Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continued his push to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) from Florida’s classrooms while speaking at the State Board of Education meeting. He maintained the ideology, which is designed to distinguish people based on skin color and considers the United States’ systems of justice and governance as inherently racist, will not be featured as part of instruction, and will instead focus on “the best possible civics instruction standards.”
During the meeting, the State Board officially banned CRT from classrooms in an effort to prevent “state-sanctioned racism,” DeSantis said on Twitter.
Florida’s education system exists to create opportunity for our children. Critical Race Theory teaches kids to hate our country and to hate each other. It is state-sanctioned racism and has no place in Florida schools. pic.twitter.com/ludv7ARgNP
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) June 10, 2021
Other states have taken similar measures, but on the contrary, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona assisted the implementation of CRT into the state school curriculum in Connecticut.
The official rule adopted by the Florida State Board says:
“Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”
DeSantis will also be taking pandemic-related federal funding to aid in the incentivization of teachers getting further civics training along with a $3,000 bonus, as part of the effort to combat “unsubstantiated theories.”
“Let me be clear, there is no room in our classrooms for things like Critical Race Theory,” he said. “Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money.”
DeSantis also spent time taking part in a town hall earlier this week with Jewish groups in Florida propping up Florida’s relationship with Israel and touting enhanced curriculum for Holocaust education amid a rise in anti-Semitic incidents.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Democratic candidate for governor in 2022, has come out in support of CRT and has criticized DeSantis for his efforts to ban the ideology.
But DeSantis maintains he will not allow Florida’s public school system to become places of “indoctrination.”
“Our schools are supposed to give people a foundation of knowledge, not supposed to be indoctrination centers, where you’re trying to push specific ideologies,” DeSantis said.
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
