TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Civil rights activists cheered when Ron DeSantis pardoned four Black men wrongfully convicted of rape as one of his first actions as Florida’s new governor. But four years later, as DeSantis eyes the presidency, their hope that the Republican governor would be an ally on racial justice has long faded.
Instead, African American leaders decry what they call a pattern of “policy violence” against people of color imposed by the DeSantis administration that reached a low point following the recent release of an “anti-woke” public school curriculum on Black history. Specifically, Florida’s teachers now must instruct middle school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
DeSantis has repeatedly defended the new language while insisting that his critics, who include Vice President Kamala Harris and at least one high-profile Republican congressman, are intentionally misinterpreting one line of the sweeping new curriculum. But civil rights leaders who have watched DeSantis closely dismiss such explanations.
“DeSantis has perfected the art of using policy violence that we must stop,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, which issued a travel advisory for Florida in May warning African Americans against DeSantis’ “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”
The divisive debate highlights the political and practical risks of DeSantis’ approach to racial issues as he seeks to catch Donald Trump in the crowded 2024 primary and the Republican Party works to strengthen its dismal standing with voters of color.
Ambitious Republican leaders have long seized on white grievance to animate the party’s most passionate voters, who are almost exclusively white. But DeSantis, a combative conservative who leads one of the nation’s largest states, has embraced far-right positions on race perhaps more aggressively than anyone in the 2024 presidential contest as he tries to position himself to the right of Trump.
Facing fierce backlash over the new curriculum this week, the 44-year-old governor was as defiant as ever.
“We believe in true history,” DeSantis said in an interview Tuesday with conservative commentator Clay Travis. “The standards that were developed, these are Black history scholars, many of whom were African American themselves, they worked on this. It’s very, very thorough. It is every little aspect, of not just slavery, but the Black experience in America.”
DeSantis is now facing criticism from Florida teachers, civil rights leaders and the Biden White House. Harris, the first Black vice president, traveled to Florida last week to condemn the new curriculum. Many of his GOP presidential opponents have stayed silent, including Tim Scott, who is the Senate’s sole Black Republican member and declined to comment for this story.
Other Black conservatives have begun to speak out. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., one of the most powerful Black Republicans in the state, said he has a problem with the part of Florida’s new curriculum that suggests enslaved people derived any benefit from their situation.
“To me, yes, that section needs some adjustments,” he told southwest Florida’s WINK News this week.
“The talking point narrative around it, yeah, it sounds awful,” said Donalds, who, like almost every Republican in Florida’s congressional delegation, has endorsed Trump over DeSantis in the presidential primary. “Nobody should be accepting of that. But when you read through the standards, they actually did a very good job in covering all aspects of Black history in the United States.”
Donalds said he planned to work with the State Board of Education to “bring refinement” to that topic.
The DeSantis administration later went on the attack against Donalds, a popular Florida conservative seen as a rising star in the GOP.
Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. vowed on social media Wednesday not to change the teaching standards “at the behest of a woke @WhiteHouse, nor at the behest of a supposedly conservative congressman.” DeSantis’ spokesperson Jeremy Redfern piled on, posting that “supposed conservatives in the federal government are pushing the same false narrative that originated from the @WhiteHouse.”
As all of that unfolds under the spotlight of presidential politics, DeSantis’s fiery approach risks alienating would-be conservative supporters while undermining his core message to Republican voters, which relies on the notion that he is more electable than Trump against President Joe Biden in the general election.
Republican strategists acknowledge the fight over Florida’s curriculum could undermine the party’s modest gains with some voters of color in recent elections. African Americans and Latinos, particularly young men, have shifted slightly toward the GOP, although both groups still overwhelmingly backed Democrats.
“There are much more valuable issues that DeSantis should focus on,” said Republican strategist Alice Stewart, who added the current debate could “absolutely” alienate voters of color and suburban whites alike.
Still, she suggested DeSantis was being unfairly criticized.
“It’s important as always to make sure that you read everything before you take one part and blow it up,” Stewart said. “This is one part of a larger curriculum. And this was written and approved and signed off by an African American scholar.”
The group that revised the Black history curriculum included William B. Allen, a Black professor emeritus at Michigan State University who has defended the wording about slavery.
Former Republican strategist Tara Setmayer, now an adviser with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said the debate reflects an unfortunate political reality in today’s GOP: Far-right positions on race have become incredibly popular since Trump’s rise. She argued there’s virtually no short-term downside to emphasizing the issue for candidates running in Republican primaries, which are dominated by the party’s white base.
“I was a Republican for 27 years and at no time did the Republican Party try to whitewash American history,” she said. “Now, that’s a mainstream Republican talking point.”
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Peoples reported from New York. Stafford reported from Detroit.
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