Bhopal: One of the cheetahs translocated to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park (KNP) from South Africa died on Sunday, a senior forest official said.
The deceased cheetah ‘Uday’ aged six years.
Notably, this is the second such incident at KNP in almost a month. Earlier, Namibian cheetah Sasha died due to a kidney ailment on March 27.
“During the inspection in the morning, a cheetah brought from South Africa was found dull with head down following which veterinarians attending him alerted senior officials and the feline was taken out from the large enclosure for treatment. Unfortunately, around 4 pm, the cheetah passed away,” principal chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Wildlife, J S Chauhan told PTI.
The dead cheetah was identified as Uday, another forest official said.
Johannesburg: The South African government said on Friday that fugitive businessmen Rajesh and Atul Gupta are still its citizens using the country’s passports amid reports that Indian-origin brothers have acquired Vanuatu’s citizenship.
South Africa said last week said that the UAE has turned down its request to extradite the two to face trial in the country on fraud and corruption charges.
The three Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh are wanted in South Africa for their alleged roles in the looting of billions of rands from state enterprises. They are alleged to have used their closeness to former President Jacob Zuma to do this.
The family fled to Dubai five years ago as the net closed in on them following Zuma’s ousting by his own African National Congress when he refused to step down.
“The Guptas are using South African passports, I just can’t tell when, because when you are a South African passport (holder) away from us, we won’t know. Our movement control system doesn’t show if you crossed into China (or anywhere else). It doesn’t show,” Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said.
The minister was reacting to media reports that the Guptas were now citizens of Vanuatu, a small island nation in the South Pacific Ocean east of Australia.
Last week South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said his government was “shocked and dismayed” after the UAE declined the request to extradite the Gupta brothers to face trial in South Africa on fraud and corruption charges.
Motsoaledi said the Guptas had acquired their passports irregularly from a corrupt home affairs official against whom action had been taken.
But the Department has no plans yet to cancel their passports or revoke the citizenship of the Guptas as an appeal to the UAE on the extradition request would then be meaningless, Motsoaledi said,
“We can’t take back the passport before we take away the citizenship. We have to start there. We are chasing them because we believe they belong to us. So, if we take away that citizenship, do we still have any rights?” the minister said.
A report in the Vanuatu Daily Post said Vanuatu’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) had advised Vanuatu’s Citizenship Office on the hostile information against the corruption-accused fugitive brothers on two separate occasions in 2018.
The Daily said the Vanuatu Citizenship Office and the Department of Immigration have declined to confirm or deny whether the Guptas are currently residing in Vanuatu.
Previous reports indicated that the Guptas were seeking asylum in the African nations of Cameroon and the Central African Republic.
Originally from Saharanpur in India, the Guptas built an empire in the IT, media and mining industries after first arriving in the country to start a shoe shop soon after Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years as a political prisoner to become the first democratically-elected president.
Roosevelt was drawn to Buganda’s culture of political procession, royal decorum and military ceremony. Upon his arrival that December, the former president watched as chiefs and royals — donning locally-crafted barkcloth and flowing robes imported from the Indian Ocean World — moved in and out of the capital, negotiating labor, power and state resources. It was a kingdom with wide roads interlocking government posts, military frontiers, markets, banana groves, farms, mines, smelting sites and estates.
Roosevelt met with military leaders of the kingdom, who managed a powerful navy and army. Buganda’s army of 10,000 warriors had successfully expanded the kingdom’s interests throughout the nineteenth century. The army’s size and power ensured that the British Empire did not openly conquer Buganda (or Uganda more broadly). And Buganda’s naval interests reached throughout the region’s lakes and rivers, giving birth to a vibrant culture of wartime canoes. During the 1890s alone, over 30,000 trees were harvested to produce 10,000 vessels. While these canoes varied in size, the most prominent class was around 25 feet long and 5 feet wide, designed to carry around half a ton. Roosevelt, a former assistant secretary of the Navy, was shocked by what he saw.
Roosevelt’s avowed interest in other cultures, however, had yet to dim his sense of white supremacy. He agreed with notions that Filipinos, whose country was then under the control of the United States, were too backward to participate fully in their own governance. He helped arrange exhibitions that treated indigenous peoples from other countries almost like caged animals. And he was an apologist for European colonialism.
