The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the White House, Justice Department and the Department of Education to adopt an “aggressive legal strategy” to scrutinize recent changes to Florida’s Black history curriculum.

The caucus wants the federal agencies to examine whether Florida school districts are violating federal discrimination law following changes to the curriculum in the state — from banning books covering racial themes to a recent decision to add language about the positive impacts of slavery.

Caucus Chairman, Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford said at a Thursday press conference he met with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona this week to discuss actions that might be taken. He added that “we have discussed with the White House the need to have a very aggressive legal strategy to want to uphold the law.”

However, lawmakers did not lay out the specifics on how the departments might use use their resources.

The departments have a number of tools. In June, the Madison County, Kentucky school district reached a settlement with Justice to resolve complaints of widespread harassment of Black and multiracial students. Earlier this week, the Education Department launched an investigation of Harvard University’s policies on legacy admissions.

Florida and its governor, GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, have been in the news much of the past year because of steps taken in addressing what DeSantis calls a “woke” agenda and liberal indoctrination in the classroom.DeSantis signed legislation last year directing the Florida Board of Education to set new standards, which resulted in the recent curriculum changes that say enslaved people benefited from skills that they learned.

  • Casualsythe@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Florida resident here. I’m very tired of the Republican infiltration of our school boards. Many of the issues are designed to break down the public school system to pave way for private education. They are trying to fuck things up so much that parents are forced to pay for education. It’s always money, just like it was profitable to use slaves.