©2024 The News Service of Florida
The Florida House is on the cusp of passing a controversial bill that seeks to prohibit “identity politics” from being included in teacher preparation programs at colleges and universities.
Under the measure (HB 1291), the programs could not include instruction that would teach “identity politics” or be “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
The House took up the bill Thursday, positioning it for a vote as soon as Friday.
Democrats peppered bill sponsor John Snyder, R-Stuart, with questions about issues such as prohibiting teaching topics related to systemic racism.
“So, can a training program discuss the existence, and the historical significance, and the reality of systemic racism?” Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, asked.
“The historical fact that racism has existed in this country and that there are racist people, and how that has happened throughout history, absolutely can be taught. But the notion that to the fiber and to the core of our institutions, that those were designed and are maintained in order to perpetuate racism, that’s the notion that we do not accept,” Snyder replied.
The Republican-controlled House rejected a series of proposed amendments that sought to make teaching about various historical events exempt from the bill’s requirements.
For example, Democrats proposed amendments related to instruction about Japanese internment camps, Jim Crow laws and the federal Civil Rights Act.
Rep. Ashley Gantt, a Miami Democrat and former educator who filed one of the proposed amendments, slammed the bill as “erasing the ability for children to know the truth” about things such as racism in the U.S. A similar Senate bill (SB 1372) is ready for consideration by the full Senate.
