HOW TO FIGHT HOMEGROWN TERRORISM – NOT WITH MORE NEGATIVITY, BUT WITH POSITIVE OUTLOOKS AND EDUCATIONAL CHANGES
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
APRIL 23, 2017


SEE THE FOLLOWING THREE ARTICLES ON SOCIETAL PEACE AND SAFETY, AND TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK BEYOND THE DEBATABLE NEED FOR TRUMP’S “WALL.” THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARTICLE COMES SECOND, AND IT GOES INTO THE EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL MALADY THAT IS BEHIND HAVING THE DESIRE TO DO SOMETHING VIOLENT ON THE BASIS OF A PERSONAL DIFFERENCE. THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE, THIRD IN LINE, IS ABOUT THE PRIMARY WAYS THAT OUR AMERICAN EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAS HELD US BACK RATHER THAN ENABLING WHAT I CALL “A GOOD EDUCATION.” BY THAT TERM, I DO, UNASHAMEDLY, MEAN A "LIBERAL" EDUCATION WITH SOME HISTORY, LITERATURE, GENERAL SCIENCE, BIOLOGY, OTHER SCIENTIFIC SPECIALTIES, GOVERNMENT, PSYCHOLOGY, WRITING, A BASIC OFFICE SKILLS COURSE OR OTHER JOB PREPARATORY STUDY, INTRODUCTORY LOGIC, AND ETHICS. ANY RELIGION COURSE THAT A STUDENT TAKES SHOULD NOT BE AN ACCEPTABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ETHICS COURSE. THE JACKSONVILLE SCHOOLS HAVE AT LEAST ONE, AND PROBABLY MORE, SPECIALIZED SCHOOLS FOR THE TEACHING OF SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS, INCLUDING MEDICAL ASSISTANT WORK. IT IS A SHAME FOR KIDS TO GET OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL WITH NO PREPARATION FOR WORK, SINCE MANY OF THEM WILL NOT GET ANY FURTHER EDUCATION.

INTERESTINGLY, THE VERY “CONSERVATIVE” TEXAS STATE SCHOOL BOARD IS A MAJOR CULPRIT. IT HAS CAUSED US TO BE MORE LACKING IN BASIC THINKING AND STUDYING SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE OF HISTORY AND SCIENCE, AND EVEN A GOOD CRITICAL READING ABILITY, THE EMOTIONAL ABILITY REQUIRED TO THINK AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND WEIGH FACTORS TO COME TO THE APPARENT TRUTH, AND THE TENDENCY – CAREFULLY TRAINED IN BY THE “CONSERVATIVE” MAJORITY – TO BE CREDULOUS RATHER THAN BENIGN. ACCEPTING WHOLE CHAPTERS OF MATERIAL FROM THE BIBLE, QUOTED VERBATIM, WILL NOT PRODUCE A GOOD CITIZEN WHO IS GENTLE AND OPEN TO OTHERS, UNFORTUNATELY. IT IS A SHAME THAT THOSE CHARACTERISTICS SUCH AS FREEDOM OF THOUGHT ARE OUT OF FASHION AT THE MOMENT. IN THE EYES OF THE CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS AND ULTRA-RIGHTIST CHRISTIANS, THE PROBLEM WITH SUCH BEHAVIORS IS THAT A CITIZENRY OF THAT TYPE IS HARDER TO BROWBEAT AND CONFUSE, BY WHATEVER DEMAGOGUE WE HAPPEN TO ELECT.

IF THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO KNOW HOW TO DETECT AND STOP HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS, GO TO THE THINKING AND THE ACADEMIC STUDIES OF THOSE OF US ON THE LEFT – THE PROGRESSIVES. YOU CAN’T “CONTROL” A PERSON MERELY BY FORCE, BUT BY PERSUASION AND INCLUSION. WE NEED TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THOSE OF DIFFERENT PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS, RATHER THAN SHUNNING THEM. OUR LEADERS NEED TO USE THE POWER OF THE BULLY PULPIT TO TEACH THE MAJORITY GROUP AS WELL AS THE MINORITIES. THAT’S ONE OF THE INNOVATIVE THINGS THAT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT DID IN THE DAYS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. BERNIE SANDERS HAS DONE SOMETHING VERY SIMILAR, WHICH IS WHAT FIRST GOT MY ATTENTION AS A NEWS READER, AND THEN CONVINCED ME THAT HE’S THE LEADING VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS OF TODAY’S TORMENTED SOCIETY.

