I’m a Muslim High School Student. I Fear Texas’ New Bible-Infused Curriculum. 

“But not everybody is Christian,” my 10-year-old sister said. “Who allowed this?” We learned last year that Bible lessons could become part of her elementary school curriculum. For 10 minutes, she sat in disbelief, voicing the same questions on a loop.

“Who allowed this?” 

“Why did they let this happen?” 

“What about kids like me?” 

By “kids like me,” she meant her Muslim friends and classmates. Kids who didn’t follow Christianity. Kids who already felt excluded because of their beliefs and would soon be invalidated every day in school.

My little sister is one of the 2.5 million public elementary school students across Texas who will potentially be learning Bible texts in class. On Nov. 22, 2024, the Texas State Board of Education approved a heavily criticized curriculum that centers Christianity in reading and language arts instruction, including lessons about Queen Esther and portrayals of Christ’s Last Supper, along with material about the Gospel of Matthew and the crucifixion of Jesus. The curriculum even includes a biblical creation story for an art lesson taught to kindergartners. Although it’s optional, there’s an incentive: Districts will receive $60 per student in additional funding to implement it. 

I’m 16, and I’m a junior in high school. My sister’s questions took me back to racial jabs in my 3rd-grade classroom and to being yelled at by strangers across the aisle in grocery stores. We live in El Paso, and, at just 10 years old, my sister has already been targeted by peers because of her religion and culture. Classmates have made fun of her for her skin tone and religious beliefs — as well as for our mother’s hijab, which my sister saw as a beautiful display of our mother’s faith. My sister couldn’t believe that the ostracism she’s faced at school could get any worse, until now. 

I’m a student at the Young Women’s Academy in the El Paso Independent School District, and I worry my district will implement the content because of its financial struggles in recent years. In a city that is largely Catholic, I fear that will hold sway. I worry for my friends who attend schools in smaller, more conservative towns or cities with greater funding needs.

Public school classrooms are supposed to honor the Establishment Clause, which prevents the government from establishing a religion, and offer an education that doesn’t push religious beliefs onto students — an American ideal clearly outlined in the First Amendment to the Constitution that I was taught in my U.S. government class. 

Instead, the so-called Bluebonnet curriculum is a K–5 English language arts program that utilizes biblical teachings for everything from poetry and math to history. It’s part of a push from Texas conservatives to put Christianity in the classroom. In 2023, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would force public schools to display the Ten Commandments and allow unlicensed religious chaplains to serve as school counselors. 

As the Barbed Wire previously reported, in Texas, the fight to force more religion into classrooms has been a tumultuous one. A bill passed two sessions ago required Texas school districts to post “In God We Trust” signs donated by local businesses. However, a school district in North Texas rejected “In God We Trust” signs printed in Arabic when a resident tried to donate a rainbow version in August 2022. “Why is more God not good?” asked Sravan Krishna at the 2022 school board meeting in Southlake. 

Students across Texas, including myself, fear what the approval of the Bluebonnet curriculum means for biases in our education and for the future of Texas classrooms. Instead of more typical teenage worries — like late assignments and what to eat after school — my concerns are about what happens if kids feel emboldened by their lessons to bully my little sister, whether the new curriculum will expand into high schools, and what will happen to teachers who try to fight against it. It has worsened the hopelessness I continuously feel as a Muslim person in the United States. 

In 2022, a study by the nonprofit Institute for Social Policy and Understanding said that half of U.S. Muslim families surveyed — with a child in K–12 schools — reported that their child had been bullied for their faith in the past year.

Pushing a specific belief system in classrooms will only further harm students who follow marginalized religions by making them feel excluded and “othered” by peers and teachers, and by making them feel like their beliefs are inherently wrong.

As a Muslim student, I, like my sister, remember being bullied throughout elementary school because of my religion. I constantly feared how I would be perceived by my classmates. In 5th grade, I remember being asked about my religion by a classmate, and I often tried to avoid the question instead of answering about my Muslim faith.

Data shows that Muslims are the most likely faith group in the United States to report experiencing interpersonal discrimination, but my sister and I are not alone in feeling we have to hide our identity. Mara Rosendorf, a 17-year-old student attending Coronado High School in El Paso, told me: “In elementary school, as a Jewish student growing up in a majority Catholic city, I already felt out of place. I could not imagine the damage it would’ve caused me to go to school every day and learn from content that made me feel like my beliefs were not legitimate.” 

Supporters of the new Bible-infused curriculum have argued that their only objective is to encourage students to make connections between religion and the humanities. However, the issue with the content isn’t that it teaches religion, but rather that it teaches only Christianity. Learning about different belief systems, cultures, and practices isn’t wrong or harmful; in fact, it can even create more inclusive and diverse learning environments. The issue is that students are being steered to think that one belief is correct. Through consistent references solely to Christianity, this new curriculum establishes the faith as a moral compass, but Texas also limits education on other faiths and cultures.

For example, in 2021, the Texas Legislature passed an anti-critical race theory law that restricts how public K–12 educators can teach current events and the history of racism in the United States. Meanwhile, Texas educational officials have also imposed book bans and censored student speech in high school newspapers. 

Even students who support learning about religion in class say the issue is a lack of varying faiths. As Ayham Alghoul, a 17-year-old student at BASIS Shavano High School in San Antonio, put it: Christianity is “a default,” and classes involving the Bible “would be far less controversial if they discussed a multitude of religions.” 

The curriculum includes a reference to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in a lesson for kindergarten students about the Golden Rule, which asks people to treat others the way they would want to be treated. As someone who was taught the same rule in elementary school without any reference to religion, I know it is possible to teach good behavior in classrooms without pushing a specific ideology. 

After signing four parental rights bills into law in 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X that “Our schools are for education, NOT indoctrination.” Yet, it feels as though we are allowed to be “indoctrinated,” as long as it coincides with what lawmakers want us to believe.

As Rosendorf, the Coronado student, said: “Education is meant to prepare students to think independently and challenge assumptions. When certain content is restricted due to religious or political concerns, it undermines the integrity of the educational process.” 

With President Trump’s moves to close the Department of Education, and Texas lawmakers’ continued drive to add religion to schools while restricting lessons on race, I fear how much of my education will be biased — and even incorrect — because of officials who want to control what I learn. I worry these policies will create a more narrow-minded generation of young people. My friends from across the state all feel the same way. 

Sixteen-year-old Poojasai Kona, who attends Frisco High School near Dallas, said: “It’s just going to make the education system even more limited and restricted, and just not diverse at all. It’s not fair at all that I’m not being taught about critical race theory or African American studies. Being able to learn about religion but not historical context, feels like it’s harming my education.”

Across Texas, high school students like me want to be able to learn without biases from our educational leaders. We want a Texas curriculum that prioritizes curiosity, critical thinking, and most importantly us over ulterior motives from lawmakers. 

Our futures hang in the balance.