One year after Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill banning some concepts about race in public schools, Bixby teachers decided to shelve a lesson on “Dreamland Burning,” a young-adult historical fiction novel based on the Tulsa Race Massacre.
A parent from the group Moms for Liberty had complained about the book during the previous year, although her son was allowed to read something else. The Tulsa County chapter of Moms For Liberty said in a statement they agree with the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre being taught but don’t support the idea that any person today is responsible for the event.
“We cried. I cried. The assistant superintendent cried. She felt awful,” Bixby ninth-grade history teacher Jaime Lee said.
Bixby administrators Rob Miller and Jamie Milligan recommended the educators teaching “Dreamland Burning” review the lesson and cautioned them that the district might be unable to protect teachers from punishments under Oklahoma House Bill 1775, like losing their teaching certifications. The district could also be penalized with an accreditation downgrade.
Miller told The Frontier he wasn’t concerned with the lesson’s content, but more with how state education leaders were interpreting the law after a vote to downgrade the accreditation status of Tulsa and Mustang Public Schools in 2022 for alleged violations.
Lee said her administrators were supportive throughout the review process. And, after considering potential consequences, she and her colleagues collectively decided to stop teaching the lesson.
Lee still teaches a nearly month-long unit on the Tulsa Race Massacre. But now she sends parents an email a week in advance so they can access her lessons and opt to have their children sit out of parts they aren’t comfortable with.
Two years after the passage of HB 1775, educators say a chilling effect has fallen on classrooms in teaching on complicated subjects like the Tulsa Race Massacre. The law includes an exception for material in state educational standards like the massacre, but four teachers told The Frontier they avoid some topics because they fear punishment.
In July, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters drew international backlash when he said he supports instruction on the Tulsa Race Massacre, but he doesn’t think students should learn that the event is linked to inherent racism.
HB 1775 prohibits students from learning eight concepts about race and gender. The ban includes teaching that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” and that people bear “responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”
Putnam City North High School government teacher Aaron Baker has the eight concepts printed and pasted on the wall of his classroom to help him avoid violating the law.
Baker said he thought HB 1775 had no teeth until the State Board of Education’s vote to downgrade the accreditation status of Tulsa and Mustang Public Schools for violating the law. That, coupled with Walters’ campaign against critical race theory and calls to revoke a Norman teacher’s certification for sharing information on how to access banned books, has left some teachers petrified to teach complex historical topics.
Rep. Sherrie Conley, R-Newcastle, one of the authors of HB 1775, said the law is intended to prevent teachers from teaching critical race theory — which posits that race is a social construct and racism is embedded in systems that uphold racial inequality.
Conley said if there’s a historical consensus that the Tulsa Race Massacre was caused by racism, then teachers should feel safe to teach it without violating the law. She said students should be able to feel upset about what they learn regarding the destruction of the Greenwood district, but teachers shouldn’t tell white students to feel guilty about it.
Conley told The Frontier she thinks the Tulsa Race Massacre was motivated by race but hesitates to say the perpetrators were racist.
“It’s just a terrible tragedy in our state, and whether or not it was actually racism that caused the thoughts of the people that started it — we can try to speculate but to know for sure, I don’t think that we can,” Conley said.
Conley believes there’s a lack of understanding from teachers on what the law means. She said she thinks educators could benefit from training to clarify what they can and can’t teach about history and an analysis of their curriculum to ensure it doesn’t include banned topics.
Rep. Rick West, R-Heavener, another author of HB 1775, also told The Frontier he believed the law was needed to keep critical race theory out of Oklahoma classrooms.
“Critical race theory is not a good thing and it never will be,” West said. “We have to teach our history. We have to teach it no matter what, but we don’t add or take away from it. It should be taught. And the Tulsa Race Massacre should be taught because there’s lessons to be learned. We’ve got to know our history.”
But West said he didn’t know of any school districts where critical race theory is being taught.
What Oklahoma students learn about massacre
Oklahoma’s academic standards have required education on the Tulsa Race Massacre since 2002. The standards require freshman and 11th-grade U.S. history classes to include lessons on the topic, without mandating any specific curriculum. History classes are required to examine multiple points of view regarding the evolution of race relations in Oklahoma.
The standards were updated in 2019 to include the emergence of the Black Wall Street in Greenwood, the causes of the massacre and its continued social and economic impact and the role labels play in understanding historical events, such as past references to the destruction of Greenwood as a riot instead of a massacre.
The state department paired these with a resource for teachers in 2020 to help clarify the standards and provide recommendations for things like lesson plans.
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