{"id":1134,"date":"2026-05-19T19:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2026-05-19T19:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:05:15","slug":"editorial-florida-rewrites-history-with-a-right-wing-slant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=1134","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Florida rewrites history with a right-wing slant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Several generations of Florida students were taught that the Civil War had nothing much to do with slavery, that secession was a noble \u201clost cause,\u201d and that plantation life was beneficial for the slaves.<\/p>\n

Read more Orlando cop gets 18-day suspension for chase ending in homeless man\u2019s death<\/a><\/p>\n

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the perpetrators and perpetuators of those myths, had seen to it that the only textbooks allowed in Southern schools would peddle those fictions.<\/p>\n

Revisionist history never plays well. But\u00a0here we go again.<\/p>\n

Not for the first time, Gov. Ron DeSantis is messing with the minds of students, distorting the history of slavery and its persistent and pernicious legacy of racism.<\/p>\n

The new U.S. history course his Department of Education has crafted as an alternative to the widely used and respected Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum does that and more.<\/p>\n

It is right-wing revisionism throughout. It exalts the influence of Protestant religion. It misstates the extent to which the Founders opposed slavery. It misrepresents the Constitution as an antislavery document. Sections about FDR\u2019s New Deal are light on his accomplishments and riddled with criticism of his Democratic liberalism.<\/p>\n

The only approved textbook is \u201cLand of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story\u201d by Wilfred McClay, a historian at Hillsdale College, a private institution in Michigan. Hillsdale was DeSantis\u2019 go-to source for converting New College of Florida from a liberal to a conservative institution and for influencing public schools as well.<\/p>\n

Glossing over slavery<\/h4>\n

DeSantis\u2019 public school standards, which the Board of Education approved last year, drew well-deserved serious criticism for glossing over slavery by teaching \u201chow slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The syllabus for the new \u201cFACT U.S. History\u201d course picks up that diversionary theme.<\/p>\n

\u201cDescribe the variety of enslaved people\u2019s experiences \u2014 labor systems, family and community life, religion and spirituals, and everyday resistance \u2014 across both the Upper South and the Deep South,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

The syllabus describes the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as having \u201copposed slavery in principle as well as in constitutional provisions and policy.\u201d Not so. The Continental Congress eliminated all of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s language that was critical of slavery before approving the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

The Constitution accommodated slavery and compromised the issue in four ways: by never using the word \u201cslavery\u201d; allowing slaves to be imported at least until 1808; requiring states to return fugitive slaves to their owners; and by allowing three-fifths of the slave populations, who could not vote, to be counted for state representation in Congress and thus in the electoral voting of presidents.<\/p>\n

Read more Drought could dampen July 4 fireworks in Florida<\/a><\/p>\n

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The eventual ban on the international slave trade actually made Southern slaveholders wealthier by increasing the value of their human chattel.<\/p>\n

The course describes the treatment of the three-fifths issue in Federalist 54 as a criticism of slavery. It attributes that to James Madison, the more likely author, although some credit it to Alexander Hamilton. A better reading is that Federalist 54, written primarily for a New York audience, cited Northern objections in order to knock them down in favor of the perquisites of property ownership. Madison was a slaveholder, as were 11 other presidents.<\/p>\n

We did not find any explanation of the Electoral College in the syllabus, nor anything relating to the racist dogmas spawned by the slaveholders\u2019 need to rationalize their brutalities. Although the outline deals at length with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts of 1964 and 1965, it appears to be silent on how Nixon, Reagan and the Republican Party exploited them to turn the once-solidly Democratic South into a rigidly Republican bastion.<\/p>\n

A total disservice to students<\/h4>\n

It all fits squarely into the current Republican narrative, which is especially virulent at the U.S. Supreme Court and in Florida, that racism has been wiped out and that there must be no efforts to promote diversity or inclusion in education, employment and governance.<\/p>\n

The course also parrots one of the anti-abortion movement\u2019s tropes by asserting that the \u201cRoe v. Wade decision removed a contentious topic from the democratic process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The traditional Advanced Placement U.S. history course, produced by the College Board, is a college-level curriculum that offers college credit to high school students. While colleges in Florida may be required to accept the state\u2019s alternative, no colleges or universities elsewhere should or likely will. It would be a disservice to their students for Florida high schools to substitute it for the standard AP course.<\/p>\n

The College Board is another of those institutions, along with teacher unions and accreditation organizations, that Republicans in general and DeSantis in particular have been trying to take down as impermissibly liberal.<\/p>\n

DeSantis\u2019 new accreditation alternative, Commission for Public Higher Education, will doubtlessly applaud his new history curriculum. No independent accreditation organization ought to. No responsible Florida school board should accept it.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Vini Jr. wax figure now stands at Madame Tussauds Orlando<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The whitewashing of American history continues with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ alternative to AP U.S. History courses. While claiming to remove liberal bias, it instead injects right-wing bias. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nEditorial: Florida rewrites history with a right-wing slant - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=1134\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Editorial: Florida rewrites history with a right-wing slant - Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The whitewashing of American history continues with Gov. 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