Texas bill to ban teaching of critical race theory puts teachers on front lines of culture war over how history is taught

Not long after George Floyd was murdered on a Minneapolis street last Memorial Day, Meghan Dougherty felt an awakening in her suburban Texas school district.

Teachers received training in the role that race had played in creating the United States’ vast inequalities. Students, parents and faculty members spent their summers studying and debating how to combat generations of systemic racism. Some crafted a plan to enroll more Black and Latino students in Advanced Placement classes, where they had long been underrepresented.

“That’s a small thing, but it’s also a big...