A Florida charter school principal has been ousted after multiple parents complained that their sixth graders were made to view pornography—because they looked at Michelangelo’s iconic statue of David.
The statue was shown during a sixth grade art history lesson at Tallahassee Classical School, the Tallahassee Democrat first reported. One of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world, the statue shows a chiseled, naked man posing. But while most of the world sees it as art, some parents deemed it “pornographic” and said it “upset” their children.
Parents at Tallahassee Classic now want to take an advanced vote on any lesson their kids could be subjected to that’s deemed “controversial,” part of a growing nationwide trend to dictate education supported by Florida’s own education board and the DeSantis administration.
Florida officials have banned hundreds of books, passed rigorous anti-LGBTQ laws, and strictly regulated discussions of race and racism in its public schools, while Gov. Ron DeSantis has placed and endorsed ideological allies on education boards across the state.
Tallahassee Classic Principal Hope Carrasquilla explained to HuffPost that “once in a while you get a parent who gets upset about Renaissance art,” so the school typically sends out a preemptive letter before teaching such lessons.
However, in this case, “a series of miscommunications” led to the letter not making it out, she said, and some parents turned their venom toward her.
Carrasquilla was given an ultimatum to either quit or be fired by school board president Barney Bishop, a self-proclaimed conservative Republican and lobbyist who said “parental rights are supreme.”
“That means protecting the interests of all parents, whether it’s one, 10, 20 or 50,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat.
As for the rights of parents who want their children to actually learn art history, those remain to be seen.
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