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(upbeat music) - Coming up next, a Florida professor defies the governor over wokeism.

Some Tampa City council races turn into battles between Republicans and Democrats and supporters and opponents of the mayor, and teachers who allow their students to have the wrong books face third degree felonies.

These stories next on "Florida this Week."

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Governor Ron DeSantis frequently tells supporters that he is on a campaign against wokeism.

Last week, his appointees at the Florida Department of Education banned the College Board's Advanced Placement African-American Studies course after finding it significantly lacks educational value.

Now Professor Emeritus at Florida International University is defying the governor's prohibition on the AP African-American Studies course by spotlighting the sites of some of the worst racial atrocities in the state's history.

FIU Professor Marvin Dunn has resisted the governor's campaign against wokeism, critical race theory, AP history, and diversity, by leading high school students on what he calls Teach the Truth Tours, and Professor Dunn joins us now.

Professor, nice to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

- My pleasure.

- So the governor says that under the new law, you can teach about racism and slavery, but you can't teach critical race theory.

He says you can teach historical facts, but you can't distort American history to what he calls trying to advance a current ideological agenda.

Is that what's happening in your mind?

- Well, Governor DeSantis taught school for a while and some of his former students have reported that he told them that abortion was wrong.

Some have said that he told them that the Confederacy had a point, because they lost property.

Whose agenda was Ron DeSantis pushing when he was a teacher?

I have found in this instance that the most cruel trick is being played on the people of this country, and particularly on the people of Florida.

When you have politicians telling university professors what they can and cannot teach... We have politicians reaching into the classroom, picking out which books can be there and which cannot.

This is cherry-picking history.

The problem with cherry-picking history, which is what Ron DeSantis is doing, is you've gotta make sure you don't have somebody who hates cherries.

(Rob laughing) - So is there a clear distinction between critical race theory and African-American history?

Is that line clear for you to see?

- Critical race theory is African-American history.

It is African-American history, because critical race theory looks at the ways in which race has followed us through the generations, even from slavery to today, and to say that there is no following, there are no long-term effects of the kinds of things that African-Americans have been subjected to in this country is at best naive, and at worse intentional.

- So what are you doing?

Tell us what you're doing to defy what the governor is pushing back against, against critical race theory and wokeism.

What are you doing?

- I am organizing tours, taking young people, high school kids, each with a parent or a grandparent, on a bus overnight, all expenses paid by us, by our nonprofit, to places where the blood has been shed, places they wouldn't know about if we didn't take them there.

This trip that we took in January, we went to Mims, Florida where Harry T. Moore was killed in 1951, blown up by the Klan.

From there to Newberry, Florida where the largest known lynching in Florida history took place in 1916.

We walked that ground, we went to the graves, we cried, and then, from there we went to Rosewood where I have five acres of property there that I co-own.

Today I'm the only black person who owns land in Rosewood.

That town was burned down in 1923 by a mob, so the tour ends at my property and the people on the tour can walk in Rosewood in peace and enjoy this tranquility, this beautiful pristine place where so much happened in a very short period of time in 1923.

- Do you think the governor would object to these tours?

I mean, do you have any indication that he is opposed to the kind of tours that you're taking these high school students on?

- I would save a seat up front for the governor, because he needs these tours more than the students do.

I would invite him to the next one.

The next tour that we're going to have will be done during the legislative session and we'll end up at the governor's mansion, so, if he doesn't join us, we'll come down and meet him at his mansion.

- You've asked the governor for a definition.

You've asked the governor to define what is okay to teach and what's not okay to teach.

Have you heard from the governor?

- I sent the governor a letter asking him very specifically, what kinds of things may I teach or not teach in a college classroom?

I sent a copy to the Secretary of Education, Manny Diaz.

Not a peep from either of them.

- [Rob Lorei] Why do you think that is?

- I know why it is.

These people are running away from black history.

They're running away from the issue that they've created.

I think Ron DeSantis has touched a live wire.

You start dabbling in academic courses, particularly at the university level, a lot of Americans don't like that.

They don't want the state telling professors what they can teach or not teach, and that's white and black, that's conservative and liberal.

Americans don't like that.

That's the way Stalin did it.

That's the way Hitler did it.

Castro did it that way.

Stay out of the classrooms, but that's what we're facing now.

- Is one of the implications of this, the governor says he doesn't want people feeling bad or made to feel bad after learning history, so that touches not just on African-American history, that touches on all sorts of histories as you just pointed out.

- I don't know how to teach about slavery without having people possibly feel bad.

They should feel bad about it.

They shouldn't feel guilty.

I don't know a person today, alive, who owns slaves.

People shouldn't be made to feel guilty.

I've not heard a teacher in 40 years of my being in education, tell a student, "You need to feel bad."

