Classroom Censorship in Texas

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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown.

Transcript:

Episode81

Sun, 10/17 7:07PM • 46:09

Ana Ramon 00:00

The very overt racial atmospherics around this bill and linking it specifically to anti- voting rights… I have never seen the amount of legislative deviations take place on one bill than I have seen for this bill… They literally introduced new rules in the Senate to get this bill passed… This is exactly on trend when it comes to oppressing communities of color or diverse communities from trying to move out of the boxes that they’ve been placed in.

Coco Das 00:45

Welcome to episode 81 of the Refuse Fascism podcast. This podcast is brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Coco Das, one of those volunteers, guest hosting this week’s episode. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in this country.

In today’s episode, I’ll be sharing a conversation I had with Ana Ramon, director of advocacy for the Intercultural Development Research Association about the very chilling classroom censorship law passed in Texas – yet another alarming assault on the truth and the right to free speech and dissent. This has everything to do with the very definition of fascism, a blatant form of dictatorship in which the rule of law is gutted, the truth is bludgeoned, and democratic rights are eliminated.

But first, let’s talk about some developments from this past week, as they relate to the continued fascist threat. First, the GOP has dispensed with denouncing the January 6th siege of the Capitol. In various ways they have embraced the violence of that day and framed it as a righteous rebellion – casting Ashli Babbit, who was shot while trying to break into the House chambers, as a martyr for their cause, and at the Trump rally for Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, the waving around of “a flag that was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on January 6.” On October 4, Steve Bannon, the walking, talking pustule of fascist strategy, said, “We control the country. We’ve got to start acting like it. And one way we’re going to act like it, we’re not going to have 4,000 (shock troops) ready to go, we’re going to have 20,000 ready to go and we’re going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department.”

Meanwhile, Bannon and others are defying subpoenas from the January 6 commission on Trump’s orders, and while the chairman of the House inquiry said the committee would move next week to recommend that Bannon face criminal contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with its investigation, I’m not holding my breath that they will follow through on this threat. Listen to the words of Democratic Party strategist Don Calloway on why they shouldn’t enforce the subpoenas. He said, “We’re also trying to win elections. We’re also trying to appeal to a middle of the road white voter and what does that look like if I dragged a bunch of white guys in and do perp walks with them, take them up out of their country clubs?” Well, Mr. Calloway, it means that the slow-moving coup that Trump started even before the 2020 election is being carried forward with a real chance of success. These are not a “bunch of white guys,” they are rabid, violent, fascist white supremacists, and the truth is they don’t give a damn about elections. They are putting in place every mechanism they can find to stay in power despite elections. Also this week, and related to the topic of this episode, NBC News released audio of an administrator, Gina Peddy, in a Texas school district training teachers on books they can or cannot have in their classroom libraries in order to be in compliance with the new law passed by Republi-fascists in the Texas State House. This is the same law I’ll be talking to Ana Ramon about in this interview.

Gina Peddy (recorded) 04:15

We are in the middle of a political mess, and you are in the middle of a political mess. So we just have to do the best that we can. We’re going to go and we’re going to do — you’re going to do what you do best and that’s to teach kids. I think we’re all just really terrified. All right, I think you are terrified and I wish I could take that away. I do. I can’t. I can’t do that. You are professionals. We hired you as professionals. We trust you with our children. So, if you think the book is okay, then let’s go with it. And whatever happens we will fight it together. We will. There’s a lot of districts that are in the exact same spot we’re in, and no one knows how to navigate these waters. I mean, no one. As you go through, just try to remember the concept of 3979. And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing, that has other views. [But how do you oppose the Holocaust?] Believe me that’s come up.

