Politicians discuss forbidding Critical Race Theory from education after Florida bill passes

Imagine a dystopian America. One where education is regulated to be taught using less than 50 words and only 10% of history is allowed to be taught. 

To everyone’s knowledge war, crime, hatred, and all things that harm the idealistic view of the world never happened. The world has been peaceful and just since the dawn of time. 

This is the world we are being marched toward. One where America’s history and the cruelty of man are swept under the rug because educators are worried about fines and lawsuits that teaching history has the possibility of bringing.

In 2022 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill called “The Stop Woke Act” into law. This bill outlaws teaching anything other than the fact, such as any theories or speculations historians have made including the well-renowned critical race theory.

This bill revolves around the students’ feelings and whether a student feels racially attacked or anguished.

The attempt of enforcing laws that lead to the censoring of facts is outrageous. This bill will only lead to an incredibly flawed education system where educators are afraid to teach what needs to be taught. 

The Stop Woke Act specifically mentions the following as offenses that would be reprimanded in the result of a student feeling anguish: the feeling that their race is being villainized, stated to have privilege, morally inferior, racial “colorblindness” viewed as a form of racism, or making students feel guilty for past actions of their respected race.

Punishment of educators can involve lawsuits directed toward the school as well as the possibility of teachers losing their jobs and livelihood. However due to the vagueness of the bill and the unprecedented implementation it brings, many still speculate how severe enforcement will be when educators are accused of breaking the Stop Woke Act.

While the bill was initially passed in early 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker stopped enforcement due to its vagueness and for violating the First Amendment; discriminating against speech based on viewpoint.

History is important and this bill undermines it, contradicting the disclosed purpose of creating the Stop Woke Act.

However, according to DeSantis, as well as those who support the bill’s passing, the Stop Woke Act’s main and only purpose is to ensure that education is to only teach facts. 

According to The Stop Woke Act’s supporters, the bill was put in place with the hope of fighting bias and allowing students to use the facts they learn in the classroom to form their own opinions outside the classroom.

Although teaching students with the purpose of them forming their own opinions should be every educator’s purpose, this bill misconstrues what fact is. 

If important theories such as critical race theory are considered to be biased and untrue due to the nature of being a theory, then in comparison theories such as relativity, the Big Bang theory, evolution, atomic theory, Newton’s law of gravitation, etc. should all be inappropriate to be taught in school. 

According to this bill and its supporters’ logic, theories and speculation are misleading and inappropriate to be taught in school. This is due to the belief that teaching these varying subjects is viewed as indoctrination into the left wing.

While the contrasted perspective of critical race theory is a more liberally founded idea, theory, in general, is important; especially one so consistently discussed with today’s current events as well as the rising discussion of social justice and activism. 

In addition to theory, history should be taught without an educator’s concern for students feeling about the harsh nature of American history.

If history isn’t properly taught as well as the theories as to how our history is still affecting us, it will disrupt student education as well as to avoid unconscious racist beliefs that are possible to form when not exposed to history.

Learning the history of the USA is incredibly important because it acts as a guide on how the misdeeds of our founders are still affecting America today as well as how to right that wrong.

Without the theories of how history is affecting the day-to-day lives of the USA, it will become increasingly difficult to notice and fight the injustice that Americans constantly face.

In addition to the contradiction this bill faces with itself, it is incredibly apparent that the bill was written with a political agenda in mind. The mention of students feeling attacked by feeling their race is villainized or holds privilege is in direct reference to white students.

As a country, we need to set aside our feelings and biases and teach the youth what’s important. Students need to be taught everything that they will face outside of school, theories included.

While the Stop Woke Act tries to dress as a law that helps students fight bias, it embodies the opposite. 

This new law will hurt younger students despite how much anguish they have a possibility of feeling because it will create less informed students. The Stop Woke Act counters education and counters justice. 

This article originally appeared in The Dispatch

Image credit: Asher Hagan