A Conversation with Ms. Minis about the Civil War, and Mr. DeSantis’ View on Abortion in History Class

Ms. Minis and Ms. Pompey were in the same history class, and Ms. Minis remembers debating issues from the Civil War. Mr. DeSantis wasn’t so much politically opinionated, she said, but, in her view, factually wrong. She remembers him claiming that every city in the South had burned, even though she knew her hometown, Savannah, had not and she called him out on it.

The seniors who lived in town were frequent hosts at parties with Mr. DeSantis. Most spoke about socializing with him on the condition of anonymity because they feared backlash for speaking publicly about it.

Abortion was another issue that came up in class at least once, according to Matthew Arne, a former student. Mr. Arne, who was a senior, said that students were discussing Mr. DeSantis’ views on abortion. He said he was concerned when his girlfriend told him about it in history class. He had grown up in California, he said, and disagreed with Mr. DeSantis’s stance.

Donald deSantis: The governor of Florida forbids student spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs if they are not given funding

Mr. Arne said that he was held fast to what he believed in. Ms. Minis added that he always seemed to have his eye on the future. She said he was like someone who was in it for the long game as a young person.

Mr. Arne said that Mr. deSANTIs was a kind of arrogant guy. Students were well aware that he had just graduated from Yale, he said. “It was like a, ‘I’m kind of better than you,’” he said. We were just kids at the time.

The governor of Florida said Tuesday that he would ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives if they weren’t given funding.

Students from underrepresented communities are encouraged to feel comfortable in a campus setting as a way of promoting multiculturalism. The state’s flagship school, the University of Florida, has a “Chief Diversity Officer,” a “Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “Office for Accessibility and Gender Equity.”

Tuesday’s announcement was foreshadowed in December when the governor’s office asked all state universities to account for all of their spending on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.

DeSantis last month appointed Rufo to the board of New College, a small liberal arts school that the governor has targeted for a drastic overhaul to become a more conservative university.

One of DeSantis’ new board members, Eddie Speir, wrote in an online post that he planned to propose in that meeting “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration” of the school, “and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.”

College Board educators insist that they were not consciously bowing to DeSantis’ pressure when they eliminated edgier topics from the AP African American History curriculum. There are mechanisms of censorship that cause people to shift their opinions, choose their words and stay away from topics without even realizing it.

Hundreds of marchers, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and other activists, held a rally outside Florida’s state Capitol on Wednesday to protest Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration’s rejection of a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies.

From slavery through Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement and Sharpton’s own experiences, racism and bigotry can always be traced back to education.

“Our children need to know the whole story … to not only know how bad you were but to know how strong they are. They come from a people that fought from the back of the bus to the front of the White House.”

Sharpton said that there were members of the LGBTQ, Native American and Latinx communities in the crowd. You should have left us alone. You have brought us all together.

The marchers shouted “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ron DeSantis has got to go!” “I’m black and I’m proud!” Some carried signs with messages such as “Save our history” and “We will not be silenced.”

Shaia Simmons, who was a teacher at the march, called the state’s rejection of the new course a gross injustice and a slap in the face to all Americans.

“Black history isn’t important to just Black people, it is important to everyone,” Simmons said. The fabric of the country is it. For us to try to wipe that away or to negate the importance of it causes angst in our community. It’s not just the AP course. The history of African American in this country is being whitewashed. Right down to the funding of the educational institutions, it is inequitable treatment of African Americans.

“It’s ridiculous that they’re not letting this one AP class be thought,” said her daughter, Izzy Cummings. “It affects us directly. If we can’t remember the past it will change our future.

The Florida Department of Education sent a letter to the College Board rejecting a new course that was widely criticized by Black leaders in Florida and the White House.

The testing organization behind the new course last weekend accused the state Education Department of “slander” and spreading misinformation about it for political gain.

The framework of the new Advanced Placement course on African American studies was released earlier this month by the College Board with many of the topics that were objected to removed.

DeSantis’s tactics are winning adherents in Florida and fueling momentum for a national campaign. To blunt their appeal, it is essential to understand what the governor and his supporters are mobilizing against. It is believed that progressives are controlling schools and universities to impose an ideological agenda which is contrary to the values of most Floridians.

Among GOP donors, leading conservative voices and even some supporters, there is a growing concern that DeSantis has overstepped in his fight against “wokeness” as he seeks to shore up conservative support ahead of a highly anticipated 2024 campaign for president. Several potential rivals for the GOP nomination have seized on DeSantis’ brash approach and top-heavy governing style to draw sharp contrasts with the popular Republican.

Florida state lawmakers gave new authority over Disney World to the Republican Governor Chris Sununu as punishment for their opposition to the measure regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

“I’m a principled free-market conservative,” said Sununu, who is also weighing a bid for president. “For others out there that think that the government should be penalizing your business because they disagree with you politically, that isn’t very conservative.”

But the cure that DeSantis and his backers favor – intrusive legislation to muzzle the opposite set of views – is worse than the disease. State-ordered legal bans based on viewpoint – whether ideas on critical race theory, books depicting LGBTQ families or diversity programs – strike at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. Banning ideas can elevate the ideas being cast off limits. The now widely documented feelings of intimidation and muzzling of Florida librarians, teachers, professors and students are fueling a backlash against DeSantis, prompting allegations of racism and authoritarianism.

