Texas public schoolchildren risk getting tainted with a pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias in their textbooks, according to a resolution the State Board of Education will consider next week that is likely to further inflame emotions already running high across the country.
UPDATE 9/23/10 NY Times: Mideast royal family of Dubai invested in Boston textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
UPDATE 9/25/10: Texas Board of Ed. passed resolution requiring publishers to drop "pro-Islam/anti-Christian bias"
UPDATE 9/24/10 - Board member interview video:
-- From "State board of ed considers Islam in textbooks" © 2010 The Associated Press 9/15/10
The State Board of Education plans to vote next week on a resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.
"Diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts," reads a preliminary draft of the resolution, which would not be binding on future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts.
The resolution concludes by warning publishers the "State Board of Education will look to reject future prejudicial social studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others."
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From "Board takes up books' take on religion" by Gary Scharrer, Austin Bureau, The Houston Chronicle 9/15/10
Lawrence Allen Jr., D-Houston, the board's only Muslim member, warned Wednesday that board approval of the resolution will bring more unwelcome national attention to Texas.
The resolution contends that current textbooks glorify Islam with "superlatives" while downsizing Christianity with "pejoratives."
Support for the resolution appears to be coming mainly from the board's seven social conservative members and reflects the same sort of tension evident when they developed new science curriculum standards last year and social studies curriculum standards earlier this year.
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