In a profound display of hubris, the Texas Board of Education voted March 12 to, among other things, demote Thomas Jefferson.  The author of the Declaration of Independence, Founding Father, and the third President of the United States was removed from the state’s public school social studies curriculum in favor of religious philosopher John Calvin.  If the intentions of the Texas BOE aren’t already apparent, you need only to look at the board’s ideological makeup to understand their goals.

At present, the Texas BOE is dominated by a bloc of right-wing, fundamentalist Christian Republicans.  In the broader historical context, deftly imparted by Washington Monthly editor Mariah Blake, the “ultra-conservative” faction represents a sizable constituency in Texas.  Further, it’s a constituency which has sought to influence Texas’ educational priorities for decades. 

Within her Washington Monthly article, “Revisionaries,” Blake imparts the history of the ideological struggle over Texas’ educational priorities, explaining that the conservative religious political effort, begun in earnest in 1994, became reality in 2006:

After the 2006 election, Republicans claimed ten of fifteen board seats. Seven were held by the ultra-conservatives, and one by a close ally, giving them an effective majority…  Then in 2007 Governor Rick Perry appointed Don McLeroy, a suburban dentist and longstanding bloc member, as board chairman. This passing of the gavel gave the faction unprecedented power just as the board was gearing up for the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting standards for every subject.

Blake mentions later that McLeroy was prevented from assuming the chairmanship by the state legislature.  As she recounts her meeting with McLeroy in his home, it is not difficult to understand why:

“I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” [McLeroy] declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey.” This bled into a rant about American history. “The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles…”

This gets to the crux of why McLeroy and his like-minded board members removed Jefferson from the social studies curriculum.  As much as the board’s “ultra-conservative” bloc would like you to believe that America is a “Christian nation founded on Christian principles,” they can’t get around Jefferson’s 1802 articulation of the separation of church and state:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State….

The above Jefferson quote is from the president’s letter in reply to Danbury Baptist Association, Jan. 1, 1802.  It was a letter of reassurance to the Baptist Association, which expressed its concerns about religious freedom to the new president shortly after he took office. 

Interestingly, the conservative members of the Texas BOE betrayed their sensitivity to this inconvenient history in July 2009.  During a required review of the social studies curriculum, a panel of six “experts” was solicited to offer their assessments.  Two of those “experts,” nominated by the board’s conservative bloc, were already known  to support the discredited pseudo-historical argument, often employed to brush Jefferson aside.*

Flash forward to March 12, 2010 when, during the curriculum amendment process, the Texas BOE actually voted to remove Jefferson from their social studies textbook standards, the board’s conservatives doubled down on their historical indifference.  Hours after the Jefferson vote, a moderate board member offered an amendment seeking to preserve the Founders’ intentions. The below text is from the Texas Freedom Network’s (TFN) live-blog of the March 12 amendment debate:

12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight offers the following amendment: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Knight points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.

12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”

12:35 – Knight’s amendment fails on a straight party-line vote, 5-10. Republicans vote no, Democrats vote yes.

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.

Please feel free to include your thoughts on this matter in the comments section below.  Personally, I feel that the TFN bloggers’ sentiment in that last entry was incredibly apt.  The only thing I would add is that I find it tragically ironic that the founding concept intended to protect religious freedom could undergo such a religiously motivated attack.  Then, again, this isn’t just about religion, is it?  The Texas BOE’s actions, in my opinion, are a purposeful effort to superimpose their present religious AND political world-views onto the past.

*Chris Rodda, “The Department of Defense – Bringing Historical Revisionism to a High School Near You.” 13 May 2007 – Here you will find the text of both, Jefferson’s and Danbury Baptist Association’s letters mentioned above.  While placing the letters in their appropriate historical context, the author dismantles many of the conservative myths about the documents and Jefferson’s intentions.  It’s worth noting that one of the revisionists Rhoda takes issue with is David Baker, whom happens to be one of the “experts” tapped by the Texas BOE for its July 2009 curriculum review.  Much has been made of the implications of the board’s revisionism being exacerbated by Texas’ influence on textbook publishers, and rightfully so.  However, as Rodda indicates within her must-read post, revisionist history in public school textbooks is an ongoing problem.

Related on Care2:

Texas Textbook Wars