Coco Das 05:26

I want to talk about a chilling moment that comes earlier in the audio. When one of the teachers says, “I think we’re all just really terrified,” Peddy responds, “I think YOU are terrified, and I wish I could take that away. I do. I can’t. I can’t do that.” Here you can see these fascist laws working exactly in the way that they’re supposed to – by instilling fear, and finding interpreters and enforcers if the law not in the state, or at least not exclusively in the state, but among your neighbors, your colleagues, your school administrators and parents who share the views of these fascists. It reminds me of a chapter in The Nazi Conscience, By Claudia Koonz, called The Swastika in the Heart of the Youth. In it, she quotes the Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick: “The primary obligation of the school is to raise youth for service to the Volk and state in the spirit of national socialism.” Then Koontz writes, “Progressive educators, he claimed, had baffled students with too many choices and left them defenseless against the ravages of a decadent culture.”

Compare these sentiments to phrases found in Trump’s executive order on the patriotic education and the so-called 1776 commission, a direct inspiration for the laws passed in Texas and the attacks on critical race theory and anti-racist education. In the executive order it states: “The American founding envisioned a political order in harmony with the design of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” seeing the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as embodied in and sanctioned by natural law and its traditions. Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains.   Thus it is necessary to provide America’s young people access to what is genuinely inspiring and unifying in our history, as well as to the lessons imparted by the American experience of overcoming great national challenges.  This is what makes possible the informed and honest patriotism that is essential for a successful republic.”

I want to give a shout out to the staff member who recorded and leaked this audio to NBC News. The worst thing we can do is let these laws and the enforcement of these laws go down without opposition. What on earth would be the opposing view on the Holocaust and what it represented? Mein Kampf and conspiracy theories about a Jewish cabal secretly running the world? Is it truly that in the eyes of these fascists, both the teaching of the Holocaust and the teaching of fascist conspiracy theories with no basis in reality used as a pretext for genocide are both equally valid? Or is “balance” a euphemism for what they really want and what is actually being applied – the erasure of truth and the re-assertion of a white supremacist, Christian supremacist, male supremacist worldview. Look at the history that they say must be “balanced out,” by which they actually mean stamped out – the history of oppressed peoples, the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement and subjugation of African Americans, the heroic struggles against white supremacy and colonialism. This is necessary for the revival of mythical national greatness which is a founding tenet of fascism – something Jason Stanley and other fascism scholars talk about at length. But the truth matters, not only to students of color, but to all students, all children and youth and their teachers and parents, for a society that does not value the truth or know how to evaluate the evidence to seek the truth is a society of mob rule and lunacy on a road to real horrors. With that, here’s my interview with Ana Ramon.

Coco Das 09:47

Today I am really fortunate to speak with Ana Ramon, the Deputy Director of Advocacy for the Intercultural Development Research Association, which is an independent nonprofit organization with a mission to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child through strong public schools. Welcome, Ana, I thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I’m very privileged and excited to be here to talk about very unfortunate events and issues that are taking place both in the Texas legislative process, in the building, but now, unfortunately, reverberating out into our classrooms.t

Our organization Refuse Fascism has been analyzing and sounding the alarm about a 21st century fascist movement, which predated Trump but that Trump was able to galvanize into a political force that seized Federal power and now dominates the Republican Party. But of late, we have had to spend a lot of time talking about Texas, because Texas is spearheading and modeling how to achieve what this movement has wanted for decades, and modeling how to get into a position to consolidate these things into law and into unchallengeable political power — what they hope will be unchallengeable. So today, once again, we’re talking about Texas. This time about two pieces of legislation that censor the teaching of certain topics in American and Texas history. On September 2, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 3, classroom censorship bill that is the second attempt by conservative Texas lawmakers to control historical narratives and limit classroom discussions about race and discrimination. The first attempt was House Bill 3979, which passed into law and became effective in early September. If I’m not mistaken, this is affecting educators and students right now. It’s also my understanding that you were present at the Capitol when these laws were passed, and I want to hear what that was like. But first, let’s start with some basic information, starting with House Bill 3979. What are some of the particulars of that legislation?