But what he saw in Buganda that Christmas changed him. Roosevelt’s political language and approach to Black politics began veering in a new direction. Here in the heart of Africa was a highly functioning political state with a level of order exceeding that in many European countries or anything he had encountered during his extensive travels. The reality of Buganda’s political sophistication commanded not only his respect. Buganda compelled Roosevelt to rethink his fundamental assumptions regarding Black progress and civilization. As he would note in one speech shortly after his visit, Baganda stood “far above most … in their capacity for progress towards civilization.”
That observation was to alter not only his own views on Africans, but on African Americans. And his changed attitude toward race would reverberate through the country he had led and would seek to lead again.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The head of UNAids, Winnie Byanyima, has strongly criticised pharmaceutical giants for prioritising profits over saving lives, and warned that “racist” inequalities are undermining progress towards ending Aids, especially in Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than half of all new infections, with women and marginalised groups facing higher new infection rates. Aids-related illnesses were the leading cause of mortality among African women, and adolescent girls and young women were three times more likely than men to get HIV.
“Many times, they don’t come forward for fear of society’s sanctions against them,” said Byanyima, stressing that girls and women should be able to access sexual and reproductive services privately.
She knows well about the impact of the stigma of HIV. At a recent speech at the University of Nairobi Byanyima told a personal story about how her brother, who had HIV, stopped using antiretroviral (ARV) drugs when they returned home to Uganda, while he would use them with few issues when he lived in Europe. “He didn’t die of HIV. He was killed by stigma,” she told the conference.
Marginalised groups on the continent, including sex workers, gay men and transgender people, accounted for a large proportion of new infections in 2021. Thirty-two African countries have laws criminalising same-sex relations, and this often stops LGBTQ+ people accessing sexual and reproductive health services.
“Where there are various factors of inequality, that’s where you see the highest [HIV] cases,” said Byanyima. “They combine to crush people”.
Africa suffers disproportionately from Aids, and its response is still largely dependent on international funding, with most countries on the continent in debt distress or at risk of it. The debt crisis is fuelling mass cuts in health and development spending, and UN leaders have warned that the “vicious debt cycle” is pushing countries in the global south into making “impossible-trade offs” – a situation Byanyima says is playing out “across the continent”.
Kenya spends up to five times more on debt servicing than it does on health, and Ghana and Zambia have defaulted on their external debt in the last few years, prompting concerns that the debt crisis may spiral further, with devastating impacts for health and education spending. Studies cited by UNAids suggest that girls who completed secondary school were 50% less likely to become infected with HIV as they were less vulnerable to patriarchal power dynamics and poverty than their counterparts.
A Kenyan woman takes her antiretroviral drugs. Aids-related illnesses are the leading cause of mortality among African women. Photograph: Donwilson Odhiambo/LightRocket/Getty Images
Barriers to health technology access the global south have also worsened health inequalities. The injectable drug cabotegravir, for instance – administered every two months and considered the most effective form of prevention – is only available in high-income countries like the UK and the US, and even there remains largely unaffordable. Last year, Zimbabwe became the first African country to approve the drug for use, but with the country in economic crisis the drug remains effectively unavailable.
Last year, after months of pressure from UNAids and other health organisations, UK pharmaceutical company ViiV – which owns a patent for the drug – approved certain manufacturers in 90 low and middle-income countries to develop generic versions.
“The injectable [treatment] would be a gamechanger,” said Byanyima, “particularly for people in countries where there’s stigma and where there are criminal laws against certain groups.”
Gay men in countries with the most severe anti-LGBTQ+ laws were more than three times less likely to know their HIV status than their counterparts in countries with the least restrictive laws, according to the UNAids 2022 report.
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Incentives are lacking for innovation, said Byanyima, and the profits companies can make from lifesaving medications need to be regulated. She pointed to the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, who became a symbol of “pharma greed” after his controversial decision to hike the price of lifesaving drug Daraprim, used in the treatment of Aids patients, by 5,000% in 2015.
