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More Incremental Authoritariansim in DeSanctistan [1]

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Date: 2023-01-28

The many hands of Ron DeSanctis' legal authorities.

This is about a story in Florida that didn’t make big headlines, but nonetheless is another example of the increasingly authoritarian leanings of the DeSanctis agenda.

State Law H1467 (The Stop Woke Act) passed in July 2022

One aspect of this new law is in regard to publicly available books in the classroom. Many grammar school classrooms have shelves of books to which all students are free to peruse, borrow, or read during free time in class. The idea is to have books (other that subject matter text books) available for students to develop a positive and healthy interest in reading. The books are just there on the shelf in the classroom, there is no requirement that they be read. Many teachers have contributed to these classrom bookshelves with books they thought would be relevant, engaging, and would help foster reading development. This practice has been longstanding, and generally thought of as a good thing, allowing young inquiring minds to explore freely.

Here is the premise of the school book part of the new law:

www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/... The law, which went into effect at the start of this year, “is based on the premise, promoted by right-wing advocacy groups, that teachers and librarians are using books to ‘groom’ students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies,” according to Judd Legum at Popular Information. He puts it simply: “classroom libraries that are curated by teachers, not librarians, are now illegal.”

In part, regarding books in the classroom, here is what the implementation looks like:

www.washingtonexaminer.com/... "We've got to go classroom by classroom and start to catalog all the books in these classrooms to make sure that they're in our system if they're an approved book," Kevin Chapman, the district's chief of staff, told the Washington Examiner. "Because that's the law of the land right now in Florida, and if you're found to have an inappropriate book in your classroom, you can be now charged with a third-degree felony."

To be an approved book, it must undergo review by a “Media Specialist”

www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/... ‘“That review must also be consistent with a complex training,” Legum reports, “which was heavily influenced by right-wing groups like Moms For Liberty and approved by the Florida Department of Education just last week. Any mistake by a librarian or others could result in criminal prosecution. This process must be repeated for any book brought into the school on an ongoing basis. But librarians and teachers are not being provided with any additional compensation for the extra work.”

Media Specialists are certified librarians who would be subject to felony prosecution if they make any “errors”.

And here is the effect:

www.washingtonexaminer.com/... "The vetting process for new books is cumbersome, so even accepting donated books from parents and community members will not be allowed. The process of finding the list of approved books is also incredibly difficult," one teacher wrote on Facebook. “If you have a lot of books like I do, probably several hundred, it is not practical to run all of them through [the vetting process], so we have to cover them up,” Don Falls, a history teacher at Manatee High School, told the Herald Tribune. “It is not only ridiculous but a very scary attack on fundamental rights.” Photos circulating social media highlighted how teachers have been concealing books to err on the side of caution and avoid any possible third-degree felony charges.

Here are some comments from teachers affected by the law.

“My heart is broken for Florida students today as I am forced to pack up my classroom library,” one teacher wrote on Facebook, Legum reports. Calling it a “travesty to education, the future of our children and our nation,” another teacher lamented they have spent 18 years “dedicated to providing students with quality literature,” and helping them “connect with books and develop a love of lifelong learning,” but now they will have to dismantle their classroom library.

This law was passed July 2022, and became state law on Jan 1st, but implementation of this aspect of it has recently been unleashed, and the result is fear and self-censoring in the classroom, as teachers feel exposed and vulnerable to this authoritarian power play.

The way this matter has been handled by DeSanctis is similar to his hostile take-over of the Board of New College: Make sure that he, as governor, has the unquestioned power to accomplish his objective, and then ...pounce, collateral damage be damned.

The Washington Examiner contacted Florida's Department of Education for comment. Schools across the state were not given a grace period to comply with the rules, according to Chapman. "There is no deadline. It's actually the opposite. If you think about it, the law went into effect on November 22, 2022. So [it's] the law right now," Chapman contended.

There is a term for the method that authoritarian leaders use to consolidate their power: “Authortarian Legalism”, whereby they are elected democratically, then use the power of the state to bend institutions and affairs to their will, in an effort to agglomorate power. IMHO Ron DeSanctis is of that ilk.

It is difficult to believe in the year 2023 that this creeping incremental authoritarianism is insinuating itself into our school system (at least in Florida), with a long term goal of teaching only state “approved” subjects….and that it is being accepted so easily without public uproar, or at least more media attention.

These maneuverings by DeSanctis can be seen as a model of how he would govern on a national level.

Perhaps if he emerges as a national candidate, these authoritarian tendencies will get greater media focus...one can only hope.

Right now I’m in agreement with the Florida teacher quoted above. This is a:

“travesty to education, the future of our children and our nation,”

..on top of that, this trend is downright frightening. Imagine this policy carried out on a national level.

I only became aware of this issue while listening to a weekly NPR public affairs, listener call-in, progam “Florida Roundup.”

For those interested, a discussion of deSanctis’ policies and their effects on the people of the state, including the subject of “approved” books in the classroom, was discussed in Friday 28-Jan NPR Podcast “Florida Roundup”.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/28/2149789/-More-Incremental-Authoritariansim-in-DeSanctistan

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