Florida teachers will be required to give lessons on the evils of communism after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that designates November 7th “Victims of Communism Day” and mandates 45-minutes of related instruction.
The Miami Herald reports:
The bill, which DeSantis signed along with two street designations in honor of Cuban exiles, would require the instruction to begin in the 2023-2024 school year. It would require teaching of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under those regimes.
The Tallahassee Democrat adds:
The law also gives DeSantis authority to extend observance of the day beyond public schools, as it requires that Victims of Communism Day “be suitably observed by public exercise in the State Capitol and elsewhere as the governor may designate.”
At a signing ceremony on Monday, DeSantis declared that it was a “blockbuster day for freedom.”
“We want to make sure that every year folks in Florida, but particularly our students, will learn about the evils of communism. The dictators that have led communist regimes and the hundreds of millions of individuals who suffered and continue to suffer under the weight of this discredited ideology,” he said, adding that “a lot of young people don’t really know that much” about what the political ideology entails.
The Hill reports:
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeannette Núñez (R) said at the news conference that the bill was in line with efforts to remove critical race theory teachings and other “woke terms” in the classroom. Critical race theory is an academic framework used at the graduate level that analyzes U.S. history and institutions through the lens of racism.
“Throughout this country, we are seeing communism and socialism being romanticized,” she said at a press conference. “Positive attitudes are at an all time high in this country. But not here in Florida, because freedom, not Marxism, has a home here in the free state of Florida.”