I WOULD ADD A COUPLE MORE THINGS AS WELL, SUCH AS STRENGTHENING GUN CONTROL RATHER THAN ELIMINATING IT; PUTTING THE ARTS INTO THE COMMUNITY LEVEL RATHER THAN SETTING THEM UP AS THE PRIVILEGE OF THE ELITE; TEACH KINDNESS, INCLUSIVENESS AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP IN THE SCHOOLS RATHER THAN BANNING THEM AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY BECAUSE THEY QUESTION “CONSERVATIVE” VALUES; TEACHING ENOUGH ABOUT OTHER RELIGIONS IN THE SCHOOLS TO CREATE AN INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF THEM, AND SOME LEVEL OF TOLERANCE FOR THEM; FORMING ACTIVE ORGANIZATIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND OTHERS IN THE COMMUNITIES SUCH AS GIRL SCOUTS AND ARTS PROGRAMS – SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES CAN DO THAT, AND IT WILL NOURISH THEIR BIBLE MEMORIZATION – IT WILL SHOW THEM WHAT THOSE VERSES ARE FOR, SO THAT THEY WILL UNDERSTAND THEM BOTH IN THEIR HEADS AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, IN THEIR HEARTS. “HUMANISM” ISN’T THE ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY, BUT THE INCORPORATION OF IT INTO THE INDIVIDUAL, FIRST, AND THEN THE SOCIETY.

THEN WE WILL HAVE VERY LITTLE “HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.” AND FINALLY, WE MUSTN’T FORGET THAT WHITES ARE INTO “TERRORISM,” ALSO. WHILE GUARDING AGAINST THE ISIS WEBSITES, PAY THE SAME KIND OF ATTENTION TO WHITE SUPREMACIST AND OTHER HATE SITES, SUCH AS BREITBART AND STORMFRONT. THOSE WHITE AND GENERALLY PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN “HATERS” ARE ALSO, TO A MAN, EQUALLY DISENGAGED FROM THE VIRTUOUS ELEMENTS OF OUR SOCIETY AND DRAWN TO THE VICIOUS AND THE DOGMATIC. MENTALLY HEALTHY PEOPLE ARE NOT DRAWN TO ABUSE AND HATRED. FOR MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, GO TO THE ACLU AND SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER, EVEN THE BLACK LIVES MATTER SITE. I READ THEIR STATEMENT ABOUT THEIR ORGANIZATION, AND IT MENTIONS NOTHING THAT INDICATES A HATRED OF OTHER RACES. WHAT THAT ORGANIZATION DOES IS MOBILIZE LARGE NUMBERS TO CONFRONT POLICE DEPARTMENTS OVER THE USELESS KILLING THAT HAS BEEN OCCURRING TOO OFTEN THESE LAST FEW YEARS. IT ISN’T A NEW PHENOMENON, BUT IS REPORTED IN NEWS ARTICLES MUCH MORE THAN WHEN I WAS YOUNG. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF HIGHLY REPULSED BY SUCH MATERIAL, LOOK DEEPLY INTO YOUR HEART AND MIND AND FIND OUT WHY.

ON THE PREVALENT EMPHASIS ON ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE VALUES IN SCHOOL BOOKS AND CURRICULA, GO TO THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE BELOW. THIS WHOLE SUBJECT ISN’T NEW EITHER. I REMEMBER HOW CERTAIN TOPICS WERE WHITEWASHED IN MY HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS. TRUTH IS HARD TO COME BY.


ON THE IMMEDIATE TERRORIST THREAT, SEE JOHN KELLY’S COMMENTS BELOW.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-secretary-john-kelly-on-homegrown-terror-i-dont-know-how-to-stop-that/
By KATHRYN WATSON CBS NEWS April 23, 2017, 12:18 PM
DHS secretary on homegrown terror: “I don't know how to stop that"

WASHINGTON -- Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said he doesn’t know how to stop “homegrown terrorists,” despite saying that the homegrown threat is the “most common” threat facing the U.S.

“There are so many aspects to this terrorist thing,” Kelly said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “Obviously you got the homegrown terrorists. I don’t know how to stop that. I don’t know how to detect that. You got other terrorist threats that come across the border.”