“The World Trade Organization rules allow lifesaving medications to be traded in the same way we could trade luxury goods. They allow pharmaceutical companies to set the price wherever they want, hoard their technologies and reap billions at the cost of lives,” she said.
Such policies expose racial inequalities and discrimination in health, she said. “To me, that’s racism, even though people don’t want to call it out: valuing the profit of a few people, who happen to be white, over the lives of black and brown people around the world.”
She pointed to the disproportionate impacts of the Covid pandemic on racial groups across the globe, and added: “For Africa, the lesson was: you must have the capacity to produce yourself.”
Byanyima urged African governments to set aside funds for research and development and explore equitable south-south partnerships.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
“While it has been claimed that the College Board was in frequent dialogue with Florida about the content of AP African American Studies, this is a false and politically motivated charge,” the College Board said in a lengthy statement.
“Our exchanges with them are actually transactional email about the filing of paperwork to request a pilot course code and our response to their request that the College Board explain why we believe the course is not in violation of Florida laws,” it added.
The new statement is the latest in a tense battle over who is responsible for the outcome of the new framework for the course, which will launch in the 2024-2025 school year. The College Board has been preparing the course for about a decade and included the expertise of more than 300 professors of African American Studies from more than 200 colleges nationwide as it decided which subjects would be in the curriculum.
The Florida Department of Education claims that state officials had been in contact with the College Board since January 2022 regarding the course and first questioned if it was legal under state law in July. In a July letter, the DeSantis administration claimed the pilot course would violate the state’s anti-“woke” laws that restrict how race can be taught in the classroom.
The College Board argued that its revisions were completed by Dec. 22, which the nonprofit said came “weeks before Florida’s objections were shared.”
A new course framework —which excluded the lessons on Black queer studies and Black Lives Matters that were in a pilot of the course — was released in early February and almost immediately sparked outrage from Democratic governors who accused the nonprofit of catering to DeSantis. However, those topics were listed as potential ideas for students to pursue in their 1,500-word mandatory project. Nevertheless, the nonprofit has faced severe scrutiny from Democratic governors, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and education advocates since the unveiling.
DeSantis claimed victory immediately. The College Board has been fighting ever since to prove neither Florida or any other state has influenced the curriculum for the AP African American Studies course.
Florida officials have said they are “grateful” that the College Board removed some 19 topics from the African American Studies framework, which the state said included “discriminatory and historically fictional topics.”
Florida education officials this week released a letter to show they initially raised questions in July about whether the Advanced Placement coursework was legal under the state’s laws. The a letter proves communication between the state and the nonprofit, but the College Board said they responded to a September letter from Florida officials that rejected the course.
The letter to the College Board, the nonprofit wrote, was “like all written communications we received from Florida, contained no explanation of the rejection.” The nonprofit called state state officials, which it said it would do with any state, but slammed the state education department, saying their calls were “absent of substance, despite the audacious claims of influence FDOE is now making.”
“We have made the mistake of treating FDOE with the courtesy we always accord to an education agency, but they have instead exploited this courtesy for their political agenda,” the College Board said, adding that it “politely thanked them for their feedback and contributions, although they had given none.”
The College Board contends that the state officials did not offer feedback and did not bring any experts to their calls, but sent its second January letter “as a PR stunt which repeated the same rejection but now with inflated rhetoric and posturing.”
“We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments, that African American Studies ‘lacks educational value,’” the College Board said in a statement on Saturday. “Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere.”
The Florida Department of Education is expected to review the AP course for consideration in schools starting next fall.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“If Florida or any state chooses not to adopt this course, we would regret that decision, and we believe educators and students would as well,” officials with the College Board wrote in a response to Florida.
The back-and-forth illustrates an attempt by both sides to claim victory in an episode that has garnered national attention and a backlash for everyone involved. DeSantis and Florida education officials have used the African American AP course as an example of how “wokeness” has infiltrated high school curriculum and rejected the lessons from being taught in the state. Black leaders and others, however, accused the governor and state of whitewashing history.
The College Board previously denied that Florida — or any other state — played a role in reshaping its new AP course on African American studies, which will launch in the 2024-2025 school year, contending that tweaks to the program were already made before objections by the DeSantis administration.