Ana Ramon 12:04

For sure. Both are designed to control and limit free speech and ideas and what teachers and students can say. House Bill 3979, for all intents and purposes is a very messy bill. It’s messy because the process in itself was difficult and messy to begin with. Within the bill, it does have some additions to the social studies curriculum and standards. They add what they were purporting to add, which is already in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), which is usually typically guided by the State Board of Education. This was an unprecedented effort by the Republican leadership of the Texas Legislature to change curriculum and change what was going to be taught within the school districts. A lot of them are like the founding documents and historical documents that aren’t necessarily new to the TEKS or to the standards. A lot of it just reinforced what they were purport to call ‘patriotic education.’

What did happen on the House floor, and due to a series of procedural maneuvers and events, there was a lot added from Democratic members to try to bring in more individuals of color issues that were historically accurate, and to focus on the truth. Everyone from the Fugitive Slave Act, the Indian Removal Act, Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, the American labor movement, etc. There’s just a lot within this, and it became a really heavy and ugly and racially charged fight on the legislative floor when it first took place, but that’s what led to this moment; these uncomfortable conversations, to really talk about what’s missing in our education system, and what’s missing in our curriculum today in Texas.

As you can imagine, a lot of that is people of color, issues of color, historical events that dealt with black and brown issues. That was a very robust and intense conversation that happened on the floor. In fact, there was one amendment by Representative Rafael Anchia that asked about even teaching about the insurrection. Then a member of the legislature who actually was at the insurrection came up and and spoke against the amendment. It was a very politically charged — a very in-depth conversation around the standards, but that’s only one portion of it was in 3979. There’s also a current events section which would not allow teachers to discuss a particular current event or widely debated incredibly controversial issue of public policy or social affairs. This is concerning. When you’re not able to talk about current controversial issues, what does that mean? That it’s now the discretion of the teacher and the administration and obviously the Texas Education Agency — when once we get any kind of guidance, which has not been released, even though the bill is law. How do you teach an ethics studies course? How do you teach a U.S. AP history course? Just general social studies courses?

This supposed to apply to all sorts of state courses. It’s confusing, and it’s not fair, because you’re not allowing students and teachers to have critical conversations. There’s also limitations on what coursework and credit can be received, so, not only is this in the classroom, but it’s also affecting how students and what kind of activities they can take part in, and if they receive course credit or not. It also touches on teacher trainings. We’ve seen national and other state bills working against this align for what we really see is diversity, equity, inclusion; industry standard, corporate level work, right? It’s not anything that is extreme by any means. These are basic things that people have been working on to make more school rooms inclusive.

There are prohibitions on what concepts can be taught. A teacher or administrator cannot require to make part of the course various things that are brand new. Some of them are a bit charged, so they can’t make part of the course the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States. Or, with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles, etc. of the United States. There’s a prohibition on the 1619 project. There’s a section that states the school districts may not accept private funds for certain purposes, specifically for acquiring materials; purchasing a book, or curriculum or providing teacher training or professional development. There is some guidance around not punishing students, but that is still very ambiguous. Obviously, we know that in our education system, students of color are unfortunately more likely to be disciplined for whatever reason, aside from the obvious one being open racism and discrimination. If there’s teacher training, maybe not so much of an issue, or if there’s culturally responsive classrooms, but that’s just not where we are as a state. This bill definitely takes us five steps back. That’s just the first of the two.

Coco Das 17:11

That seems very far reaching and wide ranging in terms of the leap. Can you explain then what Senate Bill 3 is and how it differs? My understanding is Senate Bill 3 would be the final legislation. I may be wrong about that.

Ana Ramon 17:27

No, you’re not wrong. Senate Bill 3 is actually even more expansive. It is confusing. You just touched on something that’s confusing even for people who do day-to-day work in education policy and who work in classroom settings. We have now two “anti CRT bills.” We really see there’s these anti-diversity equity inclusion bills, anti-culturally responsive classroom bills, and definitely classroom censorship bills. It’s by many names, but all points to not being good. With SB 3, we see an expansion. This not only is on required social studies courses, which we saw 3979. This is all courses, K through 12, including electives, innovative courses, African American Studies, Mexican American Studies. It expands that, and it prohibits teachers from discussing, again, certain topics related to racism, bias, historical facts about the founding of the United States; it’s just a restriction on what teachers can discuss, really around important controversial events and issues. It does remove requirements to learn about diverse communities.

