A California board responsible for developing school textbooks in the new curriculum is injecting "Islamophobic content", a group of 15 top American Muslim organizations alleged.
The top Muslim American group said in a letter to California State Board of Education,that, "The injection of Islamophobic content into the teacher's manuals would inflame how student discussions are framed. Students, teachers, and communities all suffer when the content is rigged to cause disruption." The board is in final stages of revising and updating the K-12 History-Social Science Framework for public schools.
The letter sent to the California Board which is considered to be very influential as its textbooks are followed and adopted in several US states, said that, "The bombardment of prejudicial ideas, from media outlets to candidates in the Presidential election primaries has left no one immune. Even the educators our children look up to are impacted by the hateful discourse."
According to the top Muslim organizations, Islam has been introduced in the curriculum primarily under a narrative of war and conquest, in compare to the treatment given to other religions.
The famous among them include Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America (National), Northern California Islamic Council (NCIC), Indian American Muslim Council and Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
The letter added that, "The curriculum text in its current form is prejudiced in its references to alleged forced conversions of non-Muslims to Islam, often when no such forced conversions are even reported in historical sources."
"Likewise, the curriculum text completely obliterates the role played by United States' foreign policy in funding extremist religious Muslim groups to achieve short term political objectives and advances the idea that religious extremism is to be found only among Muslims, placing the blame squarely on 'Radical Islam'," it said.
"Despite India being the second most populous country in the world, the dramatic rise of Hindu nationalism in that country and its violent consequences to religious minorities have been reduced to a passing reference in the curriculum under the religious nationalism section," it alleged.
"It is disconcerting to see hundreds of edits submitted by groups and individuals that insert more Islamophobia into the already problematic California school curriculum," the letter added.
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