A red state sparked backlash after announcing that it will offer an alternative version of advanced history classes meant to combat the "woke."
Historian Kevin Kruse warned on Bluesky that Sunshine State students could have "to suffer through the Florida Man version" of Advanced Placement U.S. History, and called out a curriculum that frames Florida as always having been Christian, anti-slavery and on the right side of history.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported on Tuesday that Florida will start offering the alternative course as a pilot program in the fall. The state-developed course will offer credit at Florida colleges and universities to compete with the AP course, which offers credit at colleges and universities across the country.
Commentators like Kruse pointed out that the curriculum will describe slavery as a "necessary evil," frame Plessy v Ferguson as a result of "the failure of Reconstruction" after the Civil War, and credit federal law that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for "decreased slave power representation."
"Yes, allowing slave states to count their slaves for the purposes of political representation and thereby gain additional power was an *anti* slavery measure," Kruse sarcastically said. "Yes, no questions there."
Others similarly reacted with alarm. "It begins," Nicole Shuman wrote on Bluesky.
"What a godd--- disgrace," wrote Carly Goodman. "Oh no," Adam Rothman posted, highlighting a section of the curriculum that described "Black indentured servants" as "languishing" even though they "could earn their freedom."
Florida has been trying to battle "woke" ideologies since passing state laws in 2023, the Tallahassee Democrat noted.