But that didn’t stop a wave of pushback from Democrats and groups criticizing the College Board’s revisions, contending the nonprofit caved to conservatives by removing aspects of the course tied to Black Lives Matter, Black feminism and queer studies.
The organization, however, maintains that the topics under scrutiny were secondary or derivative sources included in the pilot phase of the course and would never be included in its official framework. And on top of that, the College Board argued that its revisions were completed by Dec. 22, which the nonprofit said came “weeks before Florida’s objections were shared.”
But now, the Florida Department of Education claims that state officials had been in contact with the College Board since January 2022 regarding the course and first questioned if it was legal under state law in July.
Florida’s education agency, in its letter this week to the College Board, wrote that the state’s Office of Articulation in September told the nonprofit that the course could not be accepted without revision, which would have been months before the issue rose to the national spotlight.
“That FDOE and the College Board have been communicating since January 2022 regarding the proposed course is remarkable,” Florida education officials wrote in a letter Tuesday that was first reported by the Daily Caller. “We do appreciate the regular, two-way verbal and written dialogue on this important topic.”
Florida officials noted they were “grateful” that the College Board removed some 19 topics from the African American Studies framework, which the state said included “discriminatory and historically fictional topics.”
In response, the College Board defended its course curriculum that has faced heavy scrutiny.
“We are confident in the historical accuracy of every topic included in the pilot framework, as well as those now in the official framework,” College Board officials wrote Thursday.
The Florida Department of Education is expected to review the AP course for consideration in schools starting next fall.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The nonprofit on Wednesday reiterated that no state nor district had seen the new framework before its unveiling and denied that any feedback from state officials was taken into consideration. At least two governors, DeSantis and Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, have sent letters to the College Board about the course, with Pritzker warning that Illinois schools wouldn’t accept the “watering down of history.”
“… [T]his refining process, which is a part of all AP courses, has operated independently from political pressure,” said Robert J. Patterson, a Georgetown University professor who co-chaired the committee of educators who developed the course, in a statement.
A 234-page overview for the African American Studies course shows that the program covers a range of topics from the origins of the African diaspora to the slave trade and Civil Rights movement. Students who take the course would learn about the Black Panther Party and the growth of the Black middle class, abolitionists and the role Black women play in society. The new requirements will take effect when the course launches for the 2024-2025 school year.
The updated syllabus also excludes mandatory lessons on intersectionality, which is a part of critical race theory, as well as other topics Florida’s Depart of Education had called “concerning.”
Lessons on Black queer studies and movements for Black lives that were taught in the pilot didn’t make the final cut. However, those topics were listed as potential ideas for students to pursue in their 1,500-word mandatory project. Students can pick such “contemporary topics or debates” for their projects, including the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations debates, intersectionality and dimensions of the Black experience and queer life and expression in Black communities.
While the coursework has curricular and resource requirements, the AP program said it supports each school having its own curriculum that enables students to build the skills and understandings in the framework.
“This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture,” said College Board CEO David Coleman in a statement. ”No one is excluded from this course. … Everyone is seen.”
More than 300 African American Studies professors from more than 200 colleges across the country consulted the AP program in developing the course framework over the past year, the College Board said, and the course refining process ended in December.
DeSantis, who said the original coursework “pushed an agenda,” claimed victory when the College Board announced that the program would be updated ahead of its release. But it’s still ultimately up to the Florida Department of Education to review the course before it can become available to students in the state.
Florida’s decision to reject the course scored national attention and sparked a beef between the state and Illinois, where Pritzker called DeSantis’ actions “political grandstanding.” Civil rights attorney Ben Crump also pledged to sue DeSantis if Florida again blocks schools from teaching the course. Vice President Kamala Harris also denounced the rejection of the course, saying recently that “every student in our nation should be able to learn about the culture, contributions, and experiences of all Americans.”
DeSantis has stood by denying the course on the heels of the state’s “Stop WOKE” law, which forbids instruction that would make someone “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.”
