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POLITICS
Texas Senate Passes Bill Removing the Teaching Requirement of the Ku Klux Klan by Hafsah Amjad
The recent passing of the Senate Bill 3 in Texas has raised a major controversy among the nation as the State Senate has declared the removal of the requirement for public school teachers to educate their students about the notorious Ku Klux Klan. The Senate Bill 3 made its way through the Republican - dominated Senate and passed 18 4 on Friday and is to become an official law this coming September. Along with the removal of the Ku Klux Klan, the Texas Senate also decided to remove other significant historical topics such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Susan B. Anthony's writings about the women's suffragist movement, and Native American history. This bill was seen as a recent follow up of House Bill 3979. The House Bill states that major civic documents revolving around major groups of people and their accomplishments should be taught amongst all public schools. It also clearly mentions that the “history of white supremacy” must be taught to students while highly emphasizing the numerous ways in which the white supremacists were morally wrong. With all of these points present in the House Bill, the Senate decided to remove them.
Bryan Hughes, a Republican State Senate, made a statement to Bloomberg Law explaining his belief of how a specific reading list of documents such as these don’t belong in law. He claimed that this would allow for teachers to not feel forced to discuss these “widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.”