As I mentioned previously, all of those things that were added to our social studies standards, which is robust, I think, added while not normally and typically how we we change curriculum, or change the standards through the legislative process — again, unprecedented — it removes all of that. There’s quite a bit of what’s removed. Everything that I mentioned earlier — and even more so — that didn’t have enough time to go through all the concepts that were added by democratic amendments that were accepted by the entire body and voted on by everyone on the House floor was stripped. So, a little good that we thought may be a part of the bill, even though it’s ugly still, was removed. It does prohibit students from again, receiving and earning credit, and it touches on a little bit of what those exceptions are: again, very limited. While there’s a lot of confusion and concern around what that will look like in its implementation, it does again reinforce that prohibiting of private funding for important programming and curriculum training, and like I said, around diversity, equity inclusion as relates to race, racism and sexism. It does create a civics training program for educator clients. What we would hope for is an actual civics training program that’s robust and is led by thought leaders and actual focus on civics, but what we understand is this is going to be developed through the Texas Education Agency, through the commissioner, however, it’s really going to be focused on compliance to this bill and not an actual civics training for teachers and how to get students more involved. Again, restricts teacher training and creates vague rules around the treatment of student conduct, which is always a concern. The last part, I think, does create a TA enforcement power. We don’t know what this will look like. This is a big unknown right now. We’re waiting for guidance from TA.

If you look at — and this is kind of a weird, if not a fun fact, probably a weird sad fact — Texas Education Agency Commissioner is probably the, if not one of the most powerful, governor appointees, so the actual implementation and enforcement really runs the gamut of what TA wants to do. That can be very scary and concerning, especially when you’re looking at local control for the districts. The last thing I’ll mention is SB 3 clarifies that it does not create a private cause of action that would allow individuals to sue teachers or their school employees, however, the cooling effects are already taking place across Texas. So these vague what-ifs don’t mean much when a bill is constructed with the sole purpose of cooling and dismantling any diversity, equity inclusion work that’s being done in state.

Coco Das 20:56

Right. If you can spread just this atmosphere of fear about what you can teach, then it’s almost like there’s not that much enforcement that’s necessary. My next question was going to be: If educators are seen to be in violation of this law, what is the consequence? What happens? Do you know that yet?

Ana Ramon 21:14

I can talk a little bit of the anecdotes that we’re starting to hear. We are still waiting for TA guidance both for 3979 and SB 3. From what we’ve seen — and we’re starting to collect these instances, not only in Texas but across the South where our region lies — we’ve seen the firing of a Colleyville principal from Colleyville ISD (Independent School District), we’ve seen Little Elm ISD take up a resolution, which failed, but which we were happy to see after pushback from the community. A resolution to roll back their ethnic studies courses for the entire ISD. We’ve seen Katy ISD actually disinvite a very prominent child’s book author because of their “CRT affiliations.” And now Katy ISD has actually already implemented a process that would allow anyone, any parents essentially, to challenge any book within the libraries. It’s very scary, because we’ve seen in other parts of the country where they have banned book lists, so it seems like we’re on route for that, and obviously, any book related to 1619 project would not be allowed under this law.

Then what we’re hearing from teachers is that the accusations are beginning to happen, right? If they talk about institutionalized racism, if they’re talking about what we see as truth in our classrooms, then quickly, the finger could be pointed at them about essentially being anti-white and racist themselves and putting them in a situation where now they have to be reviewed by their administration. It’s just not an environment that’s conducive to critical learning and thinking and honestly respecting our students and teachers and the process they work in.

Coco Das:
I wanted to quote from you from recent newsletter, and ask you a follow-up question. You wrote, “We began the 87th Texas legislative session in January 2021, in the midst of COVID 19 pandemic and the historic response to racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd. In this atmosphere, the Texas legislature had the opportunity to develop serious policy solutions to tackle issues that directly impact young people in Texas. Instead, the session was weighed down with political talkaing points and unnecessary issues that allowed partisan ideology to creep into substantive policy. While this is in no way unprecedented, many advocates remarked how this session felt like more of a culture war than it typically does with legislators largely ignoring major issues faced by the state. How do you account for this? What do you think is going on? And who are some of the forces that are driving this culture war?