DHS Secretary Kelly says you should "probably" take Trump "at his word" on Dreamers
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DHS Secretary Kelly says you should "probably" take Trump "at his word" on Dreamers

“I believe in the case of the murder -- in the Paris shooting I believe he was homegrown,” Kelly continued. “But, again, there are so many threats that come in from across border. And it’s essential absolutely to control one’s border.”

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, made the comments in response to a question about what the U.S. can learn from the deadly shooting on Paris’ Champs-Elysees last week for which the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility.

When pressed on the administration’s ability to handle homegrown terrorism, Kelly reiterated that it is a “big threat.” He also again circled back to threats related to border security, a central tenet of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“It is a big problem,” Kelly said. “It is -- you know, depending on where you sit is where you stand on this, It is a big threat. Is it the number one threat? I think it’s the most common threat. Unfortunately there are other similar-type terrorist threats that could come from outside the border. You know, the C.I.A., N.S.A., all the great men and women of D.O.D. are doing a great job keeping them away from the homeland.”

“The appeal I would make on the homegrown threat is if you see something, say something,” he said. “Whether you’re a parent, a sibling, an imam. And this extends frankly... to white supremacists and that kind of terrorism as well. If you see a young man or a young woman going down that path where they’re always on these kind [sic] of websites or saying things at church or in a mosque that are clearly disturbing, then tell someone about it so that we can help that kid, young man or woman, before they break the law.”

On another national security front, Kelly said North Korea isn’t much of a threat right now “except in the world of cyber.”

“They’re pretty aggressive when they want to be in cyber,” he said.

Kelly also said that “the instant they get a missile that can reach the United States and they have a weaponized atomic device, a nuclear device on it, we are at grave risk as a nation.”



REASONS BEHIND TERRORISM FROM A PSYCHOLOGICAL STANDPOINT

https://sparq.stanford.edu/how-stop-homegrown-terrorism
Stanford -- SPARQ
Social Psychological Answers to Real-world Questions
How To Stop Homegrown Terrorism
Anti-immigration march in Riesa, Germany, September 9 2015. Fabrizio Bensch/REUTERS
DECEMBER 04, 2015
By Sarah Lyons-Padilla, Stanford University and Michele Gelfand, University of Maryland

The discovery that several of the Paris attackers were European nationals has fueled concern about Muslim immigrants becoming radicalized in the West. Some politicians have expressed views that the best way to avoid homegrown terrorists is to shut the door. The refugee migration debate turned even more contentious after authorities found a Syrian passport at the scene of the attack. Poland is now turning back refugees, more than half of American governors have vowed to refuse Middle Easterners seeking a new beginning, and US House Speaker Ryan has asked for a “pause” on the federal Syrian refugee program. Fearful reactions to terrorist violence are nothing new. Incidents of extremist activity are often followed by anti-Islam protests or hate crimes. Reports of ISIS luring Western Muslims abroad are followed by a tightening of homeland security policy. Just after the attacks in Paris, presidential hopeful Donald Trump said that he would be willing to close mosques in the US. Such displays of intolerance can make Muslims feel like they don’t belong in Europe or the United States. Our research, forthcoming in Behavioral Science and Policy, shows that making Muslims feel this way can fuel support for radical movements. In other words, many Western policies that aim to prevent terrorism may actually be causing it.

Preventing radicalization

In our research, we asked hundreds of Muslims in Germany and the US to tell us about their experiences as religious and cultural minorities, including their feelings of being excluded or discriminated against on the basis of their religion. We also asked how they balance their heritage identities with their American or German identities. We wanted to know if these kinds of experiences were related to their feelings toward radical groups and causes.

There are a lot of practical and ethical barriers to studying what makes someone become a terrorist.

We normally don’t know who terrorists are until after they’ve committed an attack. By then, we can only rely on after-the-fact explanations as to what motivated them. We can’t perform a controlled laboratory study to see who would participate in an act of terrorism. In surveys, we can’t ask someone straightforwardly how much they would like to join a radical movement, because most people who are becoming radicalized would not answer honestly.

Instead, we measured a couple of indicators of support for radicalism. We asked people how willing they would be to sacrifice themselves for an important cause. We also measured the extent to which participants held a radical interpretation of Islam. For example, we asked whether it’s acceptable to engage in violent jihad. Finally, we asked people to read a description of a hypothetical radical group and tell us how much they liked the group and how much they would want to support it. This hypothetical group consisted of Muslims in the US (or Germany, in the German study) who were upset about how Muslims were treated by society and would stop at nothing to protect Islam.

