A bipartisan pair of Florida state representatives is moving to strike down controversial school standards that requires teachers to instruct students that slavery had personal benefits for enslaved people.
Florida Democratic state Rep. Christopher Benjamin and Republican Rep. Mike Beltran co-sponsored a bill introduced this week that would remove those standards, which have earned bipartisan rebuke since Gov. Ron DeSantis approved them last year. Specifically, the standards required schools to teach that enslaved people “developed skills” that “in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Check out this ReidOut Blog post on why it’s delusional and ahistorical to suggest that enslaved people extracted “personal benefits” from the horrifying experience of chattel slavery.
But I wasn’t alone in my criticism. The standards were denounced by Democrats and Republicans alike, including Vice President Kamala Harris, the Biden 2024 campaign and Republicans such as Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
It was a bad look for DeSantis, who presumably thought this policy would boost his right-wing bona fides in the eyes of primary voters. It’s just of a piece with his party’s crusade against accurate teaching of the United States’ history of bigotry — a crusade he’s frequently touted on the campaign trail.
The new bill introduced Tuesday “prohibits specified instruction and state academic standards from indicating or implying that [an] enslaved person benefited from slavery or enslavement experience in any way.” Put another way, it’s a clear rebuke of the standards DeSantis and his handpicked officials foisted upon the state of Florida.
The political timing couldn’t be any better. DeSantis’ presidential campaign has been reeling for months, which has weakened his control over Republicans in the state Legislature. There’s less political incentive now for the Florida GOP to go along with anything and everything DeSantis says than there was when his popularity and presidential prospects were higher.
In that sense, this bipartisan push to reverse course on the slavery teaching standards reflects DeSantis’ waning political clout in the Sunshine State.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.