White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called it “incomprehensible” that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration banned a course with elements of critical race theory (CRT) and queer theory.
The Florida Department of Education (DOE) rejected an AP African American Studies course for high schools since it violated a state law banning CRT. The class contains units about queer studies, feminism and intersectionality, and a reading by Eduardo Bonilla Silva that describes how, “Whites talk, think, and account for the existence of racial inequality.”
“It is incomprehensible to see that this is what this ban or this block, to be more specific, that DeSantis put forward if you think about the study of black Americans, that is what he wants to block. And again, these types of actions are not new, especially from Florida sadly. Florida currently bans teachers from talking about who they are and who they love,” the press secretary said.
“We’ve talked about it many times here in this briefing room, they have banned more books in schools and libraries than almost any other state in the country and let’s not forget, they didn’t block AP European History, they didn’t block music history, they didn’t block Art History, but the state chooses to block a course that is meant for high achieving high school students to learn about their history of arts and culture and it is incomprehensible,” she concluded.
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CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through ending meritocracy and objective truth, and adopting race-based policies. (RELATED: White House Says DeSantis Has Made ‘Mockery’ Of Immigration System)
The unit known as, “African American Studies: Movements and Methods,” included a lesson on “Black Queer Studies” that teaches “the concept of the queer of color critique, grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality, as a Black studies lens that shifts sexuality studies toward racial analysis,” according to a syllabus obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DeSantis banned CRT in Florida’s state curriculum in April 2022 called the “Individual Freedom” measure, which prohibits educators from teaching contents related to race and to cause certain groups of students to feel guilt about their race due to historical events.
While the governor banned CRT, he signed legislation into law that requires students to learn about the Ocoee Massacre. The historical event is the “largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history,” which resulted in the murder of an unknown number of African Americans in riots that erupted after Mose Norman, an African American man, attempted to vote when barred from the polls.
Florida law requires students to learn “the history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the history and contributions of Americans of the African diaspora to society.”