In the Trump era, California\u2019s Democratic-led state government emerged as a kind of resistance government-in-waiting. State lawmakers passed some of the nation\u2019s strictest environmental protections, took steps to ensure universal access to health insurance and filed dozens of lawsuits against Trump administration policies.<\/p>\n
Now that the presidency has changed hands, the shoe is on the other foot. It\u2019s now Texas \u2014 the second-most-populous state in the country behind California, and by far the largest red state \u2014 that presents the starkest contrast to the White House.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, announced that Texas would stop allowing its residents to receive federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits. That comes a few weeks after Mr. Abbott drew President Biden\u2019s ire when he lifted the state\u2019s mask mandate in defiance of federal health guidelines.<\/p>\n
And in the State Legislature, controlled by Republicans, a number of bills proposed or passed in recent weeks \u2014 including rollbacks to abortion rights and new restrictions on voting \u2014 have rung out like a shot across the bow from the conservative movement.<\/p>\n
In a recent article, our national correspondent Simon Romero<\/strong> took a look at a different set of proposals making their way through the Texas Legislature that could shape the way future Texans see the world. Specifically, these bills seek to prevent the state\u2019s grade-school students from learning about the role of racism and slavery in Texas\u2019 history.<\/p>\n I caught up with Simon today to talk about what these bills are trying to accomplish, and what impact they might have \u2014 both in Texas and beyond.<\/p>\n Hi, Simon. The Texas Legislature has been getting a lot of attention recently for its push to <\/strong>restrict voting rights<\/strong>. But it is also engaged in an effort to essentially rewrite \u2014 or unwrite \u2014 parts of the state\u2019s history in grade-school curriculums. What\u2019s going on here?<\/strong><\/p>\n The bigger picture is that this has been one of the most hard-line sessions in recent memory in the Texas Legislature. Conservative lawmakers have done everything from enacting a near-complete ban on abortions to restricting voting access. But they\u2019ve also been focusing on other culture-war issues, like the teaching of Texas history, that are seen as important to their base.<\/p>\n Various pieces of proposed legislation that have made it through the Texas House would promote an essentially jingoistic approach to teaching state history. One of them could limit the ways in which teachers can explain how racist thinking in the 19th century influenced the drafting of laws. Another bill would create an \u201c1836 Project\u201d promoting what it calls \u201cpatriotic education\u201d about the state\u2019s history. This bill would look at creating displays in parks and museums and come up with a pamphlet to be given to anyone getting a Texas driver\u2019s license. Historians I spoke with expressed a lot of concern that this measure could gloss over the history of slavery and campaigns of anti-Mexican violence in Texas.<\/p>\n As you note in the story, because of Texas\u2019 size and influence, changes to school curriculums there can have a big effect on educational materials that circulate well beyond the state. How does that play out? And have we seen this happen in the past?<\/strong><\/p>\n Some of this has to do with the sheer size of Texas, which has more than 29 million people. Textbook publishers found it was more profitable to take a book crafted to appeal to Texas\u2019 State Board of Education and market it, largely unchanged, in other states, rather than write an entirely different textbook.<\/p>\n But this sway that Texas has in shaping what\u2019s taught in other parts of the country also reflects exceptionally assertive efforts by conservative activists in Texas to influence what goes into textbooks in the state. For instance, a textbook in California might explain that court rulings about the Second Amendment allowed for some regulations of gun ownership, while a similar textbook in Texas would just leave that space blank.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to note that Democrats in Texas have been making inroads to curb such practices. Several have won seats on the State Board of Education, and in 2018 they succeeded in introducing a Mexican-American studies curriculum.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just Texas\u2019 state government that is passing these kinds of laws to restrict the teaching of slavery and discrimination, right? Would it be accurate to say there\u2019s a broader movement afoot nationwide among conservative legislators, aimed at preventing schoolchildren from learning about the role of racism in American history?<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely. This is happening in Republican-controlled legislatures around the country. Lawmakers in states including Louisiana and New Hampshire have introduced similar bills that would essentially limit or even prohibit teaching about the legacies of slavery and segregationist policies that endure to this day.<\/p>\n But the Texas Legislature has taken things a lot further by looking specifically at the year 1836, when Texas seceded from Mexico, and at ways to bolster different Texas creation myths. The trouble with this approach is that it could open up a can of worms when people start looking at the reasons slaveholders in Texas fomented a revolt against Mexico, then explicitly legalized chattel slavery in a vast region where slavery had been prohibited by Mexico seven years earlier.<\/p>\n One measure being debated in Texas would also ban discussions of certain kinds of current events, and another would make much volunteer work related to social justice ineligible for school credit. Can you describe these policies, and what impact they might have on the way students are taught?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess as to how these policies might look in practice. I\u2019ve been in touch with teachers in Texas who are really just trying to figure this out. Democrats tried to amend one of the bills to require teaching of the Jan. 6 insurrection, but Republicans shot down that proposal. Some of the language in the bills is pretty specific, like prohibiting teachers from using The 1619 Project to discuss how slavery shaped U.S. history.<\/p>\n Teachers are also worried about how these measures might change how basic civics issues are taught. For instance, students would not be able to get course credit for volunteering with a civil rights group or advocating for the rights of immigrants. These are big issues in a state where nearly 70 percent of children under 18 are people of color. Imagine you\u2019re the child of immigrants and you want to learn more about ways to protect your family in the American legal system. This could have a chilling effect on the ways teachers try to reach a lot of their students.<\/p>\n New York Times Podcasts<\/p>\n On today\u2019s episode, Ezra was joined by James Forman Jr., a professor of law at Yale Law School and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u201cLocking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.\u201d<\/p>\n They discussed how violent crime continues to rise in the U.S., creating a crisis on two levels: the toll it takes on people and communities, and the way it can lead to more punitive, authoritarian and often racist policies. The challenge, they say, is how to stop crime while also reforming policing and criminal justice.<\/p>\nThe Ezra Klein Show: Violent crime is spiking. Do liberals have an answer?<\/h2>\n