Overall, support for these indicators of extremism was very low, which is a reminder that the vast majority of Muslims do not hold radical views.

Related: End Hate Speech, End Hate Crimes

But the responses of some people showed they felt marginalized and identified with neither the culture of their heritage nor the culture of their adopted country.

We described people as “culturally homeless” when they didn’t practice the same customs or share the same values as others in their adopted culture, but also felt different from other people of their heritage.

We found that people who said they were torn between cultures also reported feeling ashamed, meaningless and hopeless. They expressed an overall lack of significance in their lives or a feeling that they don’t really matter. The more people’s sense of self worth was threatened, the more they expressed support for radicalism.

Our findings are consistent with a theory in psychology that terrorists are looking for a way to find meaning in their lives. When people experience a loss to their sense of personal significance – for example, through being humiliated or disrespected – they seek out other outlets for creating meaning.

Extremists know and exploit these vulnerabilities, targeting Muslims whose sense of significance is low or threatened. Radical religious groups give these culturally homeless Muslims a sense of certainty, purpose and structure.

For people who already feel culturally homeless, discrimination by the adopted society can make matters worse. In our data, people who said they had been excluded or discriminated against on the basis of their religion experienced a threat to their self-esteem. The negative effects of discrimination were the most damaging for people who already felt culturally homeless.

Our results suggest that cultivating anti-immigrant or anti-Islamic sentiment is deeply counterproductive. Anti-immigrant discourse is likely to fuel support for extremism, rather than squelch it.

Integration is the goal

To decrease the risk of homegrown radicalization, we should work to improve integration of Muslim immigrants, not further isolate them. This means welcoming Syrian refugees, not excluding them. It means redefining what it means to be American or German in a way that is inclusive and doesn’t represent only the majority culture. It means showing interest in and appreciation for other cultural and religious traditions, not fearing them.

According to our data, most Muslims in the United States and in Germany want to blend their two cultures. But it is difficult to do this if either side pressures them to choose.

We should not confuse integration with assimilation.

Integration means encouraging immigrants to call themselves American, German or French and to take pride in their own cultural and religious heritage.

Our data suggest that policies that pressure immigrants to conform to their adopted culture, like France’s ban on religious symbols in public institutions or the “burqa ban,” are likely to backfire, because such policies are disrespectful of their heritage.

In the United States, the pressure to conform comes in the implicit meaning of the “melting pot” metaphor that underlies our cultural ethos. This idea encourages newcomers to shed their cultural uniqueness in the interest of forging a homogeneous national identity. In comparison, the “mixed salad” or “cultural mosaic” metaphors often used in Canada communicate appreciation for cultural differences.

In Germany, immigrants without sufficient German language skills are required to complete an integration course, which is essentially a tutorial on how to be German. Interestingly, we found that the more German Muslim participants perceived that Germans wanted them to assimilate, the less desire they had to do so. We also see these identity struggles in Muslim communities in France, where “being French” and “being Muslim” are thought to be mutually exclusive.

Our findings point to a strategy for reducing homegrown radicalization: encouraging immigrants to participate in both of their cultures plus curbing discrimination against Muslims. This strategy is better for both immigrants’ well-being and adopted cultures’ political stability.

For an example of how this can be done successfully, look to a jihadist rehabilitation program in Aarhus, Denmark, where the police work with the Muslim community to help reintegrate foreign fighters and find ways for them to participate in Danish society without compromising their religious values.

Communities can make it harder for terrorists to recruit by helping the culturally homeless feel more at home.

Sarah Lyons-Padilla, Research Scientist at Stanford SPARQ, Stanford University and Michele Gelfand, Professor and Distinguished University Scholar Teacher, University of Maryland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



