McGraw-Hill CEO David Levin believes his company has done more than enough to fix the mistaken erasure of slavery from their textbooks.
Speaking with the Huffington Post this week, Levin echoed the apology the company posted on their Facebook page following the discovery Texas parent Roni Dean-Burren made when she was reviewing her son’s textbook. The chapter lumped slavery with European immigration and referred to slaves as “workers.”
After being accused of whitewashing and cultural incompetence, Levin says the corrected version of the book will be released in the next print run and the digital version will be updated immediately. A sticker option to cover up the word “workers” in the chapter’s graphic of the U.S. map would be sent to schools requesting them. Devin doesn’t explain how the error occurred, but says it was one captioned mistake out of a 900-page book.
The Huffington Post reports:
“Frankly, we think that we’ve addressed the underlying issue,” Levin told HuffPost Live. He said that he doesn’t deny that the text was problematic, and that he “would firmly rebut any belief that we sugarcoat or downplay the role of slavery in the United States.”
Devin says the text was offensive and admitted fault. He added that the company strives for diversity when it comes to their academic reviewers.
“We’re working on trying to guarantee and ensure the richest possible diversity of reviewers, which is a constant, constant theme for us,” Davis said.
During her own interview with Huff Post, Dean-Burren said she didn’t know her Facebook post would go viral and added she appreciates the company for apologizing, but believes the damage has already been done.
SOURCE: Huffington Post | VIDEO CREDIT: Inform
After Huge Backlash, McGraw-Hill CEO Says They’ve “Done Enough” To Correct Lie About Slavery was originally published on newsone.com
