The Texas State Board of Education’s preliminary approval of a bible-heavy, mandatory reading list for Texas public schools is a brazen promotion of religious doctrine.

While removing about 100 readings that represent diversity, such as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and writings from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, the overlong reading list emphasizes the bible and Christianity. (For more details on the theocratic list, which starts in kindergarten, click here.)

To put it plainly: Public schools are not Sunday schools. Texas has no business putting one religion’s text on a pedestal above all others, yet that’s exactly what this reading list does. By making bible passages required reading, Texas officials are throwing their constitutional obligation to maintain religious neutrality out the window — and in doing so, sending a clear message to nonreligious and non-Christian students and families that they don’t quite belong or should convert. All students deserve a public education free from stealth proselytizing, but with the nonreligious now making up 26 percent of Texas adults, and another 6 percent subscribing to non-Christian faiths, it’s imperative the state school board recognize its constitutional obligations. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling on the Texas State Board of Education to reverse its decision at its final vote in June.

The Dallas Morning News editorial board points out that while studying religious texts can have genuine academic value, any such instruction needs to draw from more than “a single tradition.” This list doesn’t come close to meeting that standard. It props up the Christian bible while leaving out the wide range of religious and secular perspectives that actually reflect the diversity making up Texas classrooms today.

That isn’t education. It’s indoctrination.

The First Amendment isn’t a suggestion. It forbids government institutions — including public schools — from establishing religion, which by definition means schools can’t favor religious belief. As the Supreme Court has said over and over: Schools can teach about religion in an objective, academic way, but not inculcate religious doctrine. Texas has intentionally crossed that line.

Hundreds of Texas residents recently turned out for the “Teach the Truth” rally to stand up for honest, inclusive public education and push back against this kind of political meddling. They understand that public schools are for all students, not just those who happen to share the religious beliefs of whoever is currently running the state board.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum, either. It’s part of a sustained push on the part of Texas elected officials to chip away at the separation of state and church. Past efforts to do this have included a mandate to put up Ten Commandments posters in public schools (which FFRF is challenging in court), permitting religious chaplains to act as trained school counselors (fortunately almost all school districts opted out of doing so) and requiring school districts to vote on whether to allow a period of prayer during the school day (ditto). Such legislative overreach trades academics for ideology — and that’s a bad deal for every student in Texas.

If state officials genuinely care about educating young people, they’ll listen to teachers and scrap this sectarian agenda. Students deserve inclusive, academically rigorous and constitutionally sound curricula. Anything less is a failure of duty to students — and a direct assault on the freedoms the First Amendment was written to protect.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 41,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including 1,800 members and a chapter in Texas. FFRF’s purposes are to defend the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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