SOME VERY IMPORTANT WAYS TO DIMINISH OR, HOPEFULLY, ELIMINATE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DISCRIMINATION AMONG AMERICANS AND OTHER RESIDENTS HERE ARE, I BELIEVE, THE FOLLOWING: BROADER AND MORE THOROUGH EDUCATION OF ALL CITIZENS, THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL FREE THOUGHT AND SPEECH, A SUFFICIENT DEGREE OF FINANCIAL SECURITY AND THE SOCIAL INCLUSION OF ALL, RATHER THAN THE SHUNNING OF CULTURAL MINORITIES. THE MARGINALIZATION DESCRIBED IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARTICLE ABOVE OCCURS IN WHITES -- ESPECIALLY POOR WHITES -- AND OTHERS ALSO, NOT MERELY OUTSIDERS LIKE THE ISLAMIC WORSHIPERS, INEVITABLY GIVING BIRTH TO ANGER, JEALOUSY AND FEAR. HATRED COMES NEXT. WE SHOULD ASK OURSELVES, WHAT ABUSIVE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS AM I WILLING TO TOLERATE FROM OTHERS BEFORE I FIGHT BACK? NO. I'M NOT JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE FROM MINORITY GROUPS; BUT NOT FROM OUR WHITE, PROTESTANT, CHRISTIAN MAJORITY EITHER. ONE ALT-RIGHT READER ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE CALLED ME A "RACE TRAITOR," FOR MY VIEWS. THAT'S PURE NONSENSE AND A NEW FORM OF OBSCENITY, IN MY VIEW.

THIS ARTICLE BELOW TALKS ABOUT THE PATH THAT EDUCATION HAS TRAVELED SINCE I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL IN 1964, MAINLY BECAUSE OF THE CONSERVATIVE FEAR OF RACIAL AND CULTURAL INTEGRATION AND LIBERAL RELIGION. THE RIGHT-WING “WHITE BACKLASH” AGAINST PROGRESSIVE CHANGES IS THE KEY ELEMENT. THOSE WHITE, MAINLY POOR AND UNDEREDUCATED GROUPS, ARE ERUPTING WITH KKK MEMBERSHIP AND OTHER WHITE SUPREMACIST TRENDS; AND THEIR ACTIONS SUCH AS THE RECENT VANDALIZING OF JEWISH AND ISLAMIC PLACES OF WORSHIP, AND THE PERENNIAL GAY BASHING ARE AGAIN ON THE RISE. DONALD TRUMP’S HARANGUES DIDN’T START THE BALL ROLLING, BECAUSE THE MILITIA MOVEMENT, ETC. WERE AROUND BY 1990 OR EARLIER, BUT IT HAS DEFINITELY MADE IT ALL MUCH WORSE. DOING THE NEWS AS I DO I RAN INTO A DISCOURAGING NUMBER OF “ANTI-EVERYBODY” INCIDENTS. WE HAVE TURNED MARGINALIZATION INTO AN ART FORM AND COME UP WITH THE SIMPLEST AND MOST UNCIVILIZED FORM OF “PATRIOTISM.” I HAVEN’T MENTIONED THE NRA HERE, BUT YOU KNOW IT’S RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HATEFUL MIX, ALONG WITH “HEIL TRUMP” SALUTES!

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
How Texas Inflicts Bad Textbooks on Us
Gail Collins JUNE 21, 2012 ISSUE
collins_1-062112.jpg

Photograph -- Texas State Board of Education members Cynthia Dunbar, Barbara Cargill, and Gail Lowe discussing curriculum standards, Austin, May 2008. Cargill, who was appointed chairwoman last year by Governor Rick Perry, has expressed concern that there are now only ‘six true conservative Christians on the board.’

“What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas when it comes to textbooks”

No matter where you live, if your children go to public schools, the textbooks they use were very possibly written under Texas influence. If they graduated with a reflexive suspicion of the concept of separation of church and state and an unexpected interest in the contributions of the National Rifle Association to American history, you know who to blame.

When it comes to meddling with school textbooks, Texas is both similar to other states and totally different. It’s hardly the only one that likes to fiddle around with the material its kids study in class. The difference is due to size—4.8 million textbook-reading schoolchildren as of 2011—and the peculiarities of its system of government, in which the State Board of Education is selected in elections that are practically devoid of voters, and wealthy donors can chip in unlimited amounts of money to help their favorites win.

Those favorites are not shrinking violets. In 2009, the nation watched in awe as the state board worked on approving a new science curriculum under the leadership of a chair who believed that “evolution is hooey.” In 2010, the subject was social studies and the teachers tasked with drawing up course guidelines were supposed to work in consultation with “experts” added on by the board, one of whom believed that the income tax was contrary to the word of God in the scriptures.

Ever since the 1960s, the selection of schoolbooks in Texas has been a target for the religious right, which worried that schoolchildren were being indoctrinated in godless secularism, and political conservatives who felt that their kids were being given way too much propaganda about the positive aspects of the federal government. Mel Gabler, an oil company clerk, and his wife, Norma, who began their textbook crusade at their kitchen table, were the leaders of the first wave. They brought their supporters to State Board of Education meetings, unrolling their “scroll of shame,” which listed objections they had to the content of the current reading material. At times, the scroll was fifty-four feet long. Products of the Texas school system have the Gablers to thank for the fact that at one point the New Deal was axed from the timeline of significant events in American history.

