It appears we're going to find out if Gov. Sarah Sanders, aka DeSanders, can dare to get to the political left of her gubernatorial role model, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
She has systematically endeavored through executive orders and rhetoric in her first three weeks as governor of Arkansas to establish herself in the resentment-right conservative mold of DeSantis. That means grumpy about, and intolerant of, anything smacking of woke-ishness.
It also might mean grandstanding and demagoguery, but I don't want to be harsh.
The effect has been to cede effective control of Arkansas to smoke signals coming from Tallahassee. Sanders even hired away DeSantis' main guy in elementary and secondary education, Jacob Oliva, to come out to the Florida territory that Arkansas is becoming to censor our schools on anything that might upset white students and parents by implying glaring imperfection in American history.
We learned last week that the DeSantis administration has rejected an offer from the College Board for an advanced course on African American studies for high-performance high school students--meaning one providing college credit if passed with good scores. DeSantis' people looked at the course and decided Florida's children should be protected from it under a law against indoctrination in school.
News articles suggest the main objection in Florida is less about the instructional materials of the course itself than writings in other contexts by persons cited in those materials. There is a Yale professor cited and he, quite separately, said liberal things in 2016 in an interview.
And there is a section of the course on activism, and gay activism, which, according to DeSantis himself, amounts to prima facie evidence that the course is for indoctrination of an agenda, not education. He thinks telling advanced high school students about activism is to stir them to be activists, probably on issues or movements he doesn't personally embrace.
What happened subsequently in Arkansas is that this newspaper, doing the journalistic staple of a local follow-up, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the state Education Department to ask if this Advanced Placement course on African American studies--a pilot program being taught this year in 60 high schools across the country--was being taught anywhere in Arkansas, and, if so, whether it was affected by Sanders' new executive order.
The FOIA answer said that, yes, the course was in Little Rock Central and Jonesboro. And that answer was, yes, the state agency had begun seeking information on the course to determine whether to take action under the governor's executive order when the pilot course converts to an ongoing course next fall. The state department said it would be looking at updated course materials coming from the College Board in February, timed for Black History Month and based in part on lessons learned from the pilot process.
By the way, so far indications are that Black History Month may be observed still in Florida and Arkansas.
The state Education Department made no mention of jerking the course in midstream this school year. That would be unfair to the students invested in it for college credit. So, Sanders presumably will let Arkansas be independent to an extent. Something forbidden by Florida will not be forbidden here in West Florida at least until next fall.
For the record, schools participate voluntarily in offering this course, and students volunteer to take the course. Freedom of choice is what's being denied in Florida. It is a concept that meets itself coming and going in the contemporary American political context.
My prediction is that progressive African American history education is not really the direction Sanders wants to take Arkansas schools. She put in a tweet that we'd instead emphasize reading, writing, math, science and indoctrinating children in religion by stressing that they all are children of God. (Indoctrination was my word; she can't call it that because candor would have her violating her own executive order.)
Naturally, all of this will be caught up in the swirl of political game-playing about "critical race theory." By fact, critical race theory is a college-level or law school-level proposition holding that the racist history of America is manifest still in our basic institutions, particularly the law. As a matter of political messaging, Republicans have succeeded in lathering "critical race theory" on anything in our schools that might cause white children to question the moral flawlessness of, and other fictions concerning, their country.
Typically, political messaging is overpowering fact. Resentment is overpowering reason. Fear is overpowering serious academic contemplation.
I'm thinking the power of political messaging would cow Sanders even if she were inclined to let this pilot program survive to a second year. But I'm thinking she's not so inclined in the first place. The colony can't easily break with empire headquarters.
I'm always looking to be surprised, though. I hold out hope of someday writing a column beginning, "Sarah, we hardly knew ye."
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.