girl from public school \u2026 saw my mom wearing a hijab and asked me, \u2018Are you Muslim?\u2019 And I said \u2018Yes.\u2019 And then she asked me, \u2018Are Muslims terrorists?\u2019\u201d Nayeemuddin recalled. \u201cI was 11 years old. \u2026 Before I could even respond, her mom yelled at her not to associate with people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why the way we teach about Islam and Muslims matters,\u201d Nayeemuddin emphasized to the board members.<\/p>\n

During the public hearing, Nayeemuddin and multiple others noted that Islam is solely mentioned in U.S. history curriculum as \u201cradical Islam,\u201d in relation to the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy. \u201cThink about what that means for a student,\u201d Nayeemuddin pressed. \u201cThe only time they learn about Muslims is when they\u2019re learning about terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite hearing criticism from dozens of educators, students, and historians that the standards contain historical gaps, anti-Islam bias, and potential inaccuracies, the Republican-majority SBOE voted on Friday, Sept. 4 to adopt<\/a> the revised U.S. and world history, geography, and financial literacy curriculum standards, called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), to be taught in Texas public high schools starting the 2030-31 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a state of 30 million people. It has tons of social studies expertise. Virtually none of it was reflected in the TEKS revision process, and that\u2019s a waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Brookins<\/p>\n

The revised standards and agenda for the week\u2019s meetings were not publicized<\/a> by the SBOE until Aug. 24. That only gave parents a week to review the curriculum in time to give feedback to the board, Carisa Lopez of the Texas Freedom Network told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our big concerns is the complete lack of transparency around the process,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cHow is the public, how are parents supposed to be able to weigh in on this process?\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Brookins, a doctor of American history with the American Historical Association, told the Chronicle after the SBOE\u2019s vote that she believes the final version of the history standards are \u201cinadequate to support students\u2019 intellectual development.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standards may not meet the Texas Education Agency\u2019s own learning requirements for College Career and Military Readiness, which are listed in Texas Education Code as required by the state, Brookins said. They may also not be aligned with Senate Bill 3<\/a>, which requires education on the history of civic participation, she added.<\/p>\n

\"\"Republican Texas State Board of Education members held a press conference inside of the Barbara Jordan State Office Building on Aug. 31 Credit: Sammie Seamon<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t give them enough practice in civil discourse, examining multiple perspectives, engaging with evidence, source criticism, and in information literacy skills,\u201d Brookins explained, referring to CCMR requirements.<\/p>\n

Another major change from the previous standards is the replacement of verbs like \u201cevaluate and analyze,\u201d with now asking students to simply \u201cname, list, describe, or locate\u201d historical facts, Brookins added, which \u201clowers the rigor\u201d of Texas social studies courses.<\/p>\n

Fawaz Usmani, who also testified before the board on Monday, noted the TEKS lack any historical contributions of Muslim cultures and scholars, while Islam is the only world religion that\u2019s connected to slavery in the curriculum.<\/p>\n

He pointed to one world history standard<\/a> that asks Texas students to, \u201cExplain early Islam in terms of the Prophet Mohammed\u2019s brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could also call the slavery that happened in America as \u2018Christian slavery,\u2019 even though I feel like that\u2019s really unfair,\u201d Usmani said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t get why one standard is applied to Islam, and one standard is applied to Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standards also contain large gaps in both world and U.S. history, Meghan Dougherty, a social studies curriculum developer who gave early feedback on the drafted TEKS, told us.<\/p>\n

The Black Power and Chicano movements, along with several aspects of the civil rights movement, have been largely removed from the previous U.S. history standards. Latin America, Asia, and Africa are largely taught through the context of how they \u201ccontributed to the development of Western civilization\u201d in world history, Dougherty said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s maybe 70% or 80% on European history [versus] the rest of the world,\u201d Dougherty emphasized. \u201cKids are just going to walk out of these courses with a very distorted worldview and understanding of how history progressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standard about \u201charem slaves\u201d is the only time women are even mentioned in the world history course, Dougherty added. \u201cApparently, the state board believes that the only significant impact or influence of women in all of world history were of concubines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last major overhaul of the K-12 social studies TEKS was in 2010, Brookins reminded us \u2013 it\u2019s not a common occurrence. A major fault of the 2026 curriculum review, Brookins reflected, was that the SBOE\u2019s process \u201cdidn\u2019t draw on the state\u2019s real expertise\u201d on the subject matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a state of 30 million people. It has tons of social studies expertise. Virtually none of it was reflected in the TEKS revision process, and that\u2019s a waste. That\u2019s a shame for students,\u201d Brookins pressed. \u201cIt was about politics leading up to an election that\u2019s in two months. It was not about what students are going to need to know in 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article appears in September 11 \u2022 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hanifa Nayeemuddin, a high school sophomore, told the Texas State Board of Education about her experience as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1551,60254],"class_list":["post-431691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-feature","tag-sboe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}