In the moments leading up to the Republican-dominated State Board of Education finalizing a rewrite of social studies lessons this summer, Will Hickman proposed a minor change.

A majority of board members had preliminarily approved a requirement that public school students learn about the Prophet Muhammad's "brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves." Deviating from some of his GOP peers on the board, Hickman, a Houston Republican, sought to strike the word "brutal." "I think we can all agree, military battles and wars are all brutal," he said.

"But we have not described any others that way." After pushback from Brandon Hall, a board member more politically right of Hickman, an 8-4 majority rejected the proposal to remove "brutal." At least three of the board's appointed experts objected to the broader characterization of Islam over concerns about historical accuracy.