Florida

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• 6/12/2022
  

  Florida's Divisive Concepts Bill Mistakes What Historians Do, with Dire Implications

  by Jessica L. Adler

  The legislation would make it difficult – and even legally risky – for professors to perform the kinds of source-driven teaching that underlies the pedagogical goals of the discipline. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  6/8/2022
  

  Anti-CRT Legislation at Fever Pitch in States

  Suzanne Nossel of PEN America argues that legislation that dictates what can be taught is at "the top of the pyramid" in terms of the broad array of threats to free speech on campuses. 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  6/1/2022
  

  DeSantis Planned Sweeping Assault on Autonomy of Public Colleges in Florida

  by Jason Garcia

  The Governor proposed a sweeping set of higher education oversight reforms that would have consolidated power over public campuses, including the hiring of professors, with boards appointed by the governor. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/18/2022
  

  It's Not the First Time Conservatives Have Feuded With Disney over LGBTQ Issues

  Despite the volume of threats to boycott, Disney has seen little damage from previous controversies like the Southern Baptist Convention's 1997 boycott over Ellen DeGeneris, theme park "Gay Days" and health benefits for same-sex partners. 

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• SOURCE: Florida Today
  4/17/2022
  

  CRT Not What You've Been Told, Florida Professor Tells Public

  Michael Butler, author of two books on the civil rights struggle in Florida, told an audience that the controversy was being stoked to prevent constructive public debate by folding all historical discussion of racism into a "frightening, dangerous, scary" term. 

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  4/13/2022
  

  Florida Bill Echoes Anita Bryant's Antigay Crusade in the 1970s

  Historians Lillian Faderman, Hugh Ryan and Julio Capó, Jr. trace the links between the Christian entertainer's claims that gay teachers threatened children and the effort to portray them as "groomers" for child abuse today. Also, video of Bryant being hit with a pie.

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• SOURCE: CNN
  4/7/2022
  

  Disney Controversy Puts Right-Wing Children's Entertainment Industry in Spotlight

  by Nicole Hemmer

  A growing array of conservative children’s literature and programming coincides with right-wing attacks on schools and children’s entertainment that conservatives claim are sites of political and sexual indoctrination.

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• SOURCE: Above the Law
  4/7/2022
  

  With ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law, Gay Conservatives Find Their Inner Ernst Röhm

  The head of the Tampa Log Cabin Republicans followed in the footsteps of gay Nazi Ernst Röhm by attacking critics of Florida's "don't say gay" bill and echoing the governor's insinuation that LGBTQ teachers are "grooming" children for sexual abuse. 

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  4/4/2022
  

  Faculty Committee: U of Florida Fast-Tracked DeSantis Surgeon General Pick Into Faculty Post

  The university’s faculty committee cited procedural irregularities in how Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo gained a tenured position.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/4/2022
  

  While "Anti-Grooming" Rhetoric Seems to Come from the Fringe, it Can be Influential

  by Mical Raz and Paul M. Renfro

  The latest culture war battle revives historical efforts to use the law to institutionalize the slander that LGBTQ people pose an inherent danger to children and families. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/28/2022
  

  Using "The Children" as an Excuse for Anti-LGBTQ Laws is Nothing New for Florida

  by Julio Capó Jr. and Shevrin Jones

  The 1950s Johns Committee was formed by the state legislature to root out communist subversion in Florida. Not finding any red influence in the NAACP, they turned to scapegoating LGBTQ Floridians. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/9/2022
  

  Florida's Law Restricting LGBTQ Discussion Will Harm All Children

  by Marie-Amélie George

  The long history of bills restricting discussion of LGBTQ issues shows that these bills reinforce stigma and marginalize queer students and contribute to homophobic rhetoric and violence outside the school walls. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/9/2022
  

  Florida Legislature Seeks Conservative Stamp on Higher Ed

  "National higher-education experts and faculty members in Florida say the legislation is part of an attack on bedrock principles that preserve the academic autonomy of faculty members and institutions."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/7/2022
  

  DeSantis Tears at the Seams of His Diverse State with Fight on "Woke" Schools

  The governor's efforts to attack what he calls "wokeness" in Florida schools is putting Ron DeSantis on a collision course with millions of teachers, students and residents in a state where multiculturalism has been part of the past and is the reality of the present. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/8/2022
  

  What About Black Students' Discomfort?

  Post columnist Jonathan Capehart points out a flagrant oversight in the recent state bills to ban "uncomfortable" discussions of racism in history and social studies classes. 

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• SOURCE: Retropolis
  2/9/2022
  

  Good Luck Teaching Florida's History under State Legislation Blocking "Uncomfortable Themes"

  by Gillian Brockell

  In 2020, Ron DeSantis signed a bill requiring the history of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre be taught in Florida schools. Legislation pending this year would potentially enable parents to block the lessons, along with teaching other important episodes of violence in the state's history. 

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  1/24/2022
  

  Florida School District, Citing "Critical Race Theory" Concerns, Cancels Prof's Civil Rights History Lecture

  “The victims of this censorship are history and the truth,” J. Michael Butler said. “The end game is they’re going to make teaching civil rights into ‘critical race theory,’ and it’s not.”

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  12/15/2021
  

  DeSantis Enlists Parent Vigilantes in Escalation of CRT Culture War

  "As for Florida teachers, why would any of them invite a lawsuit from the local MAGA commissar by suggesting their nation was anything other than the divinely blessed paradise of freedom and opportunity?"

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• SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times
  11/30/2021
  

  A UF Professor Used "Critical" and "Race" in a Sentence. Trouble Ensued

  Education Professor Chris Busey contends that he has been barred from stating his academic specialization, which is approved by his college, in his faculty profile. Is a political attack on critical race theory responsible? 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/31/2021
  

  Serwer: Florida Silencing Academic Critics of Disenfranchisement Echoes End of Reconstruction

  Free speech debates miss a key point: some participants don't want to protect the right to speak as much as the right of the state to use its power to end political arguments. The role of Black Floridians as citizens was once such an argument, and disenfranchisement ended it.