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Florida A & M University Law Review

Authors

Abstract

When Brown was decided, the Supreme Court felt that it could not trust the States to encourage and facilitate equality on its own, which was proven true in the subsequent, decades-long resistance against integration following the Brown II mandate. Once again, the States cannot be trusted to move towards equality and away from backward community norms and bias without federal intervention. This is currently being exemplified by states like Florida—explicitly banning public schools from teaching Critical Race Theory. The Supreme Court does not seem willing to extend Brown any further, but the federal government may encourage and facilitate curriculum equality under its enumerated Taxing and Spending Power. Resisting efforts to diversify the curriculum will continue to harm students and prevent minority communities from progressing by giving all students a false representation of the society they must live in outside the classroom. This burdens both the students’ First Amendment right to information deemed to be of educational value by their educators as well as burdening their educators’ First Amendment right to free speech.

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