San Antonio’s NEISD was in hot water this week after a teacher was accused in a viral TikTok video of using a racial slur during class. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Akbarali

As the Texas State Board of Educators works to revamp its social studies curriculum, a group of nine educators proposed changing how slavery is discussed in second-grade classrooms, saying it should instead be called “involuntary relocation” according to the Texas Tribune.

However, board members shot down the proposed language change, the state’s board chair said in a statement supplied to the online news organization.

“The board — with unanimous consent — directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Texas State Board of Education Chairman Keven Ellis said in the statement provided Thursday.

The proposal is one of many being fielded by the board as part of a 10-year curriculum update, according to the Tribune.

Deliberation on a new curriculum is being conducted as GOP lawmakers try to eradicate classroom topics that make students “feel discomfort.” Last year, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed Texas Senate Bill 3, which barred discussion of Critical Race Theory out in public schools.

Even before passage of the law, Critical Race Theory wasn’t taught in K-12 schools. Slavery also isn’t part of the current second-grade social studies curriculum in Texas, the Tribune reports.

The Texas State Board of Educators sent the group’s proposed change back via a unanimous vote, asking the educators to “revisit specific language.”

“I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis said.

Texas school made headlines in 2015 when it was discovered that a social studies textbook described enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. via the slave trade as “workers.”

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This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 12, 2022.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...