(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Vice President Kamala Harris rejected the opportunity to debate Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on the state’s education curriculum on black history.
She mentioned the challenge while attending a church convention in the sunshine state, according to the Washington Examiner.
“I’m here in Florida, and I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact,” Harris said. “There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”
Harris previously called out DeSantis for the alleged racist black history standards he recently implemented with the help of Florida educators. The point she took particular issue with was the fact that slaves often learned skilled trades that they could use for their own benefit.
“They want to replace history with lies,” she said. “Middle school students in Florida [are] to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
Several critics of Harris’s pointed out that she praised courses for making similar points in the past, and also claimed that she made a fuss over a single bullet point in a semester-long history curriculum.
DeSantis defended the program, calling Harris’s claims misinformed and invited the veep to an open discussion with the educators who assisted in the creation of the course.
The governor explained that the point of that portion of the course was to illustrate the perseverance of slavery, not to treat slavery as an overall fair system.
He released a statement on the subject and extended the invitation via Twitter.
“It’s past time to set the record straight.”@GovRonDeSantis is inviting @VP to Florida to discuss our new African American history standards with him and Dr. Allen.
Read Governor DeSantis’ letter below: pic.twitter.com/o2W69iJ5il
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) August 1, 2023
“Over the past several weeks, the Biden administration has repeatedly disparaged our state and misinformed Americans about our education system,” DeSantis wrote in a letter. “Our state pushed forward nation-leading stand-alone African American history standards — one of the only states in the nation to require this level of learning about such an important subject.”
Harris’s gross political corruption of the Florida curriculum has also drawn fire from historians and academics, including Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.
“That happens to be my academic field as a historian; I used to write extensively—including curriculum standards—on the topic,” said Roberts, who has a Ph.D. in American history. “So I took some time to review Florida’s. The bottom line: they are excellent.”
Dr. William Allen, who helped write the Florida curriculum and who is a descendant of slaves, echoed that sentiment, while taking a dig at Harris.
“The only criticism I’ve encountered so far is a single one that was articulated by the vice president, and which was an error,” Allen said.