Ana Ramos
It’s funny because often I would say — on more of the progressive side, obviously IDRA being non-partisan, but on the progressive side, we’re often the fingers pointed us for culture wars — very clearly the analysis that’s been done and information we’ve received from national partners is that this is not a grassroots movement to attack “CRT efforts” in schools. This is being driven by conservative elites who are moving this and constantly moving this since February 2021 to be a critical point for conservative talk shows conservative movement building, conservative top down efforts. What we’ve seen, which was very striking to me, was that the CRT word and phrase was shared first on Fox News, for example, as one of the conservative outlets in February of 2021. Since that moment, up until May, they had doubled their efforts or doubled the amount of coverage that was being given to CRT or they use the terms “woke” curriculum. It’s just absolutely ridiculous because we know that’s absolutely not what this is. While CRT is a theory, and it’s something that is crucial and important to higher education. That’s just it. It’s higher education. This is something that’s been around since the 70s.

Why is it now becoming the boogeyman, out of nowhere being used now to weaponize and push good administrators of color out of their position, or push teachers out of the classroom or push students not to learn the truth? It’s all being whipped up by conservative elites. It’s nothing that’s grassroots-based, and, to be frank, we have outweighed them at every turn, in every corner of the debate. We had over 300 or so individuals come out and testify that was percentages ahead of who came to testify for these bills. So this is not a grassroots movement. It’s not happening in our schools. We, as an organization that tracks this or interacts with culturally responsive schools and efforts across the South. In Texas, there is no instance that we know of, of any curriculum being adopted that is CRT, any standards or TEKS that are CRT-related, it just doesn’t exist. They’ve created a problem for their solution, which is to whip up more conservative thoughts and fears around what’s going on in the classrooms.

Coco Das 26:09

I think for all the that they go on about free speech and cancel culture, I think this makes it very clear that they don’t really give a damn about free speech. This is really about their official narrative of what they want society to be like. Yes, go ahead.

Ana Ramon 26:26

Some of the early conversations we had with Republican offices was, oh, my boss can’t vote for this because he believes in the First Amendment. This was something that, when we were having one-on-one conversations in the building with offices, they understood this to be an infringement on what schools could do and what teachers could teach. As you mentioned, in my quote, we as a state are only headed to an increased student population of color. We have the largest student population of color that we’ve ever seen as a state. We need to be reflective of what’s going on in our classrooms and not the reverse. On top of that, these teachers and these students in other analysis and data that we’ve seen, they’re dealing with crippling amount of learning loss; of students are not having access to the infrastructure they needed. Having not only COVID-19 and having that weigh down on their mental wellness, but also on top of that having this entire snow event that also led to learning loss in our schools. So why are we compounding and compressing real issues with a non-real issue and in a boogeyman that is only going to drive good teachers out of the classroom and students not to be engaged in the work?

Coco Das 27:36

Do you have a sense of what has shifted that’s allowing them to get away with this now? As you said, the consequences for students and educators is horrible. There are all these issues. People talk about how the maternal mortality rate, the poverty rate. There are all these terrible things going on in Texas, and yet, this is what they’re concentrating on. But also they’re getting away with it. What is your assessment of why that is?

Ana Ramon 28:02

I will say this more personally, thinking through what I’ve seen, and also just understanding some of the political landscape in Texas, this feels very much like a reaction to the movement that was created after the murder of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor, and other Black Americans. There was a movement that was seen even in the data where it showed that people had a different view on race and had a different view on how Black people in particular be treated of wrongfully by our country. Any time you see movement and growth in the right direction, we’ll see the reverberations and the opposite. That is what this conservative elite saw and fearful of the conversations that they thought were happening. This movement away from “patriotic education.” Patriotic education should be the good, the bad, and the ugly of our country. It’s not one or the other. It’s not the founding fathers and not <inaudable> judge. It’s everyone.

