Austin

Austin is a curious place. It is not just Texas's capital but is home to University of Texas, a campus with 50,000 students. Another 50,000 college and university students are sprinkled in among the population of about 750,000. It is almost as if the rest of Texas thought that it was best to corral all their liberals - all the dangerous professors and politicians - into one place where they could keep an eye on them. This way, they grudgingly acknowledge the need for government and higher education while limiting the influence of liberals on the average Texan.

Less Jefferson, More Schlafly. If that doesn't make America stronger, we'll have to resort to more drastic measures

Texas is changing textbooks, putting more emphasis on the influence of Phyllis Schlafly and less on Thomas Jefferson.

“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”
- Phyllis Schlafly

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
- Thomas Jefferson

The Texas State Board of Education approved some controversial right-leaning alterations to what most students in the state – and by extension, in much of the rest of the country – will be studying as received historical and social-scientific wisdom. Here are some of the other signal shifts that the Texas Board endorsed last Friday.

A greater emphasis on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” This means not only increased favorable mentions of Schlafly, the founder of the antifeminist Eagle Forum, but also more discussion of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America.

Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment.

Read the whole thing here.