The Texas State Board of Education, which approves textbooks, curriculum standards, and supplemental materials for the public schools, has fifteen members from fifteen districts whose boundaries don’t conform to congressional districts, or really anything whatsoever. They run in staggered elections that are frequently held in off years, when always-low Texas turnout is particularly abysmal. The advantage tends to go to candidates with passionate, if narrow, bands of supporters, particularly if those bands have rich backers. All of which—plus a natural supply of political eccentrics—helps explain how Texas once had a board member who believed that public schools are the tool of the devil.

Texas originally acquired its power over the nation’s textbook supply because it paid 100 percent of the cost of all public school textbooks, as long as the books in question came from a very short list of board-approved options. The selection process “was grueling and tension-filled,” said Julie McGee, who worked at high levels in several publishing houses before her retirement. “If you didn’t get listed by the state, you got nothing.” On the other side of the coin, David Anderson, who once sold textbooks in the state, said that if a book made the list, even a fairly mediocre salesperson could count on doing pretty well. The books on the Texas list were likely to be mass-produced by the publisher in anticipation of those sales, so other states liked to buy them and take advantage of the economies of scale.

“What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas when it comes to textbooks,” said Dan Quinn, who worked as an editor of social studies textbooks before joining the Texas Freedom Network, which was founded by Governor Ann Richards’s daughter, Cecile, to counter the religious right.

As a market, the state was so big and influential that national publishers tended to gear their books toward whatever it wanted. Back in 1994, the board requested four hundred revisions in five health textbooks it was considering. The publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston was the target for the most changes, including the deletion of toll-free numbers for gay and lesbian groups and teenage suicide prevention groups. Holt announced that it would pull its book out of the Texas market rather than comply. (A decade later Holt was back with a new book that eliminated the gay people.)

Given the high cost of developing a single book, the risk of messing with Texas was high. “One of the most expensive is science,” McGee said. “You have to hire medical illustrators to do all the art.” When she was in the business, the cost of producing a new biology book could run to $5 million. “The investments are really great and it’s all on risk.”

Imagine the feelings of the textbook companies—not to mention the science teachers—when, in response to a big push from the Gablers, the state board adopted a rule in 1974 that textbooks mentioning the theory of evolution “should identify it as only one of several explanations of the origins of humankind” and that those treating the subject extensively “shall be edited, if necessary, to clarify that the treatment is theoretical rather than factually verifiable.” The state attorney general eventually issued an opinion that the board’s directive wouldn’t stand up in court, and the rule was repealed. But the beat went on.

“Evolution is hooey”

Texas is hardly the only state with small, fierce pressure groups trying to dictate the content of textbooks. California, which has the most public school students, tends to come at things from the opposite side, pressing for more reflection of a crunchy granola worldview. “The word in publishing was that for California you wanted no references to fast food, and in Texas you wanted no references to sex,” Quinn told me. But California’s system of textbook approval focuses only on books for the lower grades. Professor Keith Erekson, director of the Center for History Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso, says that California often demands that its texts have a Californiacentric central narrative that would not be suitable for anywhere else, while “the Texas narrative can be used in other states.” Publishers tend to keep information on who buys how much of what secret, but Erekson said he’s seen estimates that the proportion of social studies textbooks sold containing the basic Texas-approved narrative range from about half to 80 percent.

Some extremely rich Texans have gotten into the board of education election game, putting their money at the disposal of conservative populists. No one has had more impact than James Leininger, the San Antonio physician who has had an intense interest in promoting school vouchers. He backed a group called Texans for Governmental Integrity, which was particularly active in state school board elections. Its most famous campaign was in 1994, when it mailed flyers to voters’ homes in one district, showing a black man kissing a white man and claiming that the Democratic incumbent had voted for textbooks that promoted homosexuality. Another organization Leininger has supported, the Heidi Group, sent out a prayer calendar in 1998, which unnervingly urged the right-to-life faithful to devote one day to praying that a San Antonio doctor who performed abortions “will come to see Jesus face to face.”

