Ron DeSantis' Race Curriculum Sparks Fight With Potential Successor

Joining the chorus of critics of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' newly enacted, and highly controversial, social studies standards regarding the teaching of slavery was an unexpected voice: Florida Representative Byron Donalds.

Little did Donalds know that his comments—made in passing in an interview with a Florida news station—would spark a proxy war between DeSantis and former President Donald Trump as the two battle for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

Last week in Orlando, the Florida Board of Education voted to approve new standards around how Black history should be taught in the state's public schools, including teaching "both sides" of racially fueled violence in the post-slavery South and how slaves "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit," according to a copy of the standards posted to the state's website.

The subtext of the changes were clear: DeSantis, who has built his presidential campaign around his conquests against "wokeness" while governor, has been a regular critic of concepts like corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and critical race theory, describing the latter as state-sanctioned racism that teaches Florida children to hate our country or to hate each other in a 2021 initiative seeking to ban the practice. And it has quickly become a hallmark of his efforts to become president.

Numerous academics have characterized the changes as historically inaccurate and an attempt to whitewash the atrocities committed against people of color throughout the early days of America's history.

Kamala Harris, the first Black and Asian-American to serve as vice president, issued her own rebuke of the new standards, specifically criticizing their claims that anything good could have emerged from American slavery.

"How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?" Harris said in a speech in Jacksonville last Friday.

But Harris also had an unexpected ally in the fight, one who just happened to be among her fiercest critics: Donalds.

On Wednesday, Donalds—one of only a handful of Black Republicans in Congress and a defining voice behind the "post-racial" politics of the modern Republican platform—posted a light rebuke of Florida's new standards on his Twitter page, saying in a statement he believed that while new African-American standards in Florida were good, robust, and accurate, he believed they needed additional adjustment, saying attempts to feature language outlining the so-called benefits of slavery for enslaved people after emancipation was wrong and needs to be adjusted.

"Slavery was terrible in our country," Donalds told Florida's WINK-TV in Fort Myers. "It was terrible for Black people coming to America, and it was just flat-out wrong, no doubt about that."

Team DeSantis was quick to pounce. Officials with DeSantis' campaign noted that the line in question bore close similarity to similar language in the previous standards the state had operated under, including in standards pushed by the College Board.

Others, like conservative blogger Matt Walsh, said Donalds' apparent position that the state shouldn't teach something he personally found offensive wasn't a legitimate or respectable position, adding his opinion was disappointing.

Others in DeSantis' orbit were even more blunt in their assessment, accusing Donalds of adopting White House talking points to bash a political opponent.

"Did Kamala Harris write this tweet?" DeSantis aide and rapid response director Christina Pushaw wrote in response to Donalds.

Newsweek reached out to Donalds' office via email for comment. In a statement amid the backlash, Donalds claimed that anyone who could not accurately interpret what he said was disingenuous and is desperately attempting to score political points, later posting a video of his full remarks to his Twitter page.

A representative for DeSantis' campaign referred Newsweek to social media posts made on the campaign's behalf.

But the political implications were clear. Donalds, once floated as a potential successor to DeSantis as governor, is also considered to be on Trump's short list for vice president after his early decision to endorse him in the presidential race.

And Trump, who has leaned heavily into racial politics as a candidate and as commander-in-chief, has regularly sought to paint DeSantis as racist throughout the course of the campaign. Some DeSantis allies alleged that the Trump campaign leaked text messages showing a DeSantis campaign surrogate sharing racist jokes and comments in a private chat group.

After the dust-up, Trump's advisers were quick to praise Donalds while attacking DeSantis' campaign for an attempt to smear someone they called a conservative hero.

"For the official office of the governor, and [what's left of] Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign to attempt to smear Congressman Donalds like this is a disgrace—and it's indicative of why DeSantis has plummeted faster than any presidential candidate in history," Jason Miller, a Trump campaign aide, wrote in a statement late Wednesday night.