Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made two things clear. One, he’s likely to run for president in 2024. Two, he’s embroiled in a culture war with Black American history. The good news is that educators, along with civil rights and faith leaders, aren’t going down without a fight against his fascism. Make no mistake: Attempting to erase those parts of history you don’t like is at the center of fascism—authoritarianism and pure nationalism.
In case you missed it, on Jan. 12, DeSantis wrote a rejection letter to the state college board nixing a new high school Advanced Placement African American Studies course, which his office claims violates Florida’s “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act.
The letter read in part, “as presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
RELATED STORY: DeSantis blocks College Board from introducing AP African American Studies course in Florida
News 4 JAX reports that civil rights and faith leaders are planning a statewide rally to protest DeSantis’ cancelation of the AP course.
Monday, DeSantis gave a press conference during which he was asked about the AP course. “We want education, not indoctrination,” the governor said.
Apparently it’s not just the erasure of Black American history that DeSantis has in his crosshairs. DeSantis also focused on the course teaching “queer theory,” as well as “abolishing prisons,” which he calls a “political agenda.”
“That's the wrong side of the line for Florida standards. We believe in teaching facts, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them,” DeSantis claims.
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In a document sent to The Daily Beast, the department further decries the AP course for being “foundational to” critical race theory—a college-level legal concept taught in no American K-12 schools—and explicitly targets the concept of the Reparations Movement for Black Americans.
Also cited as an issue in the course is the mention of author bell hooks, per The Daily Beast, who intentionally used the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to describe “interlocking systems of domination” in America.
One Florida educator, Dr. Marvin Dunn, a professor emeritus at Florida International University, tells The Washington Post he will not back down from teaching the true history of Black Americans in Florida and the horrors they faced.
“Listen, if there is such a thing as the woke mob in Florida, I aspire to lead it,” Dunn said.
Dunn is among a group of plaintiffs challenging DeSantis’ anti-educational law. In November, a judge ordered a temporary injunction against parts of the law restricting how American history is taught.
A parent who took her son on one of Dunn’s “Teach the Truth” tours, which chronicle racial violence in Florida, told the Post, “These are things that nobody knew, it’s like it was swept under the rug … I feel very strongly that this history needs to be told. There’s no shame, it just is what it is, but it needs to be put at the forefront so we can all try to get past it.”
Dunn says teaching the complete history of the state is a kind of antidote to the “DeSantis-izing of history.”
“Almost all of Florida’s painful racial past has been whitewashed, marginalized or buried intentionally,” Dunn wrote in his book titled A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes. “But I was born here. I know Florida’s flowers and her warts.”
We've got a special double-barreled, two-guest show for you on this week's episode of The Downballot! First up is Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, who discusses her group's efforts to roll back the corrupting effects of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision as we hit the ruling's 13th anniversary. Muller tells us about ECU's short- and long-term plans to enact serious campaign finance reform; how the organization has expanded into the broader voting rights arena in recent years; and research showing the surprising connection many voters drew between the GOP's attacks on democracy and their war against abortion rights.
Then we're joined by law professor Quinn Yeargain to gape slack-jawed at the astonishing setback Gov. Kathy Hochul experienced in the state capitol on Wednesday when a Democratic-led Senate committee rejected her conservative pick to lead New York's top court. Yeargain explains why Hochul's threatened lawsuit to force the legislature to hold a full floor vote on Hector LaSalle defies 250 years of precedent and what will happen if she eventually retreats—as she manifestly should.