By Rochelle Anne Davis and Eileen Kane
A Florida law that took effect on July 1, 2023, restricts how educators in the state’s public colleges and universities can teach about the racial oppression that African Americans have faced in the United States.
Specifically, SB 266 forbids professors to teach that systemic racism is “inherent in the institutions of the United States.” Similarly, they cannot teach that it was designed “to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”
We are professors who teach the modern history of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and we know that even democratically elected governments suppress histories of their own nations that don’t fit their ideology. The goal is often to smother a shameful past by casting those who speak of it as unpatriotic. Another goal is to stoke so much fear and anger that citizens welcome state censorship.
We see this playing out in Florida, with SB 266 being the most extreme example in a series of recent U.S. state bills that critics call “educational gag orders.” The tactics that Gov. Ron DeSantis is using to censor the teaching of American history in Florida look a lot like those seen in the illiberal democracies of Israel, Turkey, Russia and Poland.
Here are four ways SB 266 relates to attempts used by modern governments to censor history.
1. Invent a threat
One strategy that DeSantis shares with other world leaders is to invent a threat that taps into anxieties and then declare war against it.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has been waging a brutal war against Ukraine in the name of “denazifying” the country. This claim that Ukraine is a Nazi bastion is a fabrication. Nevertheless, it stokes real fear and hatred of Nazis, whose 1941 invasion of the USSR led to 27 million Soviet deaths.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan labels critics of state violence “terrorists.” More than 146 Turkish academics who signed a 2016 peace petition condemning Turkey’s violence against its Kurdish citizens faced trials for “spreading terrorist propaganda.” Ten were convicted and served jail terms before Turkey’s Constitutional Court, in a 9-8 decision in 2019, overturned their convictions because of the violation of their freedom of expression.
In Florida, the phantom threat is “wokeness,” a reference to a term that the Black Lives Matter movement made mainstream. To “stay woke” means to be self-aware and committed to racial justice. Republicans have co-opted the term and use it sarcastically to denigrate progressive ideas and drown out discussions about the reasons for America’s stark racial inequities.
2. Criminalize historical discussions
Once a fake threat has been ginned up, world leaders can use it to create new laws to criminalize speech and critical discussions of history.
In Russia, Putin uses so-called “memory laws” to, among other things, prevent knowledge about the scale of crimes committed by former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin against the Soviet people from the 1930s to the 1950s. And in 2018, Poland’s right-wing leadership added an amendment to one of its own memory laws to defend the “good name” of Poland and the Polish people against accusations of complicity in the Holocaust. Historians who defy this gag order have faced harassment and death threats.
Similarly, the Turkish government has a law against “denigrating the Turkish nation” that makes it a crime to acknowledge the early-20th-century Armenian genocide.
Turkey’s purge of its intellectuals resulted in the firing of more than 6,000 university instructors in an effort to silence critical teaching about the nation’s past and present.
SB 266, meanwhile, requires general education courses to “provide instruction on the historical background and philosophical foundation of Western civilization and this nation’s historical documents.” It also prohibits general education core courses from “teaching certain topics or presenting information in specified ways.”
The vagueness is deliberate. Teaching virtually anything related to America’s history of racism, particularly as it relates to racial inequalities in the present, could be seen as violating SB 266. Florida professors may refrain, for example, from teaching that Jim Crow laws were designed to deny African Americans equal rights. These are the same laws that Hitler used as a model for the Nuremberg Laws that stripped Jewish citizens of Germany of civil rights.
Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images
3. Punish transgressors
With laws in place that criminalize dissenting interpretations of history, governments can then punish those who violate them. Punishment can involve threatening arrest and imprisoning individuals, and stripping funding from institutions.
For example, in 2011 Israel enacted the Nakba Law, which authorizes the minister of finance to cut funding to institutions that commemorate or acknowledge what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba – or “catastrophe” in Arabic. The Nakba is the displacement of more than half of the Indigenous Palestinian population and destruction of their communities that resulted from the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
Likewise, SB 266 defunds diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in public colleges and universities and empowers school administrators and boards to take action against those who defy the rules. It comes in the wake of Florida’s 2022 “Stop WOKE” law – which restricted discussions about race in K-12 schools and led teachers to purge their classrooms of books they worried could get them a five-year jail sentence.
4. Write new history
With actual historical events denied or suppressed, governments can then rewrite history to further monopolize truth and impose ideology. Russia offers the most egregious example of this.
In 2021, Putin published a 20-page article, “On the Historical Unity of the Russians and Ukrainians,” in which he argued that the Ukrainian and Russian people are one and the same. Alarmed critics rightly saw this as a preemptive justification for escalating his war against Ukraine, which he did with a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Like right-wing ideologues in other parts of the world, DeSantis claims to be defending U.S. history from falsehoods pushed by ideologues. In his attempts to rewrite history, calls for a reckoning with America’s history of anti-Blackness are ridiculed as indoctrination, and bigotry gets repackaged as patriotism.
