March is the time when the Florida Legislature begins their 60-day regular session and this year's cancel culture has apparently already made an impact. Several bills (HB 6007 & SB 1302) would eliminate traditional legal Florida state-sanctioned holidays honoring Florida's Confederate heritage. The birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, along with Confederate Memorial Day, would be eliminated. Under the measure, the state would retain "Farmer's Day," "Shrove Tuesday," "Pascua Florida Day," and even the controversial "Columbus Day"--among many others--as legal state holidays. Another bill (SB 1116) --"Removing Confederate Memorializations" would not only remove the legal holidays mentioned above but would also remove any protections in law against the defiling or mutilating of any Confederate flag or emblem. Protections against doing this to the Florida State Flag and emblem (seal?) would remain in statute.
While working to eliminate any reference to Florida's Confederate statehood, there are already three bills that would seek to extend the current state law that all schools teach about African-American History and the Holocaust. Proposed SB 1962 would add the requirement that all schools teach about "present day inequities" afflicting African-Americans. It is common practice today for any racial inequity to be attributed to white racism and not cultural behavior, educational attainment or sectional disparity. For example, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out decades ago, educators with doctorates have annual salaries less than other doctoral degrees. Most African-American PhDs are in education, therefore, the average salary level of these citizens holding doctorates is less than the average salary of whites holding doctorates--most of whom are not in education. Recent years have shown that 'disparate impact' remedies are almost always for primarily racial reasons. The bill specifies that the instructional materials to be developed for teachers to implement this measure shall be developed by the taxpayer-funded Florida American-American History Taskforce or other institutions that promote the African-American experience. (Would this allow such discredited curriculum as that developed by Black Lives Matter, the NY Times 1619 Project, or other racially-motivated groups to be thrust upon our children?)
Another measure, HB 105, would require now all charter schools and even the state's private schools to annually certify that all children are taught in the prescribed content regarding African-American History and the Holocaust. By the way, these comprise only 2 of 20 such topics that all Florida PUBLIC schools were to teach under Florida's Required Instruction Statute 1003.42. Should this measure pass, the many parents who have enrolled their children in charter and private schools to escape what they consider liberal indoctrination and racially-biased teaching would no longer be safe from such potentially harmful content.
Another bill (SR 1074) would seek to define "white nationalism" as "being pro-white" and would link that term to white supremacist beliefs that hold whites to be superior to all other races. It argues that a surge in hate crimes within the state and nation has resulted primarily from white nationalist groups and cites FBI statistics as evidence. No breakdown of hate crimes by racial groups or percentages of such crimes being committed by that group's proportional representation in our overall population is given. Other data revealing that a larger proportion of hate crimes are committed AGAINST whites as opposed to being CAUSED by whites is absent in the measure. As a result, the proposal is not only inaccurate but divisive. It would--along with other racially-motivated educational materials such as the NY Times 1619 Project, the Black Lives Matter Teaching Modules, and the many university level 'white-privilege' courses which are based upon Critical Race Theory--racially demonize the white race as "oppressive" toward all others. Still other measures would create scholarship funds ('reparations') for the descendants of the Ocoee Riot (SB 164) and would deny accreditation and principal's salaries to Charter Schools and selected private schools that fail to implement all provisions of the amended African-American curriculum and teacher-training proposals (SB 772 line 144).
Related to one piece of legislation pertaining to Florida's legal holidays, SWFLCWRT President Brian Bailey has sent copies of the following letter to members of the Southwest Florida legislative delegation to voice our opposition to the measure. Individual members who wish to echo similar comments may use the contact list for our legislators under the "Legislative Issues / Action" link in the column to the right. Phone contact information, email links and the names of each representative's legislative assistants are given. To download a PDF copy of the letter, click HERE.
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