Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Suddenly, there is a proliferation of legislation throughout the country prohibiting schools from discussing matters that some adults might find offensive. The legislation often involves vague statements such as, “Schools are prohibited from teaching concepts that cause guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” related to a student’s race, sex or identity.
Teachers indicate that, even though they are not specifically suggesting that students, or anyone else, should feel guilt about what other people did generations ago, that does not stop parents from filing complaints against them under these laws for simply teaching the truth about things that have happened in our past.
Last year, the Florida State Board of Education banned teaching critical race theory. And though CRT was not part of the school’s curriculum, a parent filed a complaint against a teacher in a Florida high school relating to his African American history class. While the school district ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing, this kind of activity clearly has a chilling effect on an accurate rendering of history.
As a result of these laws and the attitudes that lead to them, classic children’s books like “Charlotte’s Web” and “Maus” (a cartoon novel about Nazi Germany depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats) have been banned by some school districts, as well as other classics, including “The Catcher in the Rye,” “The Great Gatsby”—and even “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
Now, publishers of a textbook used in Florida schools have removed any reference to the race of Rosa Parks and the significance of her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Instead, according to news reports, the textbook says Parks declined to “move to a different seat” and that she “showed courage” by doing so, but it does not say she was ordered to move to the back of the bus because of her race.
This was clearly a reaction by the textbook company to a new Florida “anti-anguish” law. The chilling effect of the law prevents students from understanding the things that occurred during the Jim Crow era and why they were wrong.
I personally feel—and felt during my school years—that, as a white person, I have an obligation to learn about the wrongs done based on race and other prejudices over the years in order that we may continue to improve as a nation. At age 12, I saw the movie based on Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and was quite moved by it. I believed then and believe now that it is important for all of us to understand the kind of extreme prejudice that led to significant suffering by Blacks in our society.
But now, there are those who think we need to “protect” our children from knowledge about our country’s past. What do we tell them about slavery? About Bull Connor and the violence inflicted on peaceful Black protesters? About the murders of James Meredith, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King Jr. and countless others by racist whites? About the way our forbears treated Native Americans in the 1800s and the Japanese during World War II? Are we to pretend these things never happened?
In an attempt to empower parents to control their children’s education, state legislatures are causing schools to deprive young minds of the truth that will lead to greater understanding among the races.
As Mark Twain once said, “Folks who can and don’t read good books have no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”•
__________
Daniels, an attorney with Krieg DeVault LLP, is a former U.S. attorney, assistant U.S. attorney general, and president of the Sagamore Institute. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
Click here for more Forefront columns.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
James Meredith is still alive. He was shot by a sniper during his Walk against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, MS. He survived.
Thank you for your powerful words. You are exactly right. If we can teach kids mass shooter drills at school, surely we can teach them accurate history.
I can still see the water hoses turned on peaceful protestors and remember my horror on learning that white students who were registering blacks to vote were killed in the south. A 4-H friend in another community in Hamilton Co. was in the south at the time, and I was so worried what would happen to him.
These stories must be told so that the sins of the past will not be repeated. No one today should feel guilty for what happened years ago unless they have a reason to feel guilty today.