VP accuses Florida of 'replacing history with lies' in school lessons on slavery
Vice President Kamala Harris was accused of stoking a "sick" lie about Florida's Black history curriculum, claiming the Sunshine State is replacing "history with lies" in its approval of new state-wide curriculum.
"They want to replace history with lies," Harris said at the Ritz Theatre and Museum in Jacksonville on Friday. "Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery."
But critics have been quick to argue the vice president's claims are a misrepresentation of the new curriculum standards, which were approved by Florida's Education Department last week.
"This is a sick political strategy that Vice President Harris is trying to do because she knows that her voters are not going to take the time to actually read the curricula of the Florida standards, which are some of the most extensive standards I've ever seen on teaching Black history," Exodus Institute founder Kali Fontanilla, who is also a former California teacher, told Carley Shimkus Monday.
"I read them last night, and they're actually really beautiful standards," she continued. "She's taking this one line and misrepresenting it in order to gaslight her voters. It's very obvious to those that are actually taking the time to read it, but to those that aren't going to take the time to research, they're going to eat this up like candy because it's very hard to defend."
Vice President Kamala Harris rails against Florida's new Black history curriculum during a speech in Jacksonville, Florida on July 21, 2023. (Fox News)
The new social studies curriculum states, "Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
"You hear that word benefit, and they're like, 'Oh, no... Florida standards are saying that slavery was a benefit,' and that is absolutely false," Fontanilla said. "That's not what the standards are implying. They're just simply saying historical facts, which is, again, what the left is trying to do. They're trying to do a revisionist history, not the right."
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CNN conservative political commentator Scott Jennings called her claims "fabricated" during a Sunday panel.
"What is amazing to me [is] that how little Kamala Harris apparently has to do that she can read something on Twitter one day and be on the airplane the next to make something literally out of nothing. This is a completely made-up deal. I looked at the standards, I even looked at an analysis of the standards, in every instance where the word slavery or slave was used, I even read the statement of the African-American scholars that wrote the standards – not [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis, but the scholars," he said.
"Everybody involved in this says this is completely a fabricated issue and yet look at how quickly Kamala Harris jumped on it. So, the fact that this is her best moment, a fabricated matter, is pretty ridiculous," Jennings continued.
Rebecca Nathanson, who is a chapter chair for Moms for Liberty, accused Harris of "peddling in cynical lies" during her speech addressing the state's social studies standards.
"I'm more than satisfied. I think Vice President Harris is showing Americans once again that she's uninformed, and she's peddling in cynical lies in order to stoke anger," she said.
"Across the state in the nation, we need to recognize why we're having this conversation now, and that's because with the recent passage of legislation called HB 7, which moms will be lobbied and of the state of Florida, actually expanded the breadth and the depth with which we teach African-American history and the horrors of slavery."
"For anyone to say that our state does not want to properly teach slavery, does not want to teach African-American history correctly or truthfully, is an absolute lie," Nathanson continued.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded on Twitter, saying "Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida's educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children. Florida stands in their way and we will continue to expose their agenda and their lies."
Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital. Story ideas can be sent to