Ron DeSantis just made this up.

The whole woke mob thing is made up by this man.

Where's the woke mob?

I wanna lead it, show me.

- So one final question and that is, do you know of college professors or high school teachers who have refrained from talking about some aspects of black history, because of the governor's campaign against woke?

- Unfortunately, I've had teachers tell me, "Dr. Dunn, I have to take your book out of my classroom.

I won't dare be caught with this book in my classroom."

That's sickening, but, yes, teachers are afraid.

They're trying to prevent themselves from being arrested or charged with a felony.

It's mean out there and this is not by accident.

This was created by Ron DeSantis to frighten white people to vote for him, a mean claw for the White House at any cost.

- Dr. Marvin Dunn, thanks a lot for coming on "Florida this Week."

- You're welcome.

- Well, the official syllabus for the college board's AP African-American Studies course has not yet been released, but a conservative website called the Florida Standard claims it has obtained an advanced copy.

We're going to scroll the contents and as you'll see, if this is true, the course will be a deep dive into African-American history.

(upbeat music) Well, joining us now on the panel this week, Dana Galen is the new chair of the Hillsborough County Republican Party.

Charlie Frago is the Tampa City Hall reporter for the "Tampa Bay Times."

Justin Garcia is a reporter for "Creative Loafing Tampa Bay" and Patrick Manteiga, the editor and publisher of "La Gaceta" the newspaper, and a Democrat.

So nice to see all of you.

Thank you for coming to the program.

Well, the slates of candidates in the Tampa City elections are now official.

The election is March 7th and several incumbents are facing serious challenges.

Mayor Jane Castor will face serial campaigner Belinda Noah.

Castor has the money and the name recognition, and is expected to fare well.

In district one, incumbent Joseph Citro will face Alan Clendenin, a Democratic party activist and retired air traffic controller whom Citro defeated in 2019.

Also in the race are Sonja Brookins and Chase Harrison.

In District 2, council member Guido Maniscalco is term limited from his current seat and seeking another term in a different seat.

He has four opponents including former two-term council member Mike Suarez who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2019.

Florida rising organizer Robin Lockett and Michael Derewenko.

In District 3, Lynn Hurtak, appointed to the seat by her council colleagues in April is running for election against four candidates including former State Senator Janet Cruz, the mother of Anna Cruz, the mayor's domestic partner.

Also in the race are Jose Vasquez and George Feshev.

In District 4, incumbent Bill Carlson is being challenged by fast food franchise millionaire, Blake Casper, who's a heavy donor to Republican causes, having given more than $200,000 to aid Governor DeSantis and $100,000 to Donald Trump.

In District 5, which covers East Tampa, Downtown Harbor Island, Ybor City, and parts of West Tampa and Seminole Heights.

Incumbent Orlando Gudes has Gwendolyn "Gwen" Henderson and write-in candidate Evelyn Jane-Marie McBride as challengers.

In District 6, Charlie Miranda is seeking another term in office.

This time representing West Tampa and parts of Seminole Heights and South Tampa after being term limited in a citywide seat.

He faces Hoyt Prindle, Rick Fifer, Tyler Barrett, and Nicole Payne.

In District 7, which includes New Tampa and North Tampa, Luis Viera will return to office without a challenger.

- So, Charlie, Mayor Castor's only facing a write-in candidate.

She's a shoe-in for re-election.

Why do you think nobody challenged her?

Were there people that were considering challenging Castor?

- Well, there were some names that have been floated over the past year.

Bob Enriquez was one.

He said pretty early on that he was not gonna do it.

Council Member Bill Carlson was another, and Carlson has said repeatedly, he never really seriously considered it, but there was lots of rumors about that until the final days before the qualifying ended last week.

- So what is the Mayor running on?

She's not facing much of a campaign.

It's not gonna cost her a lot of money, but what's her reason?

Why does she tell reporters that she wants to be re-elected?

- Well, she's been very disciplined in her message over the past four years in her first term.

She has several major initiatives of affordable houses, one, transportation, sustainability, and when she appeared before the Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board earlier this week and she was asked, "Which of those priorities is most important to you or might be a legacy of some kind or another?"

She replied, "Sustainability in environmental resilience."

- So, Justin, the relationship though, between the mayor and the city council is problematic.

There's a lot of tension between most of the members of the city council and the mayor.

Why is that tension there?

- It's been building up over the past few years.

There have been a lot of issues with the mayor's office, the administration accusing council members of not being transparent and that played out when we saw the situation with John Dean Dingfelder and the public records request.

- [Rob Lorei] He was forced to resign.

