(NewsNation) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing fresh criticism over new education guidelines regarding how Black history is taught inside classrooms in the Sunshine State.
The Florida Board of Education recently approved a revised Black history curriculum that includes instruction that enslaved people benefited from skills they learned. DeSantis insists he wasn’t involved in devising Board of Education standards but defended the material while in Salt Lake City on Friday.
“They’re probably going to show us some of the folks that eventually parlayed being a blacksmith into doing things later, later in life. But the reality is: All of that is rooted in whatever is factual,” DeSantis said.
His response to the curriculum is catching heat from fellow GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“‘I didn’t do it’ and ‘I’m not involved in it’ are not the words of leadership,” Christie said during an interview on “Face the Nation.”
Last year, DeSantis signed what he calls the Stop WOKE Act which restricts how race can be taught in Florida schools.
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“Gov. DeSantis started this fire with the bill that he signed and now he doesn’t want to take responsibility for whatever is done in the aftermath of it, and from listening and watching his comments, he’s obviously uncomfortable,” Christie said.
Though she did not mention DeSantis by name, Vice President Kamala Harris called the new standards “revisionist history.”
“How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?” Harris asked.
She continued: “Let us not be seduced into believing that somehow we will be better if we forget. We will be better if we remember. We will be stronger if we remember.”
NewsNation senior political contributor George Will thinks the criticism of DeSantis will likely continue and questions whether voters will grow weary of the presidential candidate’s battles.
“Gov. DeSantis just can’t seem to walk by a controversy without getting involved in it. Beer, slavery, what next? He’s famously said that Florida is where ‘woke’ goes to die and he talks about ‘woke’ incessantly. The question is, are people going to grow weary of this and do they want a president (…) who can never stop fighting about anything,” Will said during an appearance on “NewsNation Prime.”
According to a Fox Business poll of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina released Sunday, DeSantis is lagging behind both former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The new poll shows Trump with 48% support, Haley with 14%, and DeSantis with 13%. On a national level, recent polling averages show DeSantis receiving about 20% support to Trump’s 50%.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.