Governors from across the country gave speeches at the National Conservatism Conference last year where they talked about the differences between capitalism and free enterprise. I think free enterprise is the best economic system, but that is a means to an end.

The Citadel of Freedom: A Libertarian Stand Up against the Governor’s Political Criticisms and the Post-Trump Scenario Against DeSantis

Being perceived as being racially-insensitive is bad for him to be in the long term, according to a GOP supporter of DeSantis who spoke candidly about the situation.

The supporter pointed directly to the fight over an Advanced Placement course on African American studies and DeSantis’ quarrel with the College Board, saying the governor could alienate some voters who would otherwise be supportive.

But Republicans voters have yet to be introduced to many potential contenders for the party nomination. Meanwhile, outside groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity have signaled they intend to get involved in the primary.

Frayda Levin is a member of the Club for Growth and said that there is much interest in the subject of social issues but she is worried that he is too heavy-handed in his pursuit of them. The conservative organization the Club for Growth invites six Republicans to a donor summit in Florida which is further from Trump. Other invitees include South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former South Carolina Gov.

“I’m a genuine libertarian; I’m kind of a live-and-let-live kind of girl,” Levin told CNN. She said she has no problem with candidates that hold strong personal beliefs on social issues but she isn’t happy about them putting the power of their state behind their socially conservative views.

“DeSantis is always talking about he was not demanding that businesses do things, but he was telling the cruise lines what they had to do,” former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a fellow Republican, said of DeSantis last year. Hogan’s continued criticisms of the Florida governor were an indication of his reluctance to enter the GOP race.

Meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another potential GOP contender, has also compared her Covid19 record against DeSantis in ways that suggest Florida was too hands-on – for ideologically disparate reasons. Noem noted that it was her state that set an example of freedom by refusing to shut down. Early in the swine flue, Florida closed schools, bars and theme parks, restricted other economic activity and called it the Citadel of Freedom.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/politics/ron-desantis-conservatives-florida-2024/index.html

Changing the discourse of the Illinois governor: How DeSantis and his allies have been frustrated by his actions against Disney and the University of Chicago

But his approach has often included more government programs (creating an office to pursue voter fraud and a new program to conduct missions to surveil, house and transport migrants from border states to Democratic jurisdictions), more regulation (dictating bank lending practices) or flexing government power in unprecedented manners (ousting an elected state prosecutor).

DeSantis’ allies have pushed back against the growing chatter. The Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Christopher Rufo, claimed on the social media site that the governor was using his power as an elected leader, after winning reelection with a 19 point victory in November.

Some people think that “state power” means democratic governance and should be used to correct the ideological corruption of public universities. Amounts that the people can’t regulate the state.

And even where there is apprehension among allies, DeSantis has not necessarily lost support. Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund owner of Citadel and a major DeSantis donor, said he was “troubled” last year by the governor’s move against Disney.

After saying he would back the Florida governor in the GOP primary for president, then later in 2022, he said he would back the governor again in the general election.

DeSantis has also sought to shut down a drag show, citing a 1947 legal precedent banning “men impersonating women.” He wants to narrow the scope of press freedom by challenging the Supreme Court decision on libel.

The following year he announced an agreement among the state’s 40 public colleges and universities to adopt a free speech pledge modeled on the “Chicago Principles,” the University of Chicago’s admirable and influential manifesto in defense of open discourse. The Chicago statement, the result of work done by a committee on free expression convened at the college in 2014, proclaims that “debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed.”

He and his supporters are correct to criticize the quest for a more Inclusive and equitable society if it leads to the suppression of speech and ideas. Progressives too often forget that the movements they wage – whether for racial justice, gender justice, climate or anything else – depend upon free speech protections to guarantee the space for dissent; and that such protections must apply equally to speech with which they disagree. Some people don’t see that worthwhile perspectives can emerge from outside of their own ideological spheres.

The new visibility and appreciation of transgender and non-binary identities and rights has raised important questions about pronouns, bathrooms, sports and the autonomy of adolescents. The 2020 murder of George Floyd spurred schools, colleges and companies to take new steps to root out racism. Positive developments are vital to bringing about a more equal society.

In some cases, though, efforts to promote equity cross over into censoriousness. Last week, the publisher of the books “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” decided to scrub some of their references to overweight and people with horselike features. The student performance of “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler was canceled in 2015 because the play didn’t acknowledge that not all women have vaginas.

Some curricula and programs think that race is unimportant or irrelevant in the discussion of race, dismissing questions or other viewpoints that might be relevant to race.

In a highly publicized incident at the University of Central Florida in 2020, Professor Charles Negy was fired after his tweets about “Black privilege” prompted campus protests. While the university claimed he was guilty of misconduct, an arbitrator found no just cause for his determination and ordered him reinstated. The incident seemed to form part of a broader pattern at the University.

Last year a federal appeals court struck down the campus’ discriminatory harassment policy, citing its “astonishing breadth—and slipperiness.” The court found it “clear that a reasonable student could fear that his speech would get him crossways with the university and that he’d be better off just keeping his mouth shut.”