Bill pushing freedom from discomforting lessons in classrooms, businesses heads to final House panel

Legislation barring instruction that could cause someone to feel discomfort because of his or her demographics is approaching the end of the House committee process.

The House State Affairs Committee voted 16-8 Tuesday, along party lines, to advance a bill (HB 7) targeting class lessons and corporate trainings that teach cultural guilt, teachings proponents say inserts ideology into history lessons. The legislation, filed in part at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ urging, is Florida Republicans’ effort to quell classroom or corporate training discussions they consider “woke” indoctrinations of cultural guilt or critical race theory.

The House bill, carried by Miami Springs Republican Rep. Bryan Ávila, would prohibit lessons and training which teach that some people are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex or national origin. Additionally, it would ban teachings that an individual is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. The goal would be to promote objective lessons in classrooms and beyond, Ávila said.

Some movements in education and corporate America threaten to undo progress in achieving equality by asking people to consider themselves as groups, not individuals, as assigning traits and experiences to groups rather than highlighting individual experience, he said.

“These movements confuse and muddle important history and civics lessons that should be taught by imposing ideologies that twist reality and fostering stereotypes that take us backward and not forward,” Ávila said.

In classrooms, enforcement would be placed in the hands of parents who could approach teachers to resolve concerns before filing complaints.

Critics argue the measure could effectively ban certain books, classroom materials or classroom discussions if parents believe the content contains subjective spins on historical facts. Some history lessons can’t be taught without possibly making people feel guilt or discomfort, they asserted.

Critics raised its potential impact on the teaching or discussion of other troubling historical events such as slavery or the Holocaust.

Ávila argued that teachers should stick to the curriculum and err on the side of caution when opining on historical events. That drew complaints from North Miami Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph, who called erring on the side of caution the definition of a chilling effect — signifying a possible First Amendment violation.

“This bill is white privilege personified and white fragility in legislative form,” Joseph said.

“We need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable through reconciliation rather than through silence and suppression,” she continued.

For Democrats, the effort took on new meaning this weekend after neo-Nazi demonstrations in Orlando Sunday.

“My fear now as a teacher, as I’m teaching about the Holocaust, is that those Nazis who were on that bridge in Orlando, their children, are in my classroom. And now they go home and say, ‘My teacher told me, look what Nazi Germany did, look what Germans did,'” said Weston Democratic Rep. Robin Bartleman.

Joseph and Rep. Daryl Campbell, who is serving his first day in the House, noted Tuesday marks the first day of Black History Month.

“It dawned on me that I am a Black man with locks sitting at this seat, and I don’t recall the last time a Black man with locks was a Representative in the state of Florida,” Campbell said. “It makes me feel quite uncomfortable, sitting here right now.”

The bill also extends the same bans to corporate human resources policies and training to stop what Ávila cited as offensive cultural policies reported for such firms as AT&T, Coca-Cola, CBS, Google, Lockheed Martin and Walt Disney Corp.

To accomplish its goal in the corporate sphere, the bill would expand the Florida Civil Rights Act to consider such teachings as discrimination based on race, color, sex or national origin.

“This bill makes a mockery of the Florida Civil Rights Act, turns it completely upside down,” Orlando Democratic Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith said. “It minimizes the seriousness of real complaints of discrimination — someone who was denied a job promotion, someone who was demoted or fired from their job.”

Despite the heated discussions during the meeting, Ávila told members he loved them. He said both parties always agree to come from an objective point of view during political discourse.

“What makes a classroom different? Being objective, being fair, treating each other with respect, that is the American way of life,” Ávila said. “That is what this bill represents.”

The Senate’s version (SB 148) from Republican Sen. Manny Díaz Jr. got through its first committee vote last month after similar contention. Both bills have one more committee stop in their respective chambers. Díaz’s bill next heads to the Senate Rules Committee while Ávila’s bill heads to the House Education and Employment Committee.