Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday designating Nov. 7 as “Victims of Communism Day” and requiring schools to teach students about the “evils of communism.”
Under the law, public high schools must provide students enrolled in the Florida-mandated U.S. government class with at least 45 minutes of instruction about the pitfalls of communism, starting in the 2023-2024 school year.
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“We want to make sure that every year folks in Florida, but particularly our students, will learn about the evils of communism, the dictators that have led communist regimes, and the hundreds of millions of individuals who’ve suffered and continue to suffer under the weight of this discredited ideology,” DeSantis said at a signing ceremony.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1523710037146939392?s=20&t=-YMPP4jcx1_gaRgy1r6qNw”Victims of Communism Day” will honor the “100 million people who have fallen victim to communist regimes across the world.” If the occasion does not fall on a school day, local municipalities must designate a day for it to be observed. The state school board is also required to revise its social studies standards to incorporate lessons about communism.
“To include topics such as Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement, and how victims suffered under these regimes through poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech,” the bill, H.B. 395, said.
DeSantis, who is considered a possible 2024 presidential contender, held a signing ceremony on Monday at the Freedom Tower, a historic landmark that once hosted services for Cubans fleeing the Castro regime. The governor also announced $25 million in funding to preserve the tower.
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Florida is home to thousands of individuals who fled communism. Last year, DeSantis signed civic education legislation mandating the Florida Department of Education develop a civic curriculum that includes instruction on the “evils of communism and totalitarian ideologies.”
During his tenure as governor, DeSantis has signed a bevy of bills targeting Florida’s education system. In April, he signed the Stop Woke Act, which prohibited classroom instruction of critical race theory, which contends many U.S. institutions suffer from systemic racism against minorities. In March, he signed the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, which restricts classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.
