Hindu Parents Network opposes the Texas State Board of Education’s move to require Bible-based readings in public schools.

Our concern is not with the Bible, Christianity, or Christian families. We extend mutual respect to all faith traditions and encourage individuals to engage with their own faith. Our concern is with the state setting a precedent of weakening the spirit of the Constitution, especially the separation of church and state. More seriously, such precedents tend to invite further departures from religious neutrality. 

This decision follows a troubling pattern in Texas, including school chaplains in public schools, Bible-infused curriculum materials, Ten Commandments displays, and now required Bible-based readings. Taken together, these steps blur the line between public education and religious promotion. 

Public schools must remain religiously neutral. When the state gives official preference to one faith tradition, it violates the spirit of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and sends a message that some religions are more central, accepted, or American than others.

American public schools have long worked as shared civic spaces where children from different religions, races, and backgrounds learn together, build friendships, and develop mutual respect. That purpose is not served when the state introduces religious preference into the classroom. Instead of reducing differences, such policies may deepen them and create discomfort, division, and religious pressure.

This places Hindu students and families at a particular disadvantage. Unlike some other minority communities, American Hindu families generally do not have a broad network of Hindu faith schools and depend heavily on public education. That makes religious neutrality in public schools especially important.

We are also concerned that such steps may encourage proselytizing groups to view public schools as acceptable spaces for religious influence. It is not uncommon for Hindu students to be told that they are destined for eternal hell because of their beliefs. Decisions like this risk making such behavior appear more acceptable in school settings. HPN has already received reports from Hindu parents describing the emotional impact of aggressive religious influence on children. In one case, a Hindu mother shared that her son, raised in a practicing Hindu home, converted after exposure to religious pressure and peer influence, and then began rejecting basic Hindu family practices. Her concern was not merely his personal faith choice, but the feeling that he had been taught to view his own Hindu upbringing as false or unacceptable.

Public schools should support healthy interfaith relationships among students, not create conditions for religious pressure, comparison, or conversion attempts. Children should learn about different religions in a fair, academic, and age-appropriate way, without the state favoring one tradition over others.

HPN supports religious literacy, but not religious preference. Public education should remain secular, balanced, and respectful of all students. The role of public schools is to educate children, develop critical thinking, and equip them with the skills to navigate the contemporary connected, complex, technology-intensive world, not to promote one faith tradition through state authority.