A review of official Texas State Board of Education documents reported by The Current and the Jerusalem Post found that the Republican-majority board voted 8-4 to erase Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy from high school history, while mandating lessons that brand early Islam solely through “brutal military campaigns,” slavery and “harem slaves,” and require students be taught that Israel was founded in the “ancestral homeland of the Jews.”
The standards are part of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) rewrite, formally approved in September 2026 and set for classrooms from 2030-31. Because Texas controls one of the largest textbook markets in the U.S., education groups warn the erasure will not stay in Texas and could be pushed into classrooms reaching up to 25 million students nationally.
According to SBOE meeting records, the board did not just remove content it replaced it. The only requirement that taught a positive Muslim contribution to world civilization was struck. In its place, the board inserted language submitted by Republican member Brandon Hall requiring students to explain Islam through Prophet Mohammed’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes” and the taking of women as harem slaves a standard of demonization it did not apply to Christianity, Judaism, or any other faith.
The double standard continues in how terrorism is taught. The new standards require that the September 11 attacks be taught as “motivated by radical Islam” under a broad banner of “rise of radical Islam” alongside the Muslim Brotherhood, rejecting educators’ demands to use precise language about al-Qaeda and ISIS. When asked to simply remove the inflammatory word “brutal,” the conservative majority voted it down.
At the same time, the board mandated that world history must now teach the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as being in the ancestral homeland of the Jews, while embedding expanded lessons on Christianity’s positive influence on Western and American history. Muslim contributions were erased, Christian and Jewish claims were institutionalized as historical fact.
The move has drawn condemnation from civil rights and education watchdogs who say the board ignored its own experts. Board-appointed historians and content advisers warned that the Islam language fails basic historical scrutiny and violates religious neutrality, but their warnings were disregarded. CAIR-Texas said the board had institutionalized anti-Muslim prejudice, while 15-year-old student Habiba Quresh told the board: “I feel attacked, as if my religion doesn’t belong. I shouldn’t have to defend my religion in the middle of history class.”
The findings expose how a partisan board used state power to rewrite world history deleting science, inserting slurs, and applying one rule to Islam and another to other religions. While the SBOE claims it is teaching accuracy, its own documents show it chose erasure over contribution, and stigma over neutrality, setting up a Texas curriculum that will teach millions of American children that Muslims invented nothing but violence.