That’s what I think is being reflected back, because what’s even more crushing to me is the fact that we talked to students, we’ve talked to student equity coalitions, we talked to individuals who are in the system, and what we know to be true is that students are facing discrimination based on their race, religion, sex, gender identity every day. This is not to say that students who are white do not have instances where they are, you know, everyone unfortunately could face discrimination. It’s just the system that we live in. However, having a response, having the tools. having the capability to respond, that’s what this bill is going to attack. What we want to reemphasize is that, with the movement of George Floyd and the movement of people, it’s from the pain and the hurt that people are feeling in their day to day lives. When we go to an equity coalition, we worked with a student coalition that had collected over 120 examples of discrimination on campus from their members and from their student body. Going through them and reading through them, we recently worked with the teacher coalition to submit it to the A to say this is a real problem. The Attorney General needs to look at what’s the real problem in our schools, and that’s the actual discrimination that’s happening on campus. It is a reaction, and I really wish that we would be uplifting and centering students of color instead of ostracizing them and attacking them for things that don’t even exist in their classrooms.

Coco Das 30:26

Well, everything you’re talking about reminds me of a quote, and I wanted to get your reaction to this. Tony Norman, who is a journalist and columnist, wrote an article about the recent abortion bans in Texas called “Fugitive Slave Act Redux, On the Run in Texas and America,” and he was a guest on our podcast and our main host, Sam Goldman, asked him to comment on this link that he was making between guns, which have been de-legislated in Texas, abortion effectively banned and Black and Brown people’s voting rights being suppressed, that triad. He said, “I think that the Texas Legislature knows exactly what it’s doing, and it’s almost like a soft secession on their part. They want to establish the fact that Texas is going to be a different kind of state than any other and that it’s going to be much more patriarchal and violent. It wants to be the opposite of what it sees in blue America.” He goes on in his quote and says, “I think guns, disenfranchisement and stripping abortion rights from women, that’s just part and parcel of a program and worldview to basically make America great again, as it were, as in pre Civil War great, antebellum great.” So I wonder if you have a response to that in relation to these classroom censorship bills.

Ana Ramon 31:46

This is an extreme response to a non issue. But on top of that, we always saw this bill as an attack on voting rights. They’re just not old enough to vote yet — if you’re going to strip a student’s capability of logical thinking, of the ability to learn the truth, but on top of that, dismantle ways that students can receive course credit. The only reason I even got into politics and I worked for Texas legislative sessions, both in the House and the Senate, is because I decided I’m going to do coursework and work for a State Rep office and get course credit hours because that’s the level of privilege that you have to have to actually do an internship that’s not paid or do work that’s not paid. That’s difficult, and when we talk to students, they are multifaceted, and they have multiple responsibilities; whether it be at home, bringing an income or you know, helping their family. So, on top of everything else, this is definitely a response, an extreme response.

There are parts of this bill, like there’s a specific section about inculcating ideas that comes line for line from the executive order that Trump had around this issue. Very clearly, there are these lines drawn to the extremes of the Trump administration, and how he, on his way out, was doing some very intentional work to dismantle diversity, equity inclusion efforts; again, nothing extreme, diversity of inclusion being literally corporate standard; you can go to Google or Dell or any company. We’re literally asking for the bare minimum here. That is still not enough and needs to be attacked by conservative elites who are overreaching into the classroom. We definitely see this on trend. There’s multiple members of the legislature from the leadership and from the party, the Republican Party, who said this is the most conservative session they’ve ever had. It is architected. It’s with design. As we’ve seen, time and time again, and I’ll take a chapter out of the historians and the professors we talked to, this is exactly on trend when it comes to oppressing communities of color or diverse communities from trying to move out of the boxes that they’ve been placed in. These are similar tactics, and it’s really, really disheartening to see that these tactics are literally being used on student children.

