Professor Barbara Held in the Feb. 16 Portland Press Herald attempted to dismiss Gov. Ron DeSantis’ feeble backlash against Florida’s “critical turn” in education (“Commentary: Why ‘woke ideology’ is an oxymoron – and why that matters”).

Both Gov. DeSantis and Professor Held suffer from the same error: Both are trying to avoid naming the central issue.

DeSantis should just admit that he disapproves of the current pedagogy challenging the culture’s entrenched values, in favor of revolutionary views condemning capitalism, liberty, individualism, science, reason and rational thought itself. Instead, he dances around the issue, complaining about “woke ideology” and “critical race theory.”

Once we identify what’s happening in the schools, we can see how Professor Held straw mans the DeSantis position by claiming he wants to suppress teaching the facts of systemic oppression – when that is clearly not the DeSantis position.

If Professor Held wants to hold DeSantis to account, then she must grapple with the anti-liberty and anti-reason pedagogy that the schools have adopted. Hacking around the edges with complaints about DeSantis suppressing facts while avoiding the central issue will do nothing other than continue to inflame hostilities.

Ronald Housley
Buxton

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