Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma recently won an 11-4 Oklahoma House committee vote to ban Advanced Placement U.S. History classes in the state. Rep. Dan Fisher, the author of House Bill 1380, blames the “anti-American spirit” of the redesigned AP curriculum as the reason for the ban.

The bill would bar funding for AP U.S. History and instead replace it with a new curriculum that includes the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg address, speeches by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and the Ten Commandments. It would be implemented in time for the 2015-2016 school year.

While these are important documents to study, Fisher should not be condemning the AP course as anti-American. Acknowledging and learning about the awful parts of United States history is essential for American citizens.

According to Fisher, the AP’s redesign “trades an emphasis on America’s founding principles of constitutional government in favor of robust analysis of gender, racial oppression, class, ethnicity and the lives of marginalized people.”

To Fisher and other Oklahoma legislators, this new focus is a problem. To me, it sounds pretty good. The often-quoted words by philosopher George Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” are completely true. It is crucial that we acknowledge and study the many mistakes of America’s past.

Fisher believes AP U.S. History places “a new emphasis on what is bad about America” and that it shows our country as “a nation of oppressors and exploiters.”

While he conceded, “We all know that we have our blemishes, and we wouldn’t want to withhold those,” Fisher said, “We don’t want only our blemishes taught and not have a balanced approach.”

Labeling the historical horrors in America as mere “blemishes” is a bit of an understatement, especially when these blemishes cost countless lives and caused physical and emotional injuries to millions.

From the genocide of Native Americans in our country’s early days to the centuries-long practice of slavery, to Japanese internment camps in World War II, to legalized segregation, to the atomic bomb or our involvement in the Vietnam war, America has committed plenty of wrongdoings.

Of course, the United States has achieved greatness. The country is and has been exceptional in many ways, and the feeling of pride and patriotism on the Fourth of July is infectious. I’m lucky to have been born and raised in a country with so many freedoms and opportunities, but for the most part, people raised here are not given the balanced approach Fisher believes in so strongly.

In the American school system, emphasis is placed on patriotism and greatness, and the terrible acts our predecessors have committed are swept under the rug. We need to take the good things with the bad, the greatness with a grain of salt.

When asked about the modern day consequences of the Holocaust, a German exchange student in one of my high school classes said it gets shoved down the throats of students in his country from a very young age. German citizens are taught what happened, how unspeakably wrong it was and that it must never happen again.

His statement reminds me that slavery or other negative parts of the United States’ past tend to be glossed over, at least in my own experience.

Moin Nadeem, a 17-year-old student in Oklahoma, has created a petition on Change.org to stop HB 1380. The petition has received more than 30,000 signatures as of March 4.

“Politicians in our state think they can make better choices for our education than we can,” Nadeem said in the petition. “Our lawmakers say they want to ban AP U.S. History because they don’t agree with the content. Taking a college level class in high school, working hard to achieve your dreams, should not be controversial.”

Nadeem said he is afraid other states across the county will pick up similar bans, and I think his fear is well-founded.

Not only is it important to learn all sides of our country’s past, it’s important to give high school students the chance to get ahead in college and receive credit for general classes. The students boycotting this bill have my full support.

Jamie Bernard can be reached at bern2479@stthomas.edu.