At Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press conference in Tampa on March 8, a staffer came out twice before it started: once to give the audience a heads-up that an upcoming video might be so offensive some might want to step out.
She returned saying it was about to start and any children present needed to leave. A little boy ran for the door.
The video was sexually graphic enough that The Epoch Times can’t describe much of what was in it.
That spells out the problem DeSantis sought to highlight: the images were those from children’s books dealing with sexuality, homosexuality, and transgenderism, books found in numerous public elementary and middle schools, mostly in Florida’s larger counties like Hillsborough, where Tampa sits.
DeSantis arranged the conference to dispel what he called “myths” promulgated by national news organizations like CBS.
The video included footage featuring Andrea Mitchell of CBS News, Joy Reid of MSNBC, and Whoopi Goldberg on ABC’s “The View.”
The controversies revolve around whether and how public schools teach sexuality and America’s legacy of slavery and discrimination.
Another is that Florida has sought to ban children’s books about baseball stars Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente because the books discuss the racism each faced.
A third is that Florida banned instruction on African-American history, including discussing slavery and its aftermath.
Protesters upset about DeSantis’s push to remove overtly sexual books from school classrooms and libraries gathered for a rally on March 13 outside the state Capitol building in Tallahassee.
They'd come also to lobby lawmakers about an effort to expand the Parental Rights in Education law, signed by DeSantis in March 2022.
Among other things, the law prohibits lessons about sexual topics with children in 3rd grade or younger. It also bans schools from keeping secrets from parents, such as counseling meetings with a child having questions about sexual orientation or gender identity.
And many were upset about proposed legislation to stop medical treatments and surgeries for minors pursuing efforts to live as another gender.
Brandon Wolf, press secretary for Equality Florida, the group that organized the rally, decried the state’s “hostile takeovers of higher education and more assaults on bodily autonomy.”
“Now, if that doesn’t sound like freedom to you, that’s because it’s not freedom. Free states don’t ban books,” Wolf said.
“Free states don’t criminalize health care. Free states don’t throw parents in jail for caring for their children.
“Free states don’t censor the bits of history that made those in power uncomfortable. There is no freedom in a government dictating what people can read or who they can be.”
“We are here to stand up, to push back, and to fight for real freedom in the state of Florida because real freedom is worth fighting for.”
At his press conference, DeSantis said he sought to set the record straight.Did Florida Empty Classroom Bookshelves?
It did not, DeSantis said.A Duval County teacher posted a video showing empty bookshelves and was later fired.
Most books removed came from media centers, not classrooms, and the most titles pulled in any district were 19 each in Duval and St. Johns counties, “not even close to a whole classroom library,” he said.
Titles pulled after parents complained included “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe; “Flamer” by Mike Curato; “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson and David Levithan; and “Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships and Being A Human” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan.
All four graphically depict or discuss sex acts of various sorts. Some give detailed instructions.
Florida has long prohibited adults from showing children pornography, DeSantis said.
“Some of the stuff you saw up there is pornographic. Why would we have that in a media center with 10-year-old students?”
As he is prone to do, DeSantis reminded the audience that he and his wife Casey have small children.
“We have a 6, a 4, and a 2-year-old at home. I just think parents—when they’re sending their kids to school—they should not have to worry about this garbage being in the schools.”
“They should just know that you’re going to get a good education.”
State Education Commissioner Manny Diaz joined DeSantis at the podium.
“One of these stories, as the governor mentioned, is the Roberto Clemente book, which is a 40-page picture book about baseball and the life of Roberto Clemente, really an American hero,” Diaz said.
“Not only on the field but for his endeavors in his humanitarian missions.”
“So I wrote a letter to the superintendent and said, ‘What are you doing with this book with Roberto Clemente? This book needs to be put back on the shelves. It’s necessary for our students.’
“And magically the next morning they said that this book was approved, the Hank Aaron book was approved.
“So you see that all they’re doing is trying to use this to create lies and attack our governor. What is true, however, is that pornography is absolutely prohibited from our school libraries.”
“The Department of Education has never instructed any district or school to empty or cover bookshelves,” Diaz said, adding the state doesn’t ban books.
One false news report said the state had banned the famous novel “To Kill A Mockingbird,” “only to find out from our response that it’s actually on the recommended list of reading for our students in Florida,” Diaz said.
DeSantis said Diaz’s department contacted Duval County and “said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, you have a beef with Hank Aaron or Roberto Clemente? Where are you getting this? Why can’t we learn about that? Where in our law does it—?’ and of course, they didn’t have an answer.
“And [they] said, ‘No, no, no, we’re not taking Hank Aaron out. We’re not going to take Roberto Clemente out.’
“You know, if our kids only learned about Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron, I think they’d probably do okay if you just study their lives,” the former captain of the Yale baseball team said about the two legendary and ground-breaking stars.
Did Florida Ban African-American Studies?
DeSantis said his administration has, in fact, strengthened the curriculum requiring the teaching of African-American history and slavery.Among other things, they added the 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riot to the events school must teach, he said.
In the riot, a white mob killed 30 to 35 black people and burned most black-owned buildings and homes in northern Ocoee, a town near Orlando.
