Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, is quoted in “Your Questions About Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill and Other Proposals, Answered” published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Orlando Sentinel on Feb. 22.

Calvert and University of Miami Law Professor Caroline Mala Corbin provide answers to questions about two proposed Florida laws known as the “Don’t’ Say Gay” bill and the “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act.

Calvert shared information on the “Don’t Say Gay” proposal indicating that vagueness could cause problems when it comes to enforcing the law.

“The problem with vague laws is they can be enforced unfairly or unequally,” he said. “What may be age appropriate in one educator’s mind may not be appropriate in another.”

Regarding the possibility of students discussing their identity, racial or otherwise, with their class, Calvert said that would be permitted, but if the teacher shuts down the discussion that could be a violation of the student’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

“I think the danger is eventually parents might want to say, ‘You can’t compel my child to do this assignment because that conflicts with my political beliefs,’” he said. “How far do you go down the slippery slope of allowing parents to keep opting out of the curriculum?”

That mindset could apply to discussions of race in the classroom, or assignments and readings about the country’s history of racism, which the state is also seeking to prohibit with the Stop W.O.K.E. Act. Gov. Ron DeSantis uses “woke” as an acronym for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.”

“It would gut the curriculum and result in a fractured educational system, where teachers would have to teach multiple sets of lesson plans to accommodate different students,” Calvert said.

He adds, “The big picture is that this is part of a culture war battle between what conservatives view as a progressive, woke agenda to indoctrinate their students. There’s a difference between teaching something like critical race theory and making kids espouse it and affirm it as fact.”

Posted: February 22, 2022
Category: College News, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project News
Tagged as: Clay Calvert, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project