Dr. Clayborne Carson, professor of history at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, says he is concerned by the lack of expert guidance the board considered.
“What’s disturbing is when you not only want coverage of a certain area, but you want a certain viewpoint of an area. You’re mandating an interpretation of American history,” Carson says. ”When you demand a certain interpretation of American history, then why bother to have historians write history books? Why don’t you have the Texas Board of Education write them? Because they can’t. They’re not qualified to write. It puts historians into a very difficult position of essentially having to lie. You’re not really telling what you think is the story. You’re telling what you’ve been told is the story.”
Of greater concern is the board’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion.
“If you think of education as I have my reality and you have your reality, then we can easily see that the future does not bode well for having an informed discussion about any significant topic in American history,” says Carson.