Coco Das 33:59

Let’s talk a little bit about the other side of this. Can you talk a little bit about your work around this and about how people are opposing and resisting this?

Ana Ramon 34:09

When we started with 3979, it was a fast paced response. May was a full court press for us. We were able to acquire a very diverse coalition of close to 100 organizations that pushed against this bill. When I mean diverse, we had of course, like advocacy organizations and student led organizations and parent groups and teacher groups. We also had 11 Chambers of Commerce. We had the North Texas Commission and it was such a wide group of people because they understood what this was going to mean for not only what’s happening in the classroom, but also the workforce, and what was going to help us continue as a society, and one that is becoming more and more diverse every day. That was something that we put together. We did anything and everything under the sun, it was both internal and external pressures that we were trying to put onto this. We had virtual testimony town halls. We drove people to capitol. We had op eds across the state. We had several working groups at points. We had weekly check ins, where we had over 50 individuals on the call. There was tension and there was concern and there was fear around what 3979 meant across the spectrum.

As we stated, this was an attack not only on free speech, but also the day to day operations of our classroom. I was really proud of the work that we did. I was really proud of the groups that we brought together and really centering Black and Brown students and teachers and those who are going to be on the frontlines unfortunately of this, but to no avail. I’ve monitored and watched this bill and helped with internal strategies. I understand the rules both in the House and the Senate; one of the things I’m very lucky to have learned in my time there. I have never seen the amount of legislative deviations take place on one bill than I have seen for this bill. And I actually heard that from multiple decade-long staffers. They literally introduced new rules in the Senate to get this bill passed — 3979 in particular. I have a whole timeline of legislative deviations that I put together. Legislative deviations being moving away from the traditional process, right? It’s a term used just to highlight how crazy the responses are.

On top of that, just the very overt racial atmospherics around this bill, and linking it specifically to the Anti Voting Rights Bill. I was really proud of the work, and there was so much that was surmounted against us, but what I was really also proud to see is that we persisted. We went further, and when this became an item on the governor’s called Coalition Move together, and on top of the coalition we created, it was really anchored in the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition that’s been around for 20 plus years. It’s comprised of groups like NAACP and MALDEF, and IDRA (Intercultural Development Research Association) and others that came together to talk about equity and race equity in our education system. Since then, we’ve had subsequent hearings again, knowing that this was likely to pass but never wanting to give up, because we knew at the time that it would be so hard to kill these bills.

What really drove us was the fact that we had all been touched by race in our classrooms and feeling discriminated against, and being propelled by our fears of what oppression and these oppressive bills could mean for students, and really hoping that at some point, there may be a potential legal challenge. I think there’s conversations that are taking place, and this is nationwide conversation. On top of that, we’re not going to stop. There’s the State Board of Education in Texas that will be writing the social studies curriculum, and that’s our next fight; making sure that when this is implemented, that we have professionals and students and teachers who are part of working groups making and helping make decisions are a part of that. We’re going to keep pushing and really make sure that our narrative is heard and that if students have to be discriminated against, then all students have to learn about it.

Coco Das 37:57

From our perspective at Refuse Fascism, we’ve been studying this fascist movement and the interest in what you’re calling the legislative deviations, because one of the features of fascism is how it tears up the rules and norms. That’s something that Trump was very effective at. People learn from that. The very norms that people were relying on, the normal channels that people were relying on to stop these outrages, were being torn up. The rulebook was being torn up. You had one side, the Democrats who were really playing by the rules, and you had the other side, this Trump’s GOP, this thoroughly hollowed-out party, that’s willing to tear up all the rules and be bad faith actors in getting their agenda passed. I really want to thank you for being with me. I wanted to ask you how can people follow you and your work and the work of IDRA and how can people follow this struggle?