The chorus of objections to textbook material mounted. Approval of environmental science books was once held up over board concern that they were teaching children to be more loyal to their planet than their country. As the board became a national story and a national embarrassment, the state legislature attempted to put a lid on the chaos in 1995 by restricting the board’s oversight to “factual errors.” This made surprisingly little impact when you had a group of deciders who believed that the theory of evolution, global warming, and separation of church and state are all basically errors of fact.

In 2009, when the science curriculum was once again up for review, conservatives wanted to require that it cover the “strengths and weaknesses” of the theory of evolution. In the end, they settled for a face-saving requirement that students consider gaps in fossil records and whether natural selection is enough to explain the complexity of human cells. Don McLeroy, the board chairman who had opined that “evolution is hooey,” told Washington Monthly that he felt the changes put Texas “light years ahead of any other state when it comes to challenging evolution!”

The process by which the board came to its interesting decisions sometimes seemed confused to the point of incoherence. Things would begin tidily, with panels of teachers and expert consultants. Then the expert consultants multiplied, frequently becoming less and less expert, until the whole process ended in a rash of craziness. The science curriculum was “this document that had been worked on for months,” Nathan Bernier, a reporter for KUT in Austin, told National Public Radio.

Members of the [teachers’ association] had been involved…. People with Ph.D.s had been involved in developing these standards. And then at the last second, there was this mysterious document that was shoved underneath the hotel doors of some of the board members, and this document, at the very last minute, wound up—large portions of it wound up making its way into the guidelines.

In 2010, the board launched itself into the equally contentious sea of the social studies curriculum, and the teacher-dominated team tasked with writing the standards was advised by a panel of “experts,” one of whom was a member of the Minutemen militia. Another had argued that only white people were responsible for advancing civil rights for minorities in America, since “only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.”

“The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel,” McLeroy told Washington Monthly. “Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

In their first year of work on social studies, the board agreed that students should be required to study the abandonment of the gold standard as a factor in the decline in the value of the dollar. If the students were going to study the McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunt of the 1950s, they were also going to contemplate “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in US government.”

The changes often seemed to be thrown out haphazardly, and to pass or fail on the basis of frequently opaque conclusions on the part of the swing members. In 2010, the board tossed out books by the late Bill Martin Jr., the author of Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, from a list of authors third-graders might want to study because someone mixed him up with Bill Martin, the author of Ethical Marxism.

collins_2-062112.jpg

The final product the board came up with called for a curriculum that would make sure that students studying economic issues of the late nineteenth century would not forget “the cattle industry boom” and that when they turned to social issues like labor, growth of the cities, and problems of immigrants they also take time to dwell on “the philanthropy of industrialists.” When it came to the Middle Ages, the board appeared to be down on any mention of the Crusades, an enterprise that tends to reflect badly on the Christian side of Christian–Islamic conflict. And when they got to the cold war era, the board wanted to be sure students would be able to “explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict.” Later, they were supposed to study “Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.” And that appeared to be pretty much all young people in Texas were going to be required to know about Arab nations and the world’s second-largest religion.

For the most part, however, the board seemed determined just to sprinkle stuff its members liked hither and yon, and eliminate words they found objectionable in favor of more appealing ones. Reading through the deletions and additions, it becomes clear that a majority of board members hated the word “democratic,” for which they consistently substituted “constitutional republic.” They also really disliked “capitalism” (see rather: “free enterprise system”) and “natural law” (“laws of nature and nature’s God”).

Study of the first part of the twentieth century should include not only the Spanish-American War and Theodore Roosevelt but also Sanford B. Dole, a Hawaiian lawyer and son of missionaries. When teachers get to Clarence Darrow, Henry Ford, and Charles Lindbergh, they’d also better not forget Glenn Curtiss, who broke early motorcycle speed records. For the modern era, they needed to study “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s,” including Equal Rights Amendment opponent Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association. And when students learn how to describe the impact of cultural movements like “Tin Pan Alley, the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat Generation, rock and roll,” the board demanded that they also look into “country and western music.”

That last one actually seems totally fair.

The social studies curriculum was perhaps the last hurrah for the extreme agenda that Don McLeroy, the anti-evolution dentist, had championed. When the discussions began, he could frequently rally a majority on the fifteen-member panel, with the consistent support of people like Cynthia Dunbar, who once wrote that sending children to public schools was like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames, even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.” (She also once called Barack Obama a terrorist sympathizer.) In 2011, Dunbar announced her retirement; she had been commuting between Texas and Virginia, where she taught at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law. After McLeroy himself lost a Republican primary to a candidate who believes in evolution, Barbara Cargill, his successor as board chair, expressed concern that she was left with only “six true conservative Christians on the board.”

