Florida Governor Let's Parents Sue Schools That Teach Kids About History

Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law this week that not only bans the teaching of what he considers to be "Critical Race Theory," but also allows parents to sue schools that teach it. He also had the audacity to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his signing ceremony. This bill will be abused by right wing parents in the state, and it likely won't stand up in court. But there's an added consequence that DeSantis isn't smart enough to figure out, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

One of the more disturbing pieces of news to come out this week was Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis signing his quote, stop woke act. Now the stop woke act and which, by the way, he quoted MLK while signing it, you know, just as a little bit of irony and to kind of stick it to everybody, I guess. But the stop woke act bans the teaching of critical race theory here in the state of Florida. Something that literally was already not happening, but that's not all. Modeled after the Texas anti-abortion bill, DeSantis has basically put a bounty on teachers here in the state of Florida that says that parents if a teacher is teaching your kid critical race theory, which I guarantee you none of them could tell you what it is, even DeSantis himself. But if a teacher is teaching your kid critical race theory, you can now sue the school for that.

Now there's a big problem with that. Not just the legality, the morality, you know, the problems for the teacher. I'll get to the bigger problem in just a moment, but let's think about that for a second. These people do not know what critical race theory is. Critical race theory is not taught in any public schools here in the United States that we've been able to find, none. It is a college level concept that is taught to those seeking that concept. But what we do teach kids about is slavery. We teach them about segregation. We teach them about the actual history of the United States. So what in these demented minds of these Florida conservatives constitutes critical race theory? Are we no longer allowed to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr.? I imagine a lot of parents would wanna see that go. Are we no longer allowed to talk about segregation?

We're not allowed to talk about the slave trade and slavery in the United States? We can't talk about the Civil War? Because that all involves race. So what we're gonna see is a flurry of lawsuits from the dumbest parents in this country against schools because they don't know the difference between a college level theory and the actual history of the United States. Schools will be flooded with lawsuits and of course they're gonna have to hire lawyers to come out and defend themselves. Even if it's a bogus BS lawsuit, you still have to hire a lawyer to deal with it. And that's where the bigger problem comes in for Ron DeSantis. Do you know where schools get money? Do you? It's from the head of the state? So what DeSantis has effectively done here is given parents the permission to sue his own government because the state government is what pays for the, the schools and if you can sue the schools, you're effectively suing the state government.

So didn't quite think that through did you, dumb, because this is ultimately going to fall on you. The state is going to have the burden of having to pay for these things. But you don't care about that because, hey, it's not your money, right? We're not making Ron DeSantis pay out of pocket to defend these lawsuits. But what's gonna happen is that we're gonna end up with underfunded schools that are well, let's be honest, they're already underfunded here in the state. But you're gonna underfund them further by dragging them down with lawsuits that they're going to have to pay for.