Ana Ramon 38:56

I feel like we’re living on Twitter. It’s our first stop, but feel free to follow me @Ana_Ramon89 and then please follow us on Twitter @TxTLEEC and follow IDRA which is @IDRAedu. We’re constantly moving on this, but there’s other Coalition’s that are working in lockstep with community and that’s the the Teach Coalition, which has a presence both on Facebook and on Twitter. They’re looking to also continue these efforts in our local communities where we know that these bills are meant to really do the most damage before school boards and before decisions are made on diversity, equity inclusion work. We’re going to continue these fights against these very discriminatory bills that are just meant to attack diversity, equity inclusion in our classrooms. If you’re interested in getting involved, please reach out to us and feel free to reach out to me via email. My email is [email protected].

Coco Das 39:58

Ana, I really enjoyed talking to you. I just want to close out with something — I don’t do a lot of these interviews for the podcast, but in every one that I have, I have said our definition of fascism that’s up on the RefuseFascism.org website. “Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Once in power, fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive traditional values. Truth is obliterated, and fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement and consolidate power.”

In these bills, these laws, you can see concentrated how the right to dissent and critical thinking is under attack. The truth is what they say it is. And I think all of us who really care about all students, who care about diversity, who care about the truth, we really need to follow what’s going on in Texas, and we really need to come together to stop it. I really appreciate the information you’ve given us and the resources you’ve given us to support the struggle. As we close out many of our podcasts with our slogan, I wanted to say I hope we can keep in touch and really bring this slogan to life: In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America.

There is a lot more to dig into on this question of education, truth, history, science, and epistemology – the theory of knowledge and how it’s attained, and how all of this relates to the fascist movement cohered around Donald Trump. Check out Sam Goldman’s interviews with Federico Finchelstein, Chanelle Wilson, and Mia Bloom, and go to refusefascism.org for some of resources on this question, including a panel discussion that aired last December called “COVID – A Case Study with Life & Death Stakes: Science, Epistemology, Conspiracy & Fascism”

I want to end this episode with asking you all to imagine what it would mean if the streets were filled with people refusing to accept these fascist assaults, not just for a day, but every day and everywhere until these fascists laws are rescinded. Here I want to talk about the Draconian Texas abortion laws, which was halted for two days by a federal judge but quickly re-instated. The DOJ has asked the Supreme Court to intervene – which they refused to do right after the law was passed. This shows that the ruling parties are deeply divided on this question and how our society should be governed. But relying again on the Supreme Court which has been stacked with a fascist majority and has indicated they have no intention to stop this law – and relying on the terms of this system to resolve this for us, is a deadly strategy.

As Refuse Fascism co-initiator and co-host of the RNL show Sunsara Taylor wrote recently, “The outrage of millions must be called forth and mobilized to STOP this assault on abortion rights and everything it concentrates. A line must be drawn. Artists, academics, writers, doctors, and everyone with a public platform should be using it to not only decry this assault on the lives of half of humanity, but to call on people to get out in the streets to make “good trouble.” Everyone who remembers the dark days before Roe should be speaking and warning of what it meant. Students and young people need to be filling the streets, along with others of all ages, relentlessly (not just once, symbolically) refusing to let this go down.” Now IS the time to be in the streets, before the Supreme Court hears the Mississippi case which explicitly asks to overturn Roe v. Wade on December 1. This is how abortion rights were won in the first place and how Mexican women recently won an abortion victory.

As I wrote earlier this week, “Trumpism – a 21st century fascism hellbent on revenge, violence, and the gutting of the rule of law – is far from over, and no one is going to stop them but millions of people who refuse to lie down and accept it. A mass movement against fascism, even through four years of a fascist regime in the White House and all of the crimes we’ve witnessed, has yet to emerge, and the time that Biden’s victory bought us to organize real, undeniable, overwhelming opposition that could actually drive this fascism out of government and society is running out.”

Thanks for listening to the Refuse Fascism podcast. Want to support the show? It’s simple. Show us some love by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice and follow Subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to help us reach more listeners, you can also donate to help us play podcasts at Give at Refusefascism.org or Venmo Refuse-Fascism. Thanks to Sam Goldman, Lina Thorne, Richard Marini and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each episode, so be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox each week. We’ll be back next Sunday. Until then, in the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America.