Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery

  Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

  Does this sentence constitute “propaganda,” as Vice President Kamala Harris proclaimed, “an attempt to gaslight us?”

  Or is it a reasonable claim in a discussion of a difficult topic?

DeSantis’ ‘war on woke’ looks a lot like attempts by other countries to deny and rewrite history

  A Florida law that took effect on July 1, 2023 restricts how educators in the state’s public colleges and universities can teach about the racial oppression that African Americans have faced in the United States.

  Specifically, SB 266 forbids professors to teach that systemic racism is “inherent in the institutions of the United States.” Similarly, they cannot teach that it was designed “to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”

Anti-LGBTQ laws in the US are getting struck down for limiting free speech of drag queens and doctors

  Nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures in the U.S. in 2023. Many of those bills seek to reduce or eliminate gender-affirming care for transgender minors or to ban drag performances in places where minors could view them.

  Most of those bills have not become law. But many of those that have did not survive legal scrutiny when challenged in court.

I’ve spent 5 years researching the heroic life of Black musician Graham Jackson, but teaching his story could be illegal under laws in Florida and North Dakota

  The story of Graham Jackson is a timeless tale of American ingenuity, hard work, and the cream rising to the top.

  It’s also a tale of economic inequality, overt racism, and America’s Jim Crow caste system.

  As one of the first Black musicians to play on national radio, Jackson is best known for the April 13, 1945 photograph of him that was published by Life magazine, one of the leading publications of its day.

The big reason Florida insurance companies are failing isn’t just hurricane risk – it’s fraud and lawsuits

  Hurricane Ian’s widespread damage is another disaster for Florida’s already shaky insurance industry. Even though home insurance rates in Florida are nearly triple the national average, insurers have been losing money. Six have failed since January 2022. Now, insured losses from Ian are estimated to exceed US$40 billion.

  Hurricane risk might seem like the obvious problem, but there is a more insidious driver in this financial train wreck.

  Finance professor Shahid Hamid, who directs the Laboratory for Insurance at Florida International University, explained how Florida’s insurance market got this bad – and how the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, now carrying more than 1 million policies, can weather the storm.

Ron DeSantis and “waste, fraud, and abuse”

  Republicans and conservatives are still celebrating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s immigration antic with respect to his shipping and dumping immigrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. They are convinced that what DeSantis did was a brilliant political move because it supposedly exposed the hypocrisy of rich, elite progressives/liberals/Democrats who say they favor immigrants but then won’t take them into their homes to live.

Criminal injustice: States unfairly prosecute children as adults

  Ten years ago, in a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized, as it had in earlier cases, that children who commit crimes are fundamentally different from adults – less mature biologically, more vulnerable and susceptible to negative pressures and influences, and therefore less culpable and more likely to change.

  It’s one of the reasons this country has had a separate criminal justice system for children for the past century.

Long lines, broken machines, voter ID laws: Welcome to the neo-Jim Crow

  Felon disenfranchisement was designed to “preserve the purity of the ballot box,” or in other words, the whiteness of the electorate.

  By the time the Alabama Supreme Court issued that opinion in 1884, Florida had already beaten it to the punch. Florida outlawed voting for anyone convicted of a felony in 1868, at the very same time that it began to convict more black people of felonies.

  Exactly 150 years later, Florida voters finally overturned that discriminatory policy, re-enfranchising 1.5 million people in a single stroke last Tuesday. The news that Florida had passed Amendment 4, giving as many as 40 percent of the state’s black men the right to vote, was cause for celebration around the country and certainly here at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where we invested heavily to support its passage.

Golden nuggets for free-expression advocates in an unusual case

  The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida (17-21) has some golden nuggets for free-expression advocates even though at first glance the opinion might seem quite narrow. The case involved a carping critic of the local government who alleged that city officials concocted a comprehensive plan of retaliation against him, including arresting him at a public meeting after he had filed an earlier open-meetings lawsuit against them.

School walkouts in the wake of ‘Parkland’ — protected by the First Amendment or not?

  The national walkouts that students are currently organizing to call for new gun control legislation are commendable examples of “Generation Z” exercising its First Amendment freedoms. Unfortunately, students, teachers and other staff are likely to run up against legal limits around free speech and protest on school grounds.

Five ways the Trump budget undermines gun violence prevention and school safety efforts

  In his address to the nation the day after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and teachers and injured another 14, President Donald Trump vowed to take action, stating that he would soon hold meetings with governors and attorneys general in which “making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority.” He continued, “It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference.” However, the president’s actions have already spoken louder than these hollow words. Just two days before the shooting, his administration released its fiscal year 2019 budget, which proposed cutting funding to crucial programs that help prevent gun violence and ensure school safety.

House Republican budget would eliminate critical disaster relief funding

  Families in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are beginning the hard work of rebuilding their lives in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. House Republicans, however, are proposing to eliminate some of the critical tools people will need.

  When a natural disaster hits, affected communities rely on federal resources to rebuild homes, schools, and highways. But the proposed fiscal year 2018 House majority budget eliminates programs that provide disaster relief and the administrative resources needed to deploy funding quickly and effectively. If implemented, the budget will eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program, the office within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that administers relief funds; eliminate the Legal Services Corporation, which provides free legal services to affected families; and eliminate AmeriCorps, which sends volunteers to help with disaster cleanup.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Only one way to end drug-war violence

  Two police officers in Kissimmee, Florida, were recently shot and killed while investigating illegal drug activity in a dangerous part of town. According to the New York Times, government officials praised the officers for their service and asked Floridians to pray for other law-enforcement personnel. President Trump weighed in with a tweet in which he offered his thoughts and prayers for the Kissimmee police and their families.

  There is one big thing about that picture, however: It is the drug war itself, which Trump and, no doubt, most of the Kissimmee Police Department, favor, that is the reason that those two police officers are dead. If drugs were legal, those two dead police officers would not have been investigating illegal drug activity because there would be no illegal drug activity.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Jeb Bush, Common Core and the rise of Florida

  The Common Core education topic is not only a hot political issue in Alabama, it has become a political football nationwide and it appears to be a hot potato in the looming 2016 GOP presidential contest.

  As soon as Jeb Bush announced that he would “actively explore” a 2016 presidential bid, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, also a potential candidate and Tea Party Libertarian said, “We need leaders who will stand against Common Core.” The right wing candidates like Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin have staked out positions against Common Core.

Charles C. Haynes: A right for the religious is a right for the nonreligious

  Government in America must be neutral among religions and neutral between religion and non-religion – at least that’s how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

  But escalating conflicts involving government treatment of the nonreligious – atheists and humanists – reveal that far too many government officials are confused and conflicted about the meaning of “neutrality.”

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Is Rubio Romney's answer?

  All of the horses are in the barn for the fall derby. They are resting awaiting the opening gun. The official start of the fall campaign begins on Labor Day, which is September 3rd this year and culminates with Election Day on November 6, 2012.

  With Obama heading the ticket for the Democratic Party most Alabamians will probably simply pull the lever of either the Democratic or Republican Party. My guess is that more folks will pull the Republican lever than the Democratic one in November. My prediction is that the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, will carry the Heart of Dixie by a 63 to 37 margin. That, my friends, is what is called in political vernacular a landslide.