- He was forced to resign, yeah, because of that, and so, after that, Castor came forward and said that council needs more transparency, but then myself, and Charlie, and other reporters were putting out stories about how Mayor Castor kept the DOJ investigation into crime-free multi-housing a secret for about five months.

The same thing with the Hannah Avenue Project, there was a lot of shadiness around that, and so that's where the clash escalated is when she's telling council to be more transparent, then council's saying, "Well, there's plenty of people in the community," our constituents who are saying that the administration's not being as transparent as they should be.

- And there's also clash over the ballot issues that will be on the ballot in the city of Tampa too.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's a big factor as well and then, obviously, the way the city council races are playing out, especially in, Lynn, her tax district is ruffling a lot of feathers, I should say, because of the relationship.

- We'll go one further though.

I would say that you always have a lot of tension between council and the mayor.

Generally, it's over issues or nobody got invited to be on TV, and the mayor taking too much credit or her council, but in this case, it went a lot further over the past couple of years where the mayor was using the office to actively try and get these councilmen off.

You get him out of office.

The issues regarding Dingfelder of not allowing the city attorney to help him and represent him, and, actually, her working, it seems like against him, was just so unusual.

The same investigation with Gudes was an unusual way of the city handling things, and so right now we're even looking at, a lot of these council candidates seem like they were recruited by the mayor, and so that is a lot different than in the past.

- Well, and we're gonna get into that in a second, but Dana, I've gotta ask you, in Hillsborough County, Republicans did really well in the last election and the Hillsborough County Young Republicans have taken shots at the current mayor over her Toilet to Tap Program or the proposed program.

Why didn't Republicans, and these are non-partisan elections, but why isn't there a major opponent of Jane Castor?

- Well, at this time we didn't feel that there was a person who was really strong enough to really take on Jane Castor, because we understand that she has has been in office for a while.

She has a great support system and it'll take us a little time.

- Okay.

(Dana giggling) Perhaps the most interesting city council race is the one between Bill Carlson and Blake Casper.

There's also a third candidate in that race, Patrick Murphy.

Justin, you've been reporting about this and I want to get you and Charlie's take on this.

Casper made a lot of money from the McDonald's franchises that his family owns.

Tell us about who he is and tell us a little bit more about Bill Carlson.

- Well, I'm interested to know how much money he made off of the recent selling of those franchises, but he has deep pockets, that's for sure.

He and Bill are friends.

Bill does his Cafe con Tampa event at Oxford Exchange, which Blake owns, but one of the stories I wrote recently is that you started looking at Blake Casper's political donations and there overwhelmingly to the right, including hundreds of thousands to DeSantis, to Trump, to other right wing candidates and that's interesting, because Tampa is a traditionally blue city.

Although the county race recently shifted red, Tampa is kind of historically blue, so it's interesting to see last minute him jump in the ring with these deep pockets and you have to wonder too, how did he make that decision?

How did he get there?

And Patrick probably has some thoughts on that too.

- Patrick, well, the rumors we hear is that the mayor recruited him, that she encouraged him to do so, that she wanted him to run against Bill and she's already told some people that she would be supporting Blake Casper.

It's an odd thing for somebody who's got this much money and who's had the kind of life Blake Casper has had to want to sit at city council for hours and listen to people complain about how close a garage is to the property line, or about a pothole issue, or things like this.

He's headed up a huge corporation and just really hasn't had to hear those daily complaints that most people have, and while Casper certainly gives to the community, you don't see him in a lot of different parts of the city of Tampa, so he's got this huge learning curve and it just kind of came outta nowhere where this guy's now running for office and the city council level just seems to be an odd level for this gentleman.

- I've gotta ask all of you, behind the scenes, is their a tension over police-community relations and does that draw in some of these candidates to the Tampa City Council races, and, Charlie, let me start with you, the relationship between the police and the community?

- Well, I think it's fair to say it's been strained.

I think things reached another level, you might say, in the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd and the protests in Tampa around the country, and the mayor has said that they're, in fact, just recently to the Times editorial board this week.

that, when asked about that issue, her response to that is, "We're gonna keep getting our message out there and working with the community, getting out and trying to allay concerns, and that type of approach, but there have been tensions, and of the city council, there'll be an issue in all the city council races that are competitive, and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next six weeks, less than six weeks.

- Justin, I think especially in the race between Lynn Hurtak and Janet Cruz, that's one of the issues.

- Oh, yeah, definitely, Lynn has been kind of advocating for police transparency.

She supports the police and goes on ride alongs with them every month, but also has talked about, advocated for the Citizens Review Board, which is in Tampa, to review police misconduct, having an independent attorney, which would give the board a little more teeth, and then also having...

Formerly there was a discussion about the board having subpoena power, and Gudes and Hurtak, and I believe Carlson as well, were all kind of advocating for that, for increased transparency.