About 18 states have similar “divisive concepts” laws that restrict how educators can discuss racism, sexism or systemic inequality in the classroom. The majority of the bills were efforts to rebuke critical race theory, the study of how racism has been weaved into American laws and institutions throughout history. Most public school officials across the country say they do not teach the theory. But these states could move to follow the DeSantis administration when deciding if they’ll adopt the new interdisciplinary course.
“Our core curriculum … requires the teaching of Black history, but real Black history — I mean things that really matter,” DeSantis said on an episode of the Charlie Kirk Show podcast that aired Jan. 26. “This course had things like queer theory, it had things like abolishing prisons, intersectionality, it advocated for reparations and things.”
He continued: “That’s political activism. If that’s what you want to do on your own time, it’s a free country. But we’re not going to use tax dollars in the state of Florida to put that into our schools because it’s not trying to educate kids, it’s trying to impose an agenda on kids.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The DeSantis administration made the decision earlier this month to bar high school students from taking the new course over concerns that the lessons run “contrary” to state law that restricts how race is taught in the classroom and that it “significantly lacks educational value.”
DeSantis, who said the original coursework “pushed an agenda,” claimed victory this week after the College Board announced changes could be expected by the framework’s unveiling on Feb. 1. The state’s feedback included scrapping the lessons flagged by Florida officials, such as pieces on “Black Queer Studies,” advocacy for reparations, activism and intersectionality, which is a piece of critical race theory.
Critical race theory is the study of how racism has been weaved into American laws and institutions throughout history. Most public school officials across the country say they do not teach the theory.
“We are glad the College Board has recognized that the originally submitted course curriculum is problematic, and we are encouraged to see the College Board express a willingness to amend,” Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement on Wednesday. “AP courses are standardized nationwide, and as a result of Florida’s strong stance against identity politics and indoctrination, students across the country will consequentially have access to an historically accurate, unbiased course.”
On Wednesday, Pritzker urged the College Board to “refuse to bow to political pressure” and maintain its course. “I am extremely troubled by recent news reports that claim Governor DeSantis is pressuring the College Board to change the AP African American Studies course in order to fit Florida’s racist and homophobic laws,” he wrote, adding that he will “not accept any watering down” of history.
The College Board, in its Thursday letter to its members, said the course has “been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP principles and practices.” More than 300 professors of African American Studies from more than 200 colleges nationwide, including dozens of historically Black colleges and universities, were consulted in developing the official course framework. The yearlong framework development process was completed in December.
“We invite everyone to read the framework for themselves when it is released; it is a historic document that deserves your attention,” the letter from College Board said.
Andrew Atterbury and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“If the governor allows the College Board to present AP African American studies in classrooms across the state of Florida, then we will feel no need to file this historic lawsuit,” Crump told reporters at the Capitol. “However, if he rejects the free flow of ideas and suppresses African American studies, then we’re prepared to take this controversy all the way to the United States Supreme Court.”
As the latest crackdown on how race is taught in Florida’s schools, state education officials earlier this month rejected the College Board’s African American studies course that is being offered at more than 60 schools across the country as a pilot program, contending that it “significantly lacks educational value.”
DeSantis said that he supports denying high school students access to the course because its lessons delve too far into political agendas, broaching topics such as queer studies and abolishing prisons. But the decision by Florida’s Department of Education faced swift backlash in the state and beyond, drawing criticism from academics, advocacy groups and liberal policymakers including the Biden administration, which said that blocking the course was “incomprehensible.”
On the heels of issues raised by the DeSantis administration, the College Board, responsible for administering standardized tests like the SATs, on Tuesday signaled it will release an updated “official” framework for the African American studies course on Feb. 1. The organization, after developing the course for a decade, said in a statement that the new-look course “incorporates” feedback gathered throughout the pilot phase.
College Board has not explained, however, if that feedback includes scrapping the lessons flagged by Florida officials, such as pieces on “Black Queer Studies,” advocacy for reparations, activism and intersectionality, which is a piece of critical race theory.
Florida’s education department counted the organization’s statement as a win regardless, one that officials claim will benefit students across the country. The state will review the updated program and gauge if the prohibited lessons are removed to ensure that the organization is not using “an academic course as a gateway for indoctrination and a political agenda,” according to the Florida Department of Education.
