TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Critical race theory shouldn’t be taught to Florida’s children or workers, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday, and he’ll seek legislation next month to ban a practice that is stirring debate nationwide.
The Republican governor also wants parents to be able to sue schools suspected of teaching the theory and receive attorney’s fees.
“In Florida, we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory,” DeSantis said at an event before cheering supporters in Wildwood. “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other.”
The Florida Board of Education in June passed a rule to ban in K-12 schools the teaching of critical race theory, which holds that America’s history of slavery and racism carry on and have effects on current-day laws and practices. As defined, it’s largely taught in law schools, and public school officials say they don’t teach it.
DeSantis wants the Legislature to codify that rule into state law when lawmakers convene their 60-day regular session starting Jan. 11. But he also wants them to go further and ban CRT from being used in seminars and training sessions for K-12 school employees and in all workplaces in the state.
He called his proposal the “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act,” or Stop WOKE Act.
The governor cited examples of what he called critical race theory from Arizona, California and Pennsylvania, saying he didn’t want that to happen in Florida.
He is proposing the lawsuit provision because “we also have a responsibility to ensure that parents have the means to vindicate their rights when it comes to enforcing state standards,” he said.
Democrats, especially Black Democrats, reacted with consternation and anger at DeSantis’ latest plan.
“Many Republicans, they go around quoting Martin Luther King,” state Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, said after DeSantis referenced the portion of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Wednesday in which King asked not to be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.
“I wish they would talk about his life prior to his assassination, and what he had to go through and why he was fighting for the things that he was fighting for,” Jones said. “The fact that the governor used that quote today [in an effort] to ban critical race theory in our schools, [which is] not even taught within our K-12 system, is disingenuous to Black people. ... It’s a dangerous attempt to whitewash and rewrite history for the sake of political expediency.”
According to the language of the proposed bill, Jones said, events such as the Ocoee massacre of 1920, the Groveland Four case from 1949 and the Rosewood Massacre of 1923 — all acts of violence or discrimination against Blacks by whites — might not be allowed to be taught in Florida classrooms.
He added that said the proposed provision that would allow parents to sue schools if they believed critical race theory was being taught would also have a chilling effect.
“That means that teachers might not teach Black History anymore, because they don’t know whether or not that crosses over into critical race theory,” Jones said. “That means that we’re going to lose some teachers because teachers who are already strained thin are going to question whether or not they want to be in the classroom because of the fear-mongering that’s happening under Republican leadership.”
DeSantis’ event featured activist Christopher Rufo, credited with spearheading the attacks on critical race theory that have since become a key platform for Republicans, especially during the gubernatorial race in Virginia.
Rufo said DeSantis’ proposed legislation could become a “national model” for other states to follow.
Rufo wrote on Twitter in March that his goal was to begin “steadily driving up negative perceptions” of the theory, and then “eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.”
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