--- title: The Controversy Over Florida's Slavery Curriculum description: Florida's guidelines say slaves developed skills they could use for their "benefit." DeSantis says the language is similar to the College Board's. canonical: https://time.com/6299290/florida-slavery-curriculum-college-board-controversy/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-28T18:48:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:34.648Z article:section: Politics og:title: Breaking Down the Controversy Over Florida's Slavery Curriculum og:description: DeSantis argues Florida's controversial new guidelines sound a lot like the College Board's. og:url: https://time.com/6299290/florida-slavery-curriculum-college-board-controversy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf10d30c3cd65e611/698a3f17096a9466c06adfab/GettyImages-1246703259.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Demonstrators Protest As Governor DeSantis Appoints New College of Florida Board og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Breaking Down the Controversy Over Florida's Slavery Curriculum twitter:description: DeSantis argues Florida's controversial new guidelines sound a lot like the College Board's. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf10d30c3cd65e611/698a3f17096a9466c06adfab/GettyImages-1246703259.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Breaking Down the Controversy Over Florida's New Slavery Curriculum > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ccc8432a-7f42-4ac6-9ddb-1617f3bd6b84&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Pride, Against All Odds: Samira Burnside [Watch (HLS stream): Pride, Against All Odds: Samira Burnside](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bE8bzXcj.m3u8) (3:35)  _Published 2023-06-22. In 2023, Florida has passed many laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, including restrictions on health care, bathroom use and educational content._  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Jul 28, 2023 6:48 PM UTC  Students during a Defend New College protest in Sarasota, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. Students during a Defend New College protest in Sarasota, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. Octavio Jones—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Jul 28, 2023 6:48 PM UTC Florida's [new social studies educational standards](https://time.com/6296413/florida-board-of-education-black-history/) have drawn national scrutiny from academics and politicians alike, particularly the state's revised language around how skills enslaved people learned could be used for their "benefit." The language has been attacked by [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis'](https://time.com/6280707/ron-desantis-time-cover/) opponents in the 2024 presidential campaign on both sides of the aisle, including the Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and [Tim Scott](https://time.com/6271347/tim-scott-2024-campaign-identity/) of South Carolina, the only Black Republican U.S. Senator. The most controversial line in the[ guidelines](https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf), approved July 19, says: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Yet DeSantis' team pointed out that Florida's language sounds similar to a section of the College Board’s [AP African American Studies](https://time.com/6274115/students-teachers-african-american-studies-class/) class [framework](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-african-american-studies-course-framework.pdf). (The same class, in fact, that DeSantis [had threatened to ban](https://time.com/6255616/florida-ap-african-american-studies-class/) in his state.) "In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South," the College Board's framework reads. After they were freed,the framework continues, African Americans "used these skills to provide for themselves and others." ### More From TIME In a statement to TIME, the College Board said: “We resolutely disagree with the notion that enslavement was in any way a beneficial, productive, or useful experience for African Americans. Unequivocally, slavery was an atrocity that cannot be justified by examples of African Americans’ agency and resistance during their enslavement." The current classframework does include “a discussion about the skills enslaved people brought with them that enslavers exploited as well as other skills developed in America that were valuable to their enslavers,” emphasizing that enslaved Africans “used those skills to survive, build community, and create culture in resistance to their oppression." While the concept of discussing enslaved people's skill sets in a classroom setting is broadly accepted, scholars who contributed to the AP African American Studies curriculum tell TIME that the use of the phrase “personal benefit” is the main problem with the Florida standards. Greg Carr, a historian at Howard University who contributed to the AP African American Studies framework, says, “To say that there's a benefit is absurd. There's no benefit to enslavement.” What the Florida standards do not underline, he says, is that enslaved people “are trying to use their talents, their skills, their memory, their culture to resist, in ways big and small.” Daina Ramey Berry, a historian at University of California, Santa Barbara, who also contributed to the AP African American Studies framework, says teachers must talk about “freedom in Africa” to emphasize that “before being captured and sold into slavery, African people came from highly civilized societies with a variety of skills.” DeSantis' campaign did not respond to a request for comment. DeSantis said Thursday that the guidelines are “very clear about the injustices of slavery in vivid detail" and mentioned similarities to the College Board's course. State standards are guidelines for teachers. School districts will use them to develop their own curricula, but teachers are supposed to use them as a jumping off point and add more context. As Carr puts it, “It’s not like people take the state curriculum into the classroom with them every day and follow chapter and verse like it's the Bible." Florida's new standards drew controversy within days of being approved. Vice President Harris [slammed](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/07/21/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-on-the-florida-state-board-of-education-curriculum-updates/) the section as “propaganda” and “lies” in a July 21 speech in Jacksonville, Florida. Sen. Scott said Thursday, “There is no silver lining… in slavery.” ## Transcript Today lawmakers in the house. Also, passed a bill that restricts transgender people from using bathrooms. That do not match their sex assigned at Birth is now, banned doctors and nurses. Providing that care could face criminal charges last year's parental rights act. Only, when two third grade, this would actually bar public schools from teaching, about sexual education, and gender identity through 12th grade and I can't just leave it. My name is Samira Burnside. I am 16 years old, I'm from Tampa Florida and my pronouns so she her as far as 98 when the actors in goes, I run a queer lad publication called the queer notion where we focus on telling our stories through our voices, that mainstream media often. Does it cover as me being trans was never really an issue, right? My family, accepted my friend request after me it was an issue of my school's. It became an issue when I legislature made at 1 You know, under half of our students I believe are on our way with the fire lady 5, reading level on which is just atrocious and they've decided to focus their energy towards attacking schools and what children are learning the new expansion to don't say gay at the Board of Education. In group power has passed as effectively eradicated, we're people's history from schools in bands, the teaching of the gender and sexual identity from ages k through eight targets, teachers who have rainbow flags on their classrooms and targets kids were talking about sexual and denied. Any with teacher, is it targets the teaching of clear history? When we really get down to what this is the whole thing that's happening in Florida is a measure of y'all decide. When we look at that, it starts with the humanization which has been happening to Transit the people for years, upon years. And it escalates the Erasure of those people from history is in from public matters entirely. I think Pride lands heading back. The first Pride was a riot and that is a sentiment that I think needs to come back, not in the sense that read what we need is a riot, right? But in the sense that will be needed as political option, you know, it's become court has become a state to wear not being an activist and being transferred and Ally is living in a burning house. Ignoring the smoke is hearing the alarm and just sitting there and waiting for the fire and go but it is and it has and we need to fight back against that now increasingly as our local Pride events are canceled for vanity and as we are sequestered and shunted, the quieter and quieter Corners. We need to fight back because we'll lose everything. We haven't lost already. 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