GOP Presidential Candidates Slam DeSantis on His New Curriculum and Response to Backlash: Slavery Was ‘Literally Dehumanizing’

Since Florida’s Board of Education — under the administration of presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — approved a new curriculum stating that enslaved Black people “developed skills” that could be used for their own “personal benefit,” there has been a lot of fiery debate and outrage, including two speeches from Vice President Kamala Harris. But now, members of DeSantis’ own party are calling him out.

Fellow candidate Will Hurd, a former Republican congressional representative from Texas, criticized the curriculum on Twitter saying “slavery wasn’t a jobs program that taught beneficial skills. It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.”

Chris Christie, GOP presidential candidate and the former governor of New Jersey, also spoke out against DeSantis’ response to the response to his curriculum. After Harris’ remarks, DeSantis pushed back on Twitter saying: “Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida’s educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children.” He also claimed: “I didn’t do it, and I wasn’t involved in it.”

Christie told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday:

DeSantis started this fire with the bill that he signed, and now he doesn’t want to take responsibility for whatever is done in the aftermath of it. And from listening and watching his comments, he’s obviously uncomfortable.

He added:

“I didn’t do it” and “I’m not involved in it” are not the words of leadership. If this was such a big issue for Gov. DeSantis, he had four years to do this. He only started to focus on this when he decided he wanted to run for president and try to get to the right of [former President] Donald Trump. And so, I think people see this as politically manipulative.

The curriculum is a part of DeSantis’ “war on woke” and outlines how African-American history should be taught in social studies classes and included “benchmark clarifications” that stated:

Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

And:

Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans…

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