A bill has been introduced in the Texas state legislature that would eliminate ethnic studies courses at state universities from being used to fulfill a six-credit requirement in history for all students in bachelor’s degree programs. Under the legislation, only courses that present a “comprehensive survey” of American or Texas history could be used to meet the requirement.
The bill was proposed in response to a study of history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University by the National Association of Scholars that stated, “We found that all too often the course readings gave strong emphasis to race, class, or gender social history, an emphasis so strong that it diminished the attention given to other subjects in American history such as military, diplomatic, religious, intellectual history. The result is that these institutions frequently offered students a less-than-comprehensive picture of U.S. history.”
The proposed legislation is scheduled to be debated in the Texas House of Representatives in May.
The NAS Report, Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender Dominating U.S. History, can be downloaded here.
