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A new set of standards for African American history in Florida schools will teach middle schoolers how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. Another guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre led by white supremacists against Black residents in Ocoee to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Members of the Florida Board of Education have defended the standards for African American history lessons they unanimously approved, with Ron DeSantis-appointed board member MaryLynn Magar assuring the attendees at a hearing in Orlando on 19 July that “everything is there” and that “the darkest parts of our history are addressed” in the curriculum. But civil rights advocates, educators and Democratic state lawmakers have warned that elements of the guidelines present a distorted, revisionist picture of the state’s history of racism. “The notion that enslaved people benefitted from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our education system,” Democratic state Rep Anna Eskamani told the board. State Senator Geraldine Thompson said that a recommendation suggesting that Black people sparked the Ocoee massacre is “blaming the victim”. Ms Thompson helped pass a law in 2020 that requires schools to teach lessons about the massacre. The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement that the standards represent “a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history” for more than three decades. “Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson added in a statement. “It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back.” The new standards add another victory in the DeSantis administration’s radical education overhaul and a “parents’ rights” agenda that has restricted honest lessons of race and racism in state schools, reshaped local school boards, and banned public colleges from offering classes that “distort significant events” or “teach identity politics”. Florida’s Board of Education also adopted five rules targeting LGBT+ students, including punishing transgender students and staff who use restrooms that align with their gender and add barriers to students who want their names and pronouns respected in and out of the classroom. LGBT+ advocates have accused the board and the governor’s administration of weaponizing state agencies to implement the DeSantis agenda as he mounts a national campaign, fuelled in part by what opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation adopted by several other states. That bill, which Mr DeSantis signed into law in 2022 and expanded earlier this year, has sparked fears that its broad scope could be used to effectively block discussion of LGBT+ people, history and events from state schools, and threaten schools with potential lawsuits over perceived violations. “This politically motivated war on parents, students, and educators needs to stop,” said Jennifer Solomon with Equality Florida. “Our students deserve classrooms where all families are treated with the respect they deserve and all young people are welcomed,” she said in a statement. “Let parents be parents. Let educators be educators. And stop turning our kids’ classrooms into political battlefields to score cheap points.” The African American history curriculum advanced by the board does not fully adopt the recommendations from the African American History Task Force, which urged the board to consider “contemporary issues impacting Africans and African Americans”. Education Commissioner Manny Diaz defended the standards as an “in-depth, deep dive into African American history, which is clearly American history as Governor DeSantis has said, and what Florida has done is expand it.” Under the new standards, students will be taught to simply “identify” famous Black people, but it fails to add requirements for students to learn about their contributions, challenges and stories overall. “We must do better in offering a curriculum that is both age-appropriate and truthful,” according to Democratic state Rep Dianne Hart, chair of Florida’s Legislative Black Caucus. “Education is a critical part of an individual’s personal foundation and when you chose to build a foundation on falsehoods, lies, or by simply erasing history, you’ve laid a foundation that will ultimately fail,” she said in a statement. The board’s adoption of the standards follow the board’s decision to ban the teaching of Advanced Placement African American Studies in high schools, claiming that the course “significantly lacks educational value” and “inexplicably” contradicted Florida law. A letter dated 12 January from the Florida Department of Education to the College Board, which administers AP exams, said the board is welcome to return to the agency with “lawful, historically accurate content”. Read More DeSantis campaign video crossed a line for gay right-wing pundits despite governor’s record on LGBT+ rights Florida schools remove books by John Milton and Toni Morrison and restrict Shakespeare under DeSantis rules Jury awards Florida girl burned by McDonald's Chicken McNugget $800,000 in damages Florida rulings ease concerns about drag performers at Pride parades, drag queen story hours What are the 10 largest US lottery jackpots ever won?

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An elite liberal arts university has taken steps in re-evaluating its admission process by ending legacy preferences following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action. Wesleyan University, a private college in Connecticut, announced in a letter on Wednesday that terminating its use of legacy admissions would benefit diversity on campus and cited the Court’s ruling as a catalyst in the decision. “In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action, we believe it important to formally end admissions preference for ‘legacy applicants,’” Wesleyan University President Michael S Roth wrote. “We still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process.” The school is the first prominent higher education institution to end legacy admissions following the Court’s decision to end affirmative action in June. Going forward, Wesleyan said it will promote a diverse student body by recruiting students from areas across the US outside of big cities and coasts, recruiting veterans and investing in a pipeline to recruit community college graduates. They also plan to increase financial aid support by normalising a three-year option, creating a scholarship program to recruit and support undergraduates from Africa and developing more free-credit bearing courses online. In his letter, Mr Roth clarified that an applicant’s connection to the university has never guaranteed them a spot and family members of alumni are admitted on their own merits “as has been almost always the case for a long time.” The announcement marks Wesleyan’s formal ending of any legacy-based admissions. Wesleyan joins a small group of other colleges and universities that have ended legacy admissions like Amherst College which concluded legacy preference in 2021, John Hopkins University which made the decision in 2020 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which has never considered legacy. For more than 20 years, colleges and universities have used affirmative action to help establish a diverse pool of accepted students. Race is not used as the sole factor in determining a student’s acceptance but it can be considered if there are two applicants with nearly identical qualifications that meet or exceed the school’s application standard. Mr Roth echoed this in his letter, saying Wesleyan “has never fixated on a checked box indicating a student’s racial identification” and has always taken a “holistic view” by looking at applicants’ records, letters of recommendation, college essays and more. But in a 6-3 decision last month, the Court struck down the long-used tool in two consolidated cases: Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina. Now, institutions of higher education can no longer consider race as a factor unless a student volunteers information about their race or culture in their personal essay. Advocates of affirmative action called on colleges and universities to re-evaluate their admissions processes and establish other methods of cultivating a diverse campus. President Joe Biden encouraged schools to “not abandon their commitment to ensuring student bodies of diverse backgrounds” and directed the Department of Education to analyse practices that hold diversity back. Those practices include legacy admissions which Mr Biden said, “expands privilege instead of opportunity.” Read More Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action, banning colleges from factoring race in admissions Slim majority of Americans support Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, but most believe politics rules the court Harvard sued over ‘legacy admissions’ after Supreme Court targets affirmative action Biden condemns Supreme Court striking down affirmative action: ‘This is not a normal court’