The Texas State Board of Education is expected to vote Friday in Austin on high school social studies standards that require students to study early Islam through military campaigns and slavery, and to learn that Christian tenets shaped Western civilization, America and Texas.
KERA reported the 15-member board has been meeting all week on the last high school Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills updates after finishing K-8 changes this summer. The board has 10 Republicans and five Democrats and is expected to pass the package. CBS Austin said the high school standards, if approved, would take effect in the 2033-34 school year.
According to KERA, the proposed lessons would have students “explain early Islam in terms of the Prophet Mohammed’s brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.” They would also tie the Sept. 11 attacks to “radical Islam” rather than naming specific groups. The same draft requires students to understand “that important tenets of Christianity during the time of the Roman empire influenced Western Civilization, America, and Texas.”
PRESS RELEASE: Texas SBOE Adopts New Social Studies Standards and Required Literature Reading List ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w3g3havanA
— Texas State Board of Education (@TXSBOE) June 27, 2026
The board earlier dropped a standard on Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy, KERA and the Austin Chronicle reported. In June it approved K-8 social studies changes and a required reading list that includes Bible passages.
Public testimony this week split. Speaker Chuck Allmon told the board the United States is “a godly nation” and that students need to know “how evil Islam is,” KERA reported. High school student Hanifa Nayeemuddin urged the board not to use “radical Islam” as a blanket term. Bahia Amawi called the lessons discriminatory for portraying one faith positively and another negatively.
Supporters say the standards restore a civic and religious foundation. Critics, including some Muslim Texans and historians, say they caricature a world religion and sideline other cultures. The vote does not ban teaching those topics as electives; it decides what counts as required statewide knowledge.
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