If the way governments are rewriting history in other parts of the world is a guide, DeSantis’ and other states’ legislation could be the prelude to an even greater assault on accurate history and freedom of thought.
Rochelle Anne Davis is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Georgetown University. Eileen Kane is Professor of History at Connecticut College.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
Atwp says
Why waste time to vote for this crazy man? He should forget becoming President. We Americans need to keep our own history. These folks are trying to erase all the bad they did to my people. History denied dosent mean history forgotten. We will not forget.
dan says
so does destroying statues that have been up for over a hundred years help your cause. I think not. This crazy man as you call him is by far the best leader this state has ever had.
DontsayRon says
You mean the statues celebrating people that owned other human beings as property? Is that the period of time republicans refer to with “again” in the make america great again slogan?
desantis is a terrible human being and an even worse “leader”. Divisive hate is the strategy you prefer? sad that this piece of garbage you call your leader. Hitler got elected as well and is still a piece of sh*t. racist ron is no different.
Laurel says
dan: Oh no, no, no, no, no! Your comment does not help YOUR case. The statues that were taken down were of insurrectionists. They fought the Union, which was the United States of America, in order to keep humans as slaves, here, in this country! How the hell do you think black Americans feel when they see these statues in city squares, as if those men were heroes? You must be incredibly insensitive. Those statues could be moved to parks that explain what happened in a realistic way, maybe place them around historic slave sales markets. Dixie lost, thank goodness.
I was born and raised in this state, and lived here for 71 years, and DeSantis is by far the worst piece of crap to ever inhabit the Tallahassee office, and I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I just have both feet on the ground.
richard says
Yes, Laurel, you are oh-so right. What Dan and people who think like he does do not realize is that the statues of the Confederate pantheon of apotheosized Generals and politicians were actually federally-funded and erected during the Presidential administration of business-oriented Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893. The Republicans, advocates of big business, were beset by the problem of high tariffs, which hurt big business. But they also wanted small government. Now here was the problem: the high tariffs had rendered the US Treasury a windfall surplus of over a billion dollars! You can’t foster small government by starving it of revenue if you have a ton of $$$ in your treasury.What to do? Spend it all ! — and they did. Among the internal improvements which were positive points, was the wholesale spending of federally-funded monuments across the US, especially in the South. THIS was the time that the statues of Lee, Davis, N.B. Forrest, et al, were erected. BTW, Richmond, capital of the Confederacy, boasted the most statues of any city in the southern states — a veritable monument to the Lost Cause imagery. For a very detailed treatment of this, please refer to Heather Cox Richardson’s works on this era. Oh, and let’s not forget Stone Mountain, Georgia’s bas-relief of the three Confederate greats– Davis, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. But it was begun in 1923 and was dedicated on April 14, 1965, marking the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln! Nice, huh? PS – Harrison’s presidency has been derided by historians, who put him as one of the 10 worst ever to occupy the office.
richard says
Laurel, I agree, 100%
I wrote a reply earlier in which I outlined the history of the statues, placed during the Benjamin Harrison administration 1889-1893. It was part of his successful attempt to spend down the over 1 billion dollar US Treasury surplus, which I outlined in my original attempted post.
Somehow, Flagler live does not want to hear from old history professors like me; my posts disappear or wait for moderation until who-knows-when.
Maybe this post will get the green light? Won’t you print my posts, Flagler Live?
Laurel says
Richard: Sometimes FL runs a little behind, no worries. Your post was very interesting, and I learned something new. Thanks!
Brian says
Nor will I Atwp. Nor will I.
Charles says
This is why DeSantis ratings continue to go down. He is a racists, discriminates against anyone except rich white people that can donate to his campaign. lBecause of him homeowners insurance in Florida is the highest in the country. He is running teachers, doctors and businessesof the state.
He has done nothing to improve this state since he has been Governor, just think how he would destroy our country if he ever got elected.
He needs to go be a used car sales person or how about working for McDonalds they may have an opening for him.
rpolirer says
I agree. He is a political opportunist whose only credo is “I want YOUR vote.” He has decided that it is best for him to pursue the vote to the Right of DJT. He may run/ruin Florida, but the rest of the country sees through him. He will fail.
Bud Lite says
Hello Charles………..I’m Earth. Have we met?
Ban the GOP says
Lets shackle up the fascist supporters so they can learn the benefits as well.
Dan says
my my my, you democrats are some violent thinking people. You scream about voting rights, well HE is our governor, don,t like him then vote him out next election, it is the American way, (at least for now).
Concerned Floridian says
Gerrymandering is a hell of a drug, wouldn’t you know it.