| METRO | Social Media Justice Marvin Dunn takes to Twitter to understand what he can teach under the Stop WOKE Act. BY ALEX DELUCA time Black Miami historian Dr. Marvin Dunn wants to return to the classroom to teach a special course on the history of race relations in Florida. But, Dunn says, he isn’t sure what he will A be allowed to teach now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the so-called Stop WOKE Act. The bill, which bans educators and corporations from broaching certain top- ics about race, was designed in part to prevent white people from feeling “shame” about their race. Critics have also decried it as vague, confusing, and hard to enforce. One part of the bill reads, “[A] person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psycho- logical distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” Last month, in a series of more than 40 tweets addressed directly to DeSantis, the 81-year-old author of Black Miami in the Twen- tieth Century sought to find clarity as to what he decade and a half after retiring from Florida International University (FIU) as a psychology professor, long- would be permitted to include in his syllabus. He wanted to know: Can he tell students about the time the University of Florida de- nied him admission in the ‘60s because he was Black? How about the times he was forced to use the “colored” beach as a boy while growing up in Miami? “Since the governor has placed himself in “IT’S A SHALLOW, SHALLOW REASON TO TIPTOE AROUND THE HORRIFIC INCIDENTS IN BLACK HISTORY.” every classroom in the state, he has to give us some guidance,” Dunn explains to New Times. “So, I wanted to just put those obvious questions before the governor — and I have many more.” “Gov DeSantis until the 1950s only white people could serve on ju- ries in Florida. Did that mean that the whites were privi- leged? May I share this history with stu- dents?” Dunn asked in a tweet. In another, he asked, “Gov DeSantis, when I was a little boy growing up in Florida I had to drink from the ‘colored ‘ fountain at the Volusia County Courthouse. The ‘white’ water was cool but ours was warm. This made me feel bad. May I share this with students in Florida?” DeSantis has yet to respond to Dunn’s tweets. Nor has his spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, who has gained notoriety for her hostile Twitter responses to those with the After spending years helping his father as a migrant worker in Central Florida during the Jim Crow era, Dunn moved to South Flor- ida with his family at age 11, when Miami was still a segregated city. For 35 years, he taught at FIU. In 2000, he was appointed chair of the university’s psy- chology department and remained in the posi- tion until he retired in 2006. Following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police in 2020, Dunn came out of retirement and helped es- tablish the Miami Center for Racial Justice as a “safe space” for dialogue on racial issues and Florida’s history of racism. He believes it’s ab- surd to shield anyone from factual history merely because it might cause discomfort. “It’s a shallow, shallow reason to tiptoe Photo courtesy of Marvin Dunn Marvin Dunn temerity to cross her boss. But Dunn’s tweets garnered hundreds of thousands of likes and tens of thousands of retweets. DeSantis’ office did not respond to New Times’ request for comment via email. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, critical race theory (CRT) is “an aca- demic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society.” Dunn defines CRT as “a view that American institutions have evolved based upon racially discriminatory policies that have hurt Black people over the generations.” In that context, it’s hard to imagine Dunn not teaching CRT in a course about race relations unless he com- pletely disregarded his own lived experience and the systemic racism he endured firsthand. around the horrific incidents in Black history in this country, and especially in Florida,” Dunn asserts. “Are we not to teach about the Holocaust because somebody might get up- set, knowing what happened?” At FIU, Dunn says, he never experienced censorship or intimidation while teaching about race and racial history — and he doesn’t intend to let the recent legislation change that, even if it means risking he might be re- ported or fired. “Am I afraid that if I do offer the course that I will be challenged or relieved of duty?” he says. “Yes, I am.” Dunn has yet to formally reach out to FIU about teaching the course, but he anticipates asking the university in the next week or so. “Well, I won’t wait for the governor to let me know,” he adds with a shrug. 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