“Readable? I’ve never heard a discussion of that”

These days the Texas board is far less powerful than in its heyday. But in a way, it’s more influential than ever.

The state legislature has diluted the board’s ability to control what books local districts pick. And the expanding Web-based curricula make it easier for publishers to work around the preferences of any one state, no matter how big. But students all around the country will be feeling the effect of Texas on their textbooks for years, if not generations. That’s because the school board’s most important contribution has not been to make textbooks inaccurate. It’s been to help make them unreadable.

“Readable? I’ve never heard a discussion of that,” said Julie McGee.

The typical school textbook is composed of a general narrative sprinkled liberally with “boxes”—sidebars presenting the biographies of prominent individuals, and highlighting particular trends, social issues, or historical events. As the textbook wars mounted, those boxes multiplied like gerbils. It’s the ideal place to stash the guy who broke the motorcycle speed record, or the cattle boom, or, perhaps, the gold standard. (It’s also where, in bows to gender and racial equality, mini-biographies of prominent women and minorities can be floated.) In an era of computerized publishing, changing the boxes is easy. The problem comes when the publisher has to change the narrative, something many committees of experts may have labored over at the cost of millions of dollars.

All the bickering and pressuring over the years has caused publishers to shy away from using the kind of clear, lively language that might raise hackles in one corner or another. The more writers were constrained by confusing demands and conflicting requests, the more they produced unreadable mush. Texas, you may not be surprised to hear, has been particularly good at making things mushy. In 2011, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank, issued an evaluation of US history standards for public schools. The institute was a longtime critic of curricula that insisted that representatives of women and minorities be included in all parts of American history. But the authors, Sheldon Stern and Jeremy Stern, really hated what the Texas board had done. Besides incorporating “all the familiar politically correct group categories,” the authors said, the document distorts or suppresses less triumphal or more nuanced aspects of our past that the Board found politically unacceptable (slavery and segregation are all but ignored, while religious influences are grossly exaggerated). The resulting fusion is a confusing, unteachable hodgepodge.

All around the country, teachers and students are left to make their way through murky generalities as they struggle through the swamps of boxes and lists. “Maybe the most striking thing about current history textbooks is that they have lost a controlling narrative,” wrote historian Russell Shorto.

And that’s the legacy. Texas certainly didn’t single-handedly mess up American textbooks, but its size, its purchasing heft, and the pickiness of the school board’s endless demands—not to mention the board’s overall craziness—certainly made it the trend leader. Texas has never managed to get evolution out of American science textbooks. It’s been far more successful in helping to make evolution—and history, and everything else—seem boring.


IN THE LIGHT OF THESE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS, I AM REMINDED OF MY ONE GENERAL EDUCATION TEXTBOOK WHICH FOLLOWED THE OLD IDEA OF STATING YOUR MAIN PREMISE IN THE FIRST LINE OF A PARAGRAPH, A REITERATION OF IT NEXT AND A SUMMARY OF IT LAST. GIVEN THAT THE IDEAS WERE NOT CHALLENGING, WELL STATED, NOR ENLIGHTENING MOST OF THE TIME, I DEVELOPED THE TECHNIQUE OF HIGHLIGHTING THE FIRST LINE IN EACH PARAGRAPH, THEN MOVING ONTO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IN THE SAME WAY. THEN WHEN I WANTED TO REVIEW FOR A TEST, ALL I HAD TO DO WAS READ THOSE HIGHLIGHTED PARTS. I DID TEST MY THEORY OUT BEFORE DOING IT ON A COMMITTED BASIS, FINDING THAT THE ONLY IMPORTANT THINGS WERE IN THAT FIRST SENTENCE. IT WAS IRRITATING TO ME, AND IT SHOWED ME WHY SO MANY PEOPLE USED TO HATE THEIR EDUCATION COURSES. THAT'S A SHAME, BECAUSE WE CONTINUE TO NEED TEACHERS, AND HOPEFULLY -- UNLESS THE ALT-RIGHT MANAGES TO ELIMINATE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ENTIRELY AS SOME HAVE THREATENED TO DO -- WE WILL STILL MAKE AN EFFORT TO PRODUCE A REASONABLY WELL EDUCATED SOCIETY, WHO CAN, IF THEY HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, CONTINUE ON TO COLLEGE.