WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday rejected an invitation from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to discuss the state’s new Black history curriculum and said she will not be debating the topic of slavery with him.
DeSantis, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, on Monday invited Harris to Florida to discuss the state’s new Black history curriculum after the vice president criticized it for backing guidelines that taught “revisionist history” about slavery in the United States.
Florida’s board of education approved new guidelines in July, including one for middle school students that states “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
On Tuesday, Harris said, “I will tell you, there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”
Harris flew to Orlando to deliver remarks at an African Methodist Episcopal Church event.
Dr. William Allen, a member of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup and a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, criticized Harris last week for her “lies” about the curriculum after she used one sentence from the 216-page framework to support what he called misleading claims.
DeSantis, who earlier this year blocked an advanced placement African American studies course from being taught to high schoolers in his state, accused the Biden administration of disparaging Florida and misinforming Americans on the subject.
Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ press secretary, said in a statement about the course earlier this year, “As submitted, the course is a vehicle for a political agenda and leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow. As Governor DeSantis has stated, our classrooms will be a place for education, not indoctrination.”
“The study of African American history is not only permitted in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis but required by law. In fact, the teaching of African American History has been expanded in Florida since Governor Ron DeSantis took office,” Griffin told Fox News back in January.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)