According to online accounts, those on the south side were later killed or driven out by threats of violence.
According to the governor’s office, the state also requires coverage of the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery; the passage to America; the enslavement experience; abolition; and the history and contributions to American society of the African diaspora.
The state rejected an Advanced Placement African-American History curriculum offered by the College Board, which sponsors AP courses and runs the college-admission SAT exams.
Florida opposed it for its alleged ideological indoctrination, DeSantis said. One unit was on Black Queer Studies. He read a quote from the proposed syllabus:
“Quote—‘We have to encourage and develop practices whereby queerness isn’t surrendered to the status quo of race, class, gender, and sexuality. It means building forms of queerness that reject the given realities of the government and the market.’
“And I’m just thinking to myself, you know, why aren’t we talking about Frederick Douglass? Why aren’t we talking about things that I think really matter?”
“A lot of this was informed by, I would say, Neo-Marxism, a heavy, heavy ideological bent. And so that clearly is not something that we’re going to do.”
DeSantis talked about his Stop WOKE Act, which pushes back against the use of radical approaches like critical race theory in public school curriculums.
Among its provisions is requiring the teaching of inspirational stories regarding Floridians, particularly African-Americans, “and I think that’s a better way to lift people up, to showcase people who have defied the odds and made great contributions.
“Don’t tell somebody, ‘You’re oppressed, and you have no chance in life.’ Why would you work hard if you don’t?”
“It’s a positive view. It’s showing that people have been able to break down barriers and do great things. And I think that is the way we need to be doing it, rather than always trying to say that the country is bad.”
The Stop WOKE Act prohibits teaching children they are inherently racist based on their race, color, or national origin, DeSantis said.
“Does anyone think that babies are born racist? I don’t think so. I think they’re told either to respect people or not.”
The Act also bans teaching that concepts like hard work and merit are racist, he said. “In reality, we believe merit and hard work are important so that people are able to pursue happiness.”
“You have somebody in a classroom. Now go back 200 years. Someone may look like them. They are not responsible—some first grader sitting in the classroom—for that.”
The act bans instruction on collective guilt for acts committed in the past.
“It’s wrong to identify somebody who’s just a young kid going to school and saying they’re guilty of things that they had nothing to do with.”
Transparency in Schools
“CRT does not belong in the schools,” said Tia Bess, an African-American farmer with three children in northeast Florida.She talked about being called “a token person, which is a racial slur,” because she started questioning the Duval County School Board on that and other subjects, such as strict COVID-19 masking policies for schoolchildren.
“I was labeled, not just a troublemaker, but someone who was considered an Uncle Tom. This is my country. My father fought in Korea and he didn’t fight for this type of America.”
“I speak of this as a woman of color because we’re taught that if you look like me, you have to vote Democrat. We’re taught that in schools.
“We’re taught that Republicans only care about the rich. Republicans are only white and well-off. That’s incorrect. That’s misinformation.”
In a humorous aside to DeSantis, she said she hadn’t voted for him in his first run for governor because she was previously a lifelong Democrat.
Mother’s Concern Over Topics
Julie Gebhards, a mother of six, said she’s a regular speaker at Hillsborough County School Board meetings. She appreciated, “the opportunity to speak in a setting where I don’t believe my mic will be turned off.”She said her concerns over books used in the schools began three years ago when her 15-year-old daughter asked her to buy a book for the daughter’s English class.
“No one could have prepared me for the review I found online,” which said the book contained graphic detail about prostitution, incest, rape, pornography, nudity, and worse, Gebhards said.
As she dug into the school district’s literary offerings, she kept finding worse and worse books, some of which she described in her speech.
The district has 400 copies of books by one author, “all with the same themes, glamorizing drugs, sex, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.”
She found one depicting a satanic orgy, she said.
Gebhards said that local school authorities, including a committee formed to review some of the books, refused to remove them.
Beyond Books
At the LGBT rally on March 13, state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, used incendiary language to say the problematic issues extend beyond books.She said the state had been “so close” to real gender equality.
Then suddenly, she said, “being fascist was cool.” She accused DeSantis of wanting to “commit genocide on trans people,” by backing efforts to end “gender-affirming care” for minors in the state.
Jon, 30, came to be part of the rally from the Miami area. He can relate to discussions about how including books on sexual orientation and gender identity can be important resources for youngsters.
“I grew up confused and alone,” he told The Epoch Times.
He and his partner, who have already married legally, have planned a wedding celebration in August. They fear the Supreme Court will overturn the Obergefell decision that legalized gay marriage nationally, he said.
If that happens, they fear Florida will revert to banning unions like theirs.
They met as freshmen at Tallahassee’s Florida State University and have been together nine years, “longer than gay marriage has been legal in Florida,” he said.
Jon said opposition to LGBT issues is sometimes seen as a “faith” issue. But he grew up in the Chabad community, a Jewish movement that is Orthodox and Chasidic. He’s less Orthodox himself nowadays, he said.
“At the time it was sort of don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said. “But when I came out [as gay], it wasn’t like I had to go.”
Chabad was accepting of him, he said.
“I feel very blessed as a gay Jewish person. My faith is very pro-LGBT.”
