Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Florida is banning teaching about race

Before rejecting a new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies in January 2023, Florida officials complained that the course lacked "opposing viewpoints" or "other perspectives" of slavery. This became public in August 2023, reported by the Miami Herald.

"Ron DeSantis Threatened With Legal Action Over AP African American Studies Ban": Florida high school students threaten to sue the GOP governor over a ban on an advanced placement course he dismissed as 'indoctrination, not education.' Nina Golgowski. HuffPost. Jan 25, 2023.

In January 2023, a full-time substitute teacher in Duval County, Florida posted an online video showing a classroom stripped of books.

"The teacher, Brian Covey, posted the video on Twitter three weeks earlier, on January 27. In an interview with Popular Information, Covey said administrators at Mandarin Middle School in Duval County were aware he posted the video, which attracted millions of views, but never indicated it was a problem."

Over two weeks later, however, a reporter asked Governor DeSantis about the video. The governor told the reporter it was "a lie," and the teacher was fired the next day. However:

"A spokesperson for Duval County Public Schools (DCPS), Tracy Pierce, told Popular Information that Covey was terminated for "misrepresentation of the books available to students in the school’s library and the disruption this misrepresentation has caused." That conduct, “violated social media and cell phone policies of his employer,” ESS.

Pierce confirmed that the empty shelves in Covey’s video once housed “the fiction titles,” but those titles were removed pending review by a media specialist. (Other areas of the media center, he said, were not emptied.)"

The so-called media specialists "must not only determine if the books violate Florida's child pornography statute — a label that right-wing activists have applied to Pulitzer Prize-winning novels — but also whether each book complies with the STOP Woke Act and the Parental Rights in Education Act, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" law."
— Judd Legum, "Florida teacher fired for video of empty bookshelves after DeSantis complaint," Popular Information, 21 Feb 2023

March 4, 2024: Judge upholds preliminary injunction against Stop Woke.

Can't discuss menstruation either: Jill Filipovic, CNN, March 2023. And Idaho, relatedly, will not distribute free menstrual products in schools.

Probably can discuss climate change, but the governor sure isn't bothering.

The Guardian is covering it (Feb 13, 2023).

See: "Florida Approves Controversial Set Of Black History Standards: The standards state that students will learn about how 'slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.'" Taiyler S. Mitchell. HuffPost. July 19, 2023

Florida is prone to hurricanes, and disaster response workers aren't safe traveling to Florida because of DeSantis's crackdown on immigrants.

Donate: Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project

person with bowed head on green background

In September 2023, Popular Information spoke to school librarians in Charlotte County, Florida. They said they were removing any books with gay characters, including in high schools, which they said conformed to Florida law. Popular Information published the story on September 26, 2023. Later that day, the librarians claimed they weren't removing such books in high schools, only in K–8 schools, but also said they had no written policy and were just winging it via "discussion" among librarians and educators.

The American Library Association made a 2023 map of book bans.

Bonus: DeSantis Administration Tells Floridians Under 65 To Not Get COVID-19 Vaccine (HuffPost)

Florida school asks parents for permission to have book by an African American author read to students “We realize that the description of the event may have caused confusion, and we are working with our schools to reemphasize the importance of clarity for parents," a district spokesperson said. Janelle Griffith, NBC, Feb 13, 2024

screenshot of the Washington Post headline with two maps of the US, one showing where race education is more or less restricted, the other showing where sex and gender education is more or less restricted

Washington Post: "The divide is sharply partisan. The vast majority of restrictive laws and policies, close to 9o percent, were enacted in states that voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, The Post found. Meanwhile, almost 80 percent of expansive laws and policies were enacted in states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020."
— America has legislated itself into competing red, blue versions of education, Hannah Natanson, Lauren Tierney and Clara Ence Morse, Washington Post, April 4, 2024

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