Mike Lawler slams Mamdani administration’s influencer network
Rep. Mike Lawler appeared on “Saturday in America” to address reports that a local administration is cultivating a network of social media influencers to help advance its agenda. The New York Republican also weighed in on how such policies are affecting business owners in his state and discussed his bipartisan proposal to require schools nationwide to teach the history of 9/11.
The Texas Board of Education has granted final approval to revisions in the state’s high school social studies standards, adopting changes that have drawn sharp debate over how Islam and Christianity will be presented in classrooms.
The updated curriculum, which spans U.S. history, government and world geography, was finalized after extensive public testimony. Dozens of speakers addressed the board, with most urging members to reject the version ultimately approved.
Among the most disputed additions is language stating that “radical Islam” was the motivation behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, rather than wording that would more specifically identify the terrorist organizations responsible.
The standards also direct students to examine early Islam through references to Prophet Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes,” the “normalization of slavery” and the taking of female captives as “harem slaves.”
The Texas Board of Education has finalized changes to the state’s high school social studies curriculum. (iStock)
Several Democratic members of the State Board of Education objected to the phrasing, but the Republican-controlled board voted Friday to approve that section along with the broader package of curriculum changes.
Muslim advocacy organizations, students and multiple curriculum specialists also criticized the revisions, warning that the language could shape classroom instruction in ways they consider inaccurate or inflammatory.
“I feel attacked, as if my religion doesn’t belong,” Habiiba Quresh, a 15-year-old Muslim student, told the board, according to The Texas Tribune. “I shouldn’t have to defend my religion in the middle of history class because of one sentence someone on this board wrote.”
At least three of the board-appointed curriculum experts also warned against the new language.
The board approved language asserting that “radical Islam” motivated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks rather than taking a more narrow focus on the terrorist groups involved in the attack. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Andrea Hutchison, a social studies curriculum coordinator for Prosper ISD, argued the material did not “hold up to close historical scrutiny,” according to the outlet. Robert Koons, a philosophy professor at UT-Austin, said most nonreligious scholars find the source of the claims “not very reliable,” adding that he would warn against including material that is “not based on well-established secular sources.”
The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the board’s decision to “single out and denigrate Islam, minimize the brutal realities of slavery and segregation, and entirely erase Palestinian history is an affront to our system of education and the First Amendment.”
“No credible scholar of history validates the bigoted caricatures of Islam this curriculum teaches,” CAIR Texas and CAIR Action Texas said in a joint statement. “Even the board’s own appointed experts warned it doesn’t hold up to historical scrutiny, yet the board voted against removing it. Texas students of every background deserve an education that tells the truth about their history and their neighbors’ history, not propaganda that teaches them to see each other as threats or erases them from the story altogether.”
Muslim groups and students, as well as multiple curriculum experts, spoke out against the new changes. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
State Board of Education Chair Aaron Kinsey pushed back on criticism of the revised standards, saying opponents had “sensationalize[d] all these topics and [made] them seem more divisive than they actually are.” He added that board members “worked through, democratically, how to make those choices on behalf of our constituents” and said he believed they “did an exceptional job overall.
But Republican school board member Julie Pickren boasted about the material’s final approval, according to Fox 7.
“This social studies law that got us here, I’ve been working on for over 10 years with the House and the Senate, the Texas House and Texas Senate … and so this is such a huge accomplishment; this vote kind of bookends 12 years of life’s work,” Pickren said.
The approved curriculum is expected to be phased into classrooms during the 2030-31 school year.