Castro said multiple times, she doesn't want any of those things.

Janet Cruz has come out and said, vocally, that she would not support changes to the CRB or the CRB having more power, so it's interesting, of all the city council members, Hurtak has been vocal about certain issues, pushed back on some of the mayor's agenda, and now she's the one woman on council, and Janet Cruz is running for her seat.

- Okay.

Florida school teachers and principals face third degree felony charges if they have books in their classroom or library that violate a new state law.

Around the state, thousands of books are being removed or put off limits to students until they can be reviewed by media specialists to determine if they contain explicit and detailed descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement or sexual conduct that's harmful to minors.

It's all part of a new slate of laws and regulations championed by Governor DeSantis.

It's based on the premise promoted by right wing advocacy groups that teachers and librarians are currently using books to groom students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies.

If an educator violates the Book Ban Law, they face up to five years in prison.

- And, Dale, let me ask you this, in Pinellas County, high school students no longer will have access to Tony Morrison's first book, "the Bluest Eye" in their classrooms or libraries.

School district officials announced this week that they had removed the title from circulation after review prompted by a complaint from a parent at Palm Harbor University High.

Is this the right thing to do or did they go too far?

- I think it is very concerning.

I think that what we want would be age appropriate books for children and we're not only speaking of high school, but from elementary school and up.

I think the books should be age appropriate and that's what our governor feels.

- Okay, and so you agree with removing, for instance, 'the Bluest Eye."

- Not necessarily in removing any particular books that have not been reviewed.

I think it's a very good idea to have them reviewed and, I think, once they are reviewed, we have to respect the view of the reviewers, but parents certainly have a right to be alarmed at some of the books that are out there for young people, and "the Bluest of Eyes" may be one of those books, but I think we're talking about a wide range of children from first grade and up.

- Patrick, what do you think about the removal of books from school library shelves to be reviewed by these media specialists?

And some are being returned, others are not.

- Well, we've always had a way of reviewing books.

All schools had a little board that would come together, volunteers, and if there were some concerns, they would look at books and they would decide what to do.

That's why we also hire media specialists, but the issue we have now is that you get one citizen out there screaming and yelling about it, and all of a sudden, everybody's running scared, and librarians are fearing for their jobs, they're fearing for prosecution, and so we've gotten to this point where we're no longer having civil conversations regarding these things and I'd hate to be a librarian in today's world, but the other thing is that we're having these conversations about school libraries, about not being too far out of age appropriateness, but the real problem we're having with our children is social media.

You're getting completely inappropriate stuff all the time through everybody's smartphones, and at the end of the day, we're really looking at the wrong spot for people getting bad information or dangerous information, they're carrying it around in their pockets every day.

- All right, well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And let's go to Dana first.

Your other big story of the week?

- Well, the big story of the week for us is just our reaching out to... We're going to be doing a lot of reaching out to minorities and a lot of reaching out very soon with great messaging, and look for us to make a difference.

- The Republican party is really doing a effort to reach Latino voters.

- Yes, we are.

- All right.

Charlie, your other big story of the week?

- Well, this is a story, I think, that it might have fallen through the cracks a little bit, but the state has $570 million off her transportation tax that's yet to send back to the counties and the question is, how much will the counties get and how can it be distributed?

I know Mayor Castor this week said that she'd like to see Tampa get a bigger share than it traditionally has.

I'm sure Temple Terrace and everyone else would feel the same.

We'll have to see how that shakes out, but that's something to watch in the weeks and months ahead.

- Okay, what to do with all that money.

Justin, your other big story?

- I think yesterday when city council called to make it law or is at least taking the first steps towards making it law, that the city's legal team and the mayor notify them of any civil rights investigations against the city is a big deal, because, as we all know, the crime-free multi-housing situation was kept in the shadows for a long time and there have been two Department of Justice investigations against the city in the past about seven or eight years, so that would be an interesting law to see passed and it would help provide more transparency and accountability of that.

- And the law would say that if there is an investigation, you've gotta notify the public within... - City council within 10 days of the civil rights investigation being announced to the city.

- Okay, Patrick, your other big story?

- Well, mine's completely self-serving, so, like I said, the documentary, three generations, three languages, documentary on my newspaper, and it's 100 years, will be aired publicly at the Tampa Theater Saturday matinee on February 11th, and so I encourage everybody to go.

It's a great Tampa story.

- It is.

If you're interested in the city's history, it's fabulous.

All right, thank you all for a great panel and thank you for coming to Florida this week.

Thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at fdw@wedu.org.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org on the PBS app, and "Florida this Week" is now available as a podcast, and from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Florida this week is a production of WEDU who is solely responsible for its content.

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