“We are glad the College Board has recognized that the originally submitted course curriculum is problematic, and we are encouraged to see the College Board express a willingness to amend,” Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement. “AP courses are standardized nationwide, and as a result of Florida’s strong stance against identity politics and indoctrination, students across the country will consequentially have access to an historically accurate, unbiased course.”
Florida’s decision to block the course follows a concerted effort by state Republicans to regulate how race is taught in local classrooms. Under DeSantis, the state Education Department has rejected math textbooks over “impermissible” content, including teachings on critical race theory — something that Florida banned in education, along with the 1619 Project, through official action by its Board of Education.
At the rally Wednesday in Tallahassee, Crump announced his intentions to possibly sue the DeSantis administration on behalf of three Leon County students who would be unable to take the African American studies course. He was joined by Democratic lawmakers and supporters who labeled the course rejection a “relentless political witch hunt” and called for Florida to make more efforts to lead lessons about African American history.
Crump, who received a degree from Florida State University in Tallahassee, has previously represented the families of George Floyd and Trayvon Martin.
Florida law requires public schools to teach students about the history of African Americans, including the “enslavement experience,” and steer them to develop an “understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms.” But the College Board lessons, according to DeSantis, are “wrong side of the line for Florida standards.”
“By rejecting the African American history pilot program, Ron DeSantis has clearly demonstrated that he wants to dictate whose story does and doesn’t belong,” said House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa). “Are we really OK with Ron DeSantis deciding what’s acceptable for America’s students across the country about Black history?”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“When I heard it didn’t meet the standards, I figured, yeah, they may be doing CRT,” DeSantis told reporters at an event in Jacksonville. “It’s way more than that.”
In Florida’s latest crackdown on how race is taught in schools, state education officials earlier this month rejected the African American studies course from being implemented. The move drew swift backlash in the state and beyond, racking up criticism from by academics, advocacy groups and liberal policymakers including the Biden administration, which on Friday said that blocking the course was “incomprehensible.”
A coalition of Black faith leaders is now pushing to meet with the DeSantis administration over its decision to block students from taking the course and is planning a march on the capitol in Tallahassee next month. They join a chorus of Black state lawmakers who have denounced the move by the Florida Department of Education, claiming it is an attempt to whitewash history.
“When you devalue my history, and say it lacks educational merit, that is demeaning to us,” Rev. R. B. Holmes, Jr., pastor of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, told reporters Monday. “And it may be a problem in messaging, maybe they didn’t mean it that way. It already has national attention.”
Florida’s move to block the course follows a concerted effort by state republicans to restrict how race is taught in local classrooms. Under DeSantis, the state Education Department has rejected math textbooks over “impermissible” content, including teachings on critical race theory — something that Florida banned in education, along with the 1619 Project, through official action by its Board of education.
After the decision came to light last week, Florida’s education agency elaborated on rejecting the course in a tweet spelling out concerns with its lessons. The state took issue with several pieces of the College Board’s syllabus, such as parts on “Black Queer Studies,” advocacy for reparations, activism and intersectionality, which is a piece critical race theory, according to state’s education department.
Yet the agency’s defense did little to stem the criticism. Vice President Kamala Harris, who visited Tallahassee on Sunday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, criticized “extremist so-called leaders” who block history classes and prevent teachers from discussing “who they are and who they love” — a reference to the state’s controversial law banning educations from leading classroom discussions on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade.
“Every student in our nation should be able to learn about the culture, contributions, and experiences of all Americans — including Black Americans — who shaped our history,” Harris said.
Florida’s GOP-controlled statehouse in 2022 passed legislation to expand state anti-discrimination laws and prohibit schools and companies from leveling guilt or blame to students and employees based on race or sex. Dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act” by DeSantis, it created new protections for students and workers, including that a person should not be instructed to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.
Florida law requires public schools to teach students about the history of African Americans, including the “enslavement experience,” and steer them to develop an “understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms.” But the College Board lessons, according to DeSantis, are “pushing an agenda” on students.
“That’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards. We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them,” DeSantis said Monday. “When you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
