ORLANDO, Fla. — Many educators and historians have said they are concerned that actions by Florida lawmakers will limit the teaching of what African Americans have experienced in the U.S., including segregation, discrimination and racism.
Gov. Ron DeSantis took aim at an Advanced Placement African American Studies course, which he said prompted the College Board to restructure the framework of that course. The College Board disputes the governor’s assertion, saying any adjustments to the curriculum were made independent of DeSantis’ objections.
“We will fight the woke in our schools,” DeSantis said recently at a news conference addressing education. “We will never, ever surrender to the woke agenda — Florida is the state where woke goes to die.”
Educators across Florida continue to examine their curriculum and adjust to the law, which passed last year and bans the teaching of, among other things, critical race theory. The Individual Freedom Act, also known as the “Stop Woke Act” also prohibits schools from endorsing instructional concepts about the discrimination experienced by certain racial groups by another.
Grace Castelin is a University of Central Florida student and senator in the schools’ Student Government Association. She spent several weeks working on a resolution expressing student opposition to the state’s ban on critical race theory. Castelin says everything that happened in the summer before she started at UCF — when the cries for justice were strongest after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police — prompted her to study public policy and become a student leader.
“We can’t have this material being omitted from our curriculum because that will essentially upbring a generation of kids who are ignorant to the problem, and then history will be bound to repeat itself, which is inevitable,” said Castelin.
Dr. Eric Smaw is a philosophy professor at Rollins College and serves on the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union. He said critical race theory examines how equally African Americans are treated in government institutions — and that’s it.
“It doesn’t tell people how to feel, it doesn’t make analyses about whether or not European Americans are superior to African Americans, or if African Americans are victims of racism and European Americans are perpetrators of racism,” he said. “So it doesn’t do any of those things — it simply talks about institutions.”
Smaw says some college professors and high school teachers are now afraid to teach a whole host of different subjects, just in case that instructions might be included in the definition of critical race theory — even if the curriculum has nothing to do with CRT.
“I do worry that we will have the state looking around trying to figure out whether or not we’re teaching critical race theory, or something that they identify as critical race theory,” said Smaw.
Smaw says whether the newly passed legislation is constitutional or not, most teachers won’t have the money to pay legal fees just to defend themselves in court, so many will decide to play it safe and not take any chances.
That’s why Castelin is hoping her SGA resolution will prompt UCF’s Board of Trustees to give professors some guidance on what they can teach, and what they can’t.
“I’m hoping they’re able to help faculty be able to accommodate with these new laws and lower that intimidation, and the level of threat they are inciting essentially right now,” she said.
Castelin worries that some educators will leave Florida, affecting the quality of education for students who will come after her.
“I just wanted to do this, not just for me, not just for my peers, but all of the generations in Florida that are going to be growing up under this system and under this new curriculum,” she said.