Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed a bill Wednesday aimed at teaching students in Florida about the “dangers and evils of communism,” including the “current threat” of the ideology in the United States, to prepare students for higher education.
Starting in the 2026-2027 school year, students in Florida will begin to learn about the history of communism, starting as early as kindergarten with lessons that are tailored to be age-appropriate. At the bill signing, DeSantis was joined by veterans who served in the Bay of Pigs invasion, observing the 63rd anniversary of the failed offensive against dictator Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba.
“The truth will set us free,” DeSantis said in a press release. “We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools. To the contrary, we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism.”
The bill will add to existing history standards for communism, including highlighting communist movements in the U.S. and the tactics used by those movements, which “prepares students to withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities.”
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz wrote an op-ed in the Miami Herald on Thursday morning describing why it is necessary to have a comprehensive education on communism.
“Public school students will learn that 110 million people died under communist rule from 1900 to 1987, and that this horribly flawed political and economic philosophy has spawned misery and despair across the globe,” Diaz wrote, adding that the promise of a “fabled utopia” never comes, but “instead, populations are stripped of human rights and forced to suffer through poverty, starvation, suppression of speech and systemic lethal violence.”
The measure was approved by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in the state Senate and House, 25-7 and 106-7, respectively. Currently, Florida students are presented with communism in high school social studies, and they encounter the topic for a graduation requirement that includes 45 minutes of instruction on “Victims of Communism Day.” Students can also hear about communism in seventh-grade civics.
“It is our moral duty to educate students about the history of communism, just as we educate them about the Holocaust and the hideous evil of Nazi Germany, the history of Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during World War II, the history of African Americans, including slavery, abolition, racism, segregation, and more,” Diaz wrote.
The new law also enables the Florida Education and State departments to “recommend to the Legislature” the creation of a museum in the state on the history of communism.
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In his Miami Herald piece, the education commissioner slammed modern movements to popularize communist revolutionaries such as Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Mao Zedong “as if politically fashionable rather than a celebration of oppressive leaders and dictators.”
Considering critics “naysayers,” Diaz concluded, “People are free to disagree, though they would have no such freedom in a communist country.”