Texas Lawmaker Says the Media Are Lying about His Education Bill

Steve Toth insists he is not trying to whitewash the stain of slavery in the United States.

Every Texas student, he says, needs to be taught about slavery and the many failures of Americans throughout history to live up to the country’s founding ideals.

Racism and its nefarious legacy should be discussed. Teachers should be allowed to explore the history of communism, Marxism, and “any kind of ism that you want to discuss,” he says. Students deserve a robust and even-handed discussion of sometimes divisive current events.

But where Toth, a Texas state representative, draws the line is proselytizing, indoctrination, weaponizing children with political agendas, and teaching kids that they bear responsibility for the misdeeds of others throughout history based on their sex or skin color.

That’s what Toth says he is fighting back against with House Bill 3979, which is nearing the finish line in this year’s Texas legislative session (the House and Senate are in the process of ironing out minor differences).

But reporting in the mainstream media gives a decidedly different spin on Toth’s bill.

A recent report by the New York Times declared that Texas is pushing to “obscure the state’s history of slavery and racism.” An MSNBC headline read “GOP pushing bill to ban teaching history of slavery.” the Huffington Post reported that Toth’s bill “effectively bans public school teachers from talking about racism, white supremacy or current news events.” An op-ed in the Washington Post said the aim of Toth’s bill is to keep white children ignorant.

In Toth’s view, the mainstream media are lying about what’s in his bill, and what the bill does.

“The facts are very clear, very explicit, we don’t ban, we don’t discourage the discussion of anything,” Toth says in an interview with National Review. “The response from the left is to lie, obfuscate, which is really sad. Because they are the ones discouraging an honest discussion.”

Toth, a businessman from the Houston suburbs, says the origin for his bill came from two directions. A few years back, he volunteered to teach American civics to immigrants studying for their citizenship exam. The vast majority passed on their first try, Toth says. But he was frustrated, knowing that most American students couldn’t pass that same exam.

Then, during the coronavirus pandemic, Toth says he started getting calls from parents who – because of distance learning – were getting a close look at what their children were being taught in school. He described it as a lot of “race-baiting and blaming.” He says he’s also gotten calls from several teachers who told him their jobs were threatened if they didn’t teach from a critical race theory perspective, promoting race-based discrimination to achieve equity.

“Teachers are in the crosshairs of critical race theory,” Toth says. “They’re reaching out to me to share examples of how they’re being threatened, that if they don’t teach critical race theory, they’re going to lose their job.”

So what, exactly, does House Bill 3979 say and do?

First, to develop each student’s civic knowledge, it requires students to have an understanding of “the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government,” as well as “the founding documents of the United States.”

Here’s where critics start taking aim: The bill also prohibits teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior,” that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive,” that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,” and that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” An amendment to the bill prohibits the teaching of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, which is based on critical race theory, and which has been assailed by critics as a factually flawed effort to reframe the nation’s founding around racism and slavery. According to the Times, Toth’s bill would limit how teachers can discuss racism in their classroom.

Toth, a vocal opponent of critical race theory and its Marxist origins, notes that his bill doesn’t actually mention critical race theory.

“If you’re saying to me, representative, the things in your bill don’t represent what critical race theory is, well, if it doesn’t say critical race theory, and critical race theory isn’t about any of the things in my bill, then what do you have to worry about?” Toth says.

In addition to prohibiting race- or sex-shaming, the bill says teachers can’t be compelled to discuss current events or controversial subjects, and if they do, they must, “to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.”

Simply put, don’t proselytize, Toth says.

“Talk about both sides of the issue,” Toth says. “What the left’s angry about, is … the fact that this bill precludes them from brainwashing our children.”

The bill also prohibits teachers from offering students credit for lobbying and political activism. According to the Huffington Post, the bill would “prevent students from participating in any kind of political activity as part of a civics or social studies course. The bill is written so broadly that it applies to students engaging in the most basic of civic activities, such as communicating with their own elected officials about a particular topic.”

But the bill doesn’t prevent students from being politically active or communicating with their elected leaders. That would be unconstitutional, Toth says. It just prohibits teachers from giving class credit for engaging in political activism.

“What it simply says is, you as a teacher can’t weaponize my child,” Toth says. “Not for the NRA, not for Planned Parenthood. Not for conservative values, not for liberal values. Not for a Democrat agenda, not for a Republican agenda.”

Toth points at a recent school-board election in the Fort Worth area as evidence he’s on the right track. Earlier this month, voters in the suburb of Southlake overwhelmingly elected a slate of candidates opposed to injecting critical race theory and anti-racist policies into the community’s schools.

Last summer, the Carroll Independent School District began a push to implement a 153-point anti-racist action plan developed by the district’s diversity council. Opponents of the plan said it would mandate social-justice training as a graduation requirement, deny due process to students accused of committing “microaggressions,” and indoctrinate kids with “extremely liberal beliefs.” Parents turned out to vote after they educated themselves about the school district’s efforts and about what critical race theory is, Toth says.

With his bill, he says, he’s simply trying to help “defend the values of Texas parents.”

“It’s ironic now that the left is complaining about it, when they’re the biggest purveyors of legislation overreach in the classroom,” he says. “We’re simply saying, we do not want classroom teachers and campus administrators to violate the values that parents are trying to instill in their children.”