27-03-2025
Bipartisan contingent of Texas senators advance bill to teach 'horrors of communism'
A bipartisan contingent of Texas senators advanced a measure championed by the father of Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz that would require public school teachers to highlight the "horrors of communism" as part of the state's social studies curriculum.
Senate Bill 24 by Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, passed the upper chamber 28-3 on Wednesday, but critics of the legislation said it doesn't go far enough in educating students about other harmful ideologies.
The bill would direct the State Board of Education — the 15-member elected body responsible for writing Texas public school curriculum — to mandate teaching on "historical events and atrocities" committed by communist regimes as part of the 12th grade social studies curriculum. It lists the Soviet-era Great Terror, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge and the Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian famine. It also requires students learn about the policies of the Communist Party of Cuba and other movements in Latin America.
The bill seeks to help students understand "the oppression and suffering experienced by people living under communist regimes, including mass murder, violent land seizures, show trials, concentration camps, forced labor, poverty, and general economic deterioration."
"The best way to protect freedom, members, is to have a good understanding of what threatens it," Campbell said while laying out the bill on the Senate floor. "This is about teaching and preserving the principles of democracy for all Texans."
More: Texas state senators seeking to put 'horrors of communism' in public school curriculum
Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, ultimately voted against the bill, "not because I'm a communist," but because it wouldn't go far enough in educating against authoritarian regimes, she argued. Eckhardt offered an amendment that would have altered the bill to include teaching about fascism, "which is commonly described as dictatorial power, extreme nationalism, militarism, racism and suppression of political opposition through official means," she said.
"I completely agree with how important it is to teach about the historic horrors of communism, but I also believe that it is important to arm our children with an understanding of the modern equivalence and the threats that democracy faces today," Eckhardt said.
"Another ideology that threatens our current modern-day democracies is fascism," she said. "Understanding fascism is imperative for understanding communism and how we defend against such extremism that threatens a civil society."
Campbell did not approve of Eckhardt's proposal, arguing she'd rather keep the bill narrow for now and potentially add other ideologies later after evaluating the measure's effectiveness. Eckhardt's amendment failed.
"I prefer to see what comes out in SBOE and make sure we get the communism down, and then next session, let's work together, and we can put in some fascism," Campbell said.
The bill was identified as a top priority by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, and received support from conservative evangelical pastor Rafael Cruz, the father of Texas' junior U.S. senator.
The elder Cruz fled Cuba to the U.S. during the Fidel Castro regime and recounted his story to the Senate Education Committee earlier this month in support of the bill. He told the committee that Texas kids are being "brainwashed" by teachers and professors with communist ideologies.
"Young kids have been brainwashed on the virtues of socialism where 'everybody's equal,'" he said. "That is a lie."
Under communism, he said, government elites have power over "the people."
"There is equality among the people: they all equally starve," he said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Senate advances bill to teach